good points on the burden a generator brings to the party.
They are mostly...
1.) Fuel
2.) Need to change the oil every 50-75hrs.
For fuel, like someone else said, even after 6 days, they were still rationing gas at the gas stations around here.
So I learned very quickly that I only ran my generator at NIGHT ONLY for a few hours. During the day, its dumb to run a 5kW genny for powering a fridge and the well from time to time. Unless of course you need to keep medicine cool, run special medical equipment, etc...then your needs are much more critical.
At night, we took showers, filled the tub (used the water for flushing during the day), ran the fridge and deep freezer to cool them off, ran the dishwashers, did some laundry, heck the kids even watched some movies, etc... Like I said, we were living "like kings".
My neighbor, on the other hand, heats his house with a pellet stove. He had to run his 8kW generator just to heat his house. What a waste of precious fuel. He was gone all the time looking for gas!
As for fuel sources, I keep the genny full, and 2x 5 gal gas cans..all with stabilizer. See pic.
Don't forget most people have 2 cars, a lawnmower, snowblower, splitter, etc.... You've got a couple of of gallons there as well.
To get to gas in your car, you need min 8 feet of 3/8" tubing to get past the rollover preventer valve. Garden hose will not work in most cars today! It has to be 3/8"! It takes a long time to get 5 gal out of your tank this way, but if you need fuel....don't forget you can always sacrifice a car.
My feeling is that I need to be able to hunker down for a minimum of 3 days without having to drive to town, etc.... After that, unless its REALLY major stuff, resources start to come back on line slowly.
Stay safe, and as I learned in the Boy Scouts..."Be Prepared".
DJ