Long Island, NY and we have a hurricane season. If we get hit with a hurricane you could loose power for a few days if you have a well you loose water too. So you need to plan water is the biggest issue, I have public water in my new house. Also if you loose power you loose heat. I also have a fireplace and plenty of dry wood stored. The cook top is LP gas so cooking isn't much of an issue. You may loose some items stored in the refrig but if you plan ahead and stock up on ice it's not really an issue. After the storm I will survey the situation it's usually not wise to leave your property during a natural disaster like this. And if you don’t have a need to leave don't go. Downed power lines trees that are ready to topple over are just a few of the potential hazards. It disrupts life for 2-3 days at most but it's predicted that in the near future we will have category 4 & 5 hurricanes on a regular basis, so things might be different.

I also lived through the east coast black out 2 summers ago. Unfortunately I was renting and the owners were too cheap to hook up to public water so I had to use my stock pile of water. It was in the summer so heat wasn't an issue and by the time we went to sleep the lights were on. The biggest problem that day was getting home. Traffic lights were out so caution while driving was important. I and 2 other co-workers were in our office when the lights went out we saved our cad drawings shut the computers off turned on the radio and heard it was quite a wide spread incident. So being the most senior of the present office staff I closed the office told everyone to go home and drive carefully. The lessons learned that day were simple again just prepare ahead of time. Keep you vehicles gas tank topped off. Have stored water. Have a secondary means of light. And have some food items on hand that could be cooked on the grill (again we were renting the stove was elect.)

The biggest problem with what I've faced has been easy to overcome by some simple preparation.