Comment by madonna on Power Outage Chances · 2021-05-31T18:52:04.683Z · LW · GW

I think that the average person in the US is not the right measure for this risk, since (in my experience living in both settings) power outage durations have different distributions in urban and rural areas. Of course, there is gradation between completely rural and completely urban settings and other factors such as whether you're connected to city water and whether you have animals to take care of and whether you have a car will influence personal decisions.

Urban outages for extended periods are typically caused by major storms that can be anticipated seasonally or a week in advance, while rural outages for extended periods often last longer and are caused by smaller storms. Rural outages of short durations are also more frequent than analogous urban outages and can occur independently of storms with no advance warning.

For very rural settings (dirt road, end of the power line) like where I grew up, we could expect a 7+ day outage at least once a decade over the last three decades. My parents bought a generator after experiencing one of those in December after an ice storm. They keep sufficient gas on hand to run the generator for a week and they're able to keep the gas fresh because it's also needed to run the chainsaws, weed-eater, and mower. They have their own well and septic system, so they're not subject to frozen municipal pipes like we observed in Texas this winter. They also have a wood stove for heat and a gas stove for cooking, neither of which relies on electricity. Shorter (6 hr to 2 day) outages are also common in that area (5-10/yr), so the generator is extremely convenient to have on hand.

For very urban settings, the probability of these events is low enough and often comes with enough advance warning that I'd advise evacuation instead. This doesn't replace the need for having a few day's worth of food and fresh water for surprises, but it does take you out of the (predicted) path of hurricanes and the like. I assess the probability of a major outage as so much lower in urban environments that I'm willing to pay the higher cost of vigilance and evacuation in the rare case of an outage instead of getting a generator and figuring out how to keep fresh gas on hand.