What's scary for me, is how much we are dependent on electricity. We don't have many outages here, and when they rarely do occur, they are short lived (hours, at most). But during an outage I'm looking around the house, the strangely SILENT house, and find: nope, the computers don't work, the TV doesn't work, my digital piano doesn't work (except off of UPS), stove doesn't work, washing machine/dryer doesn't work, water heater doesn't work (it's gas, but with electronic ignition), furnace doesn't work (electric fan), etc., etc., etc. Even our backyard grill doesn't work (it's a wood pellet Traeger, which uses an electrical auger). I'd have to try to revive our old propane grill that hasn't been used in a long time. I do keep two 20lb propane tanks full for emergencies, just in case. For that old grill, and also for a Coleman two burner camping stove that uses an adapter for the big propane tanks.

Being a flash-a-holic, light is not a problem. I must have enough flashlights and batteries to supply the whole city.

Water is not a problem, as we have those big water bottles delivered for our dispenser, and typically have half a dozen (or more) full 5 gallon bottles sitting around in queue.

Gasoline isn't much of a concern. We don't always keep the cars as full as we should, but we have so many darn cars sitting around that usually one (at least) is full. Also, we keep 10 gallons in cans available for the small (4000 watt) generator that we can fire up and plug things in with extension cords.

But it's still eerie when the lights suddenly go out. It's like, "Oh no, what can we do to occupy ourselves now?" Usually I end up reading a book with my battery powered headlamp. I do have a computer UPS on my digital piano, and if I use headphones, then I can practice piano for about 3 hours before that is exhausted.

A new concern that has come up recently is our hot tub, installed about four months ago. If the electricity goes out and it's super cold outside, you don't want that thing to freeze. It would be destroyed. Luckily, it holds such a large amount of water, normally a bit above 100 degrees, and is well insulated, that it would take a long time to freeze. Before it was installed, I thought about this and figured - no problem, I'll just drag my portable generator out there and plug it in. Ha! I found out that these stupid tubs require a 50 amp circuit at 240 volts. I would need a 15 kilowatt generator just for the hot tub! (What I would do is use my small generator to power my portable fluid transfer pump to empty the tub. Between that, and the normal drain plugs, I could probably get enough water out to not have to worry about freezing too much.)

In summary - I really hope the electricity doesn't go out for a long time!!!