The worst that happened to us was a near hit by a hurricane. We lost power for 11 days near the end of a warm September.
When they said it might hit us I started doing all my laundry. My wife didn't bother.
It was after that that we (I) bought a generator.
We put in a high efficiency heat pump/air conditioner in the house we moved into 6 years ago. But we kept the fairly new oil burner/hot water heater. Should we lose power in the winter our generator has more than enough power to run the oil burner to heat the house and give us lights.
All we need are some claymore mines to keep the neighbors at bay if it's really freezing outside.