The WILD winter weather much of the nation has seen this year - and the resulting horror stories - got me to thinkin':
Although massive power outages are not much of a risk here, we
do have the occasional 'outage' (and I do mean "occasional"). Some
have lasted for as long as 12-14 hours or so...and they've always seemed to happen in the dead of winter (around Christmas time usually...just as we're cooking Christmas dinner

). Rarely do we have 'nor-easters' that last a week or two with temps in the single digits (although
that happens, too), but regardless, at my age, I don't want to deal with the
aftermath which
might result should any of that occur. ('Back in 1996, we had a DANDY 'nor-easter' here [3 feet of snow, mucho ice & temps at-or-below zero] that lasted for two weeks.)
So, I've decided, once our back deck is replaced this Spring, I'm going to have a natural gas-powered, 'automatic transfer'-equipped 10kW generator installed on said deck so that we can always be one step ahead of "Murphy" in the 'freeze-our-butts-off' department...not to mention avoid the
remote possibility of storm-related, broken water pipe-caused, flood damage repairs and clean up that could result.
"An ounce of prevention" an all that.
Just call me spineless.
I need my morning coffee...