It's become abundantly clear to me a generator is a must. Yes, they are expensive. Yes, you can get a lot of hotel nights for what a generator costs. That said, this latest debacle proved to me the only reasonable option is a generator. Many of the folks I know that left their homes for hotels or relatives with power wound up with busted pipes and massive damage to their homes. The reality is when these natural disaster events hit you need to stay home if it's safe and protect your property.

My little 2,000 watt honda was able to power two fridges, a deep freezer, two small electric heaters, and 4 lights. It kept my house above 50 degrees and we had no busted pipes. (it would trip out if two of the fridges fired up at the same time). The nice thing about the honda is that it sips gasoline. 3.5 hours of operation per gallon. The downside of course is the wattage, just not enough. I'm told some of the cheaper brands with higher wattage are gas hogs. Who cares about the expense of the gasoline, the trick is keeping enough on hand to run for an extended period of time. How would you store, say 50 gallons of gasoline?

So what say the forum? What's your power plan going forward?

Get either a duel fuel unit or a whole house unit that you can run on propane or natural gas. I have a portable right now, but in the next year or two I would love to get a whole house unit. I have a large propane tank already hooked to the house that our stove and fireplace run off of, so hooking up a generic whole house unit would be a breeze.

I'm going to open back up all the coal powered generating plants. Then for my long range plan I'm going to start Phase 2 of Comanche Peak plus a few more nuclear power plants across the state.

I’m going to give it a lot of thought. I will look at the name tags of all them items I want to power, add up the total amp draw required and I will even shop for all of the generator options. Then, I will do nothing at all about it and will once again complain when the lights go off again.

Personally, I addressed this year's ago due to living in the country and an all electric house and on a well. If power went out, we had no water. I sized a generator to run the basics of the house including well, HVAC, refrigerators, and lights. Had to set a large propane tank to run it and have never looked back. It has an automatic transfer switch so if power goes out, it comes on.
It was 2 years after we put it in before we ever needed it but we have used it many times since.

the way our power grid is, it may be time to invest in the whole house unit...summers are extremely hot to have rolling black outs...

Costa Rica.

get an in bed tank from tractor supply and fill when needed.

storing gas is hard, even with stabilizer.

I keep 30 gals. in jugs out here and have had it go bad even with stabilizer, sun and heat are the worst.

something like this, still have to buy the pump/hose kit.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...iesel-refueling-transfer-tank-070tk34310

For real, what is coming is self powered Nuclear power boxes that will serve homes. It's coming, may not be in my lifetime, but it is coming.

this^ whenever we find our country retreat.

Agree storing it is hard. Good news is we usually have some notice. I'm looking for something like what you shared here.

I've also kicked around the idea of using my boat fuel tank and siphoning off that. I'd haul the boat out before a storm and fill it up while fuel is available.

I wonder how the Govt. will register and regulate those sources? We have several small sources of Cesium 137 at work, and they under under license, and have to be wipe tested and have radiation badges around them to monitor for leakage. Any infractions on our part yields a hefty fine and possible loss of license.

I am going to look into a generator. At least something to keep a few lights on, the fridge and maybe a small space heater...

and a TV, and the Xbox so I can WoW with June... then need some chargers for the phones and laptops, and the air fryer, then the electric can opener for the dog food, of course my Norelco, need my half stacks to run so I can jam out about how much living of generators sucks, electric waffle iron is a must, and the robot vaccum requires power to charge...

Imma need a big unit.

I started on Sunday with a huge stack of firewood (two pickup truck loads worth), three 20 pound propane bottles, several flashlights and lots of spare batteries.

After dealing with the past few days, I'm having a backup generator installed - one of those 16K-18K output ones that can power the whole house. $6K or $7K is cheap insurance to know that we can ride out a winter storm or a 110+ heat wave. Fuel options might include installing a big LP gas tank in the yard somewhere, or plan on a diesel model.

If using a gas generator, I agree 100% with using the boat as a fuel storage device. My little 18' boat has a 60 gallon fuel tank, which would run a gas generator for a good long time.