It goes beyond "no microwave". I've lived through enough hurricanes to know that the power outage comes when they shut down the grid upon winds hitting 75mph. That's early in the storm. The power stays off for a week at least (at least where I lived) and the roads are all flooded and covered with downed trees so no one is going anywhere for a long time. After the storm, the bugs are thick and so is the humidity. Definitely not the best time to be barbecuing.

Everything in your freezer will thaw over that one week so you have to cook it or throw it out. My mother and sisters would begin cooking everything in the freezer the day before the hurricane arrived, while all the men and boys were outside with hammers and saws.

Since we had a big family and a couple of huge chest freezers, it turned into a feast. Whole turkeys, hams, steaks, seafood - all the perishables got cooked and laid out on the big table. Then we'd spend the next few days huddled in the dark, eating some great food, and then working our way into the canned goods by the end of the first week.

For people who are new to this dynamic, I think that disaster cooking classes would probably be a really good thing.