Well,  The sirens went off about 5:30am this morning.  I turned on the scanner,NOAA radio and checked the radar in the interweb.  The storm in question was already on top of us and passing.  I told the wife to get ready for work in the event that the power went out.  She got ready and went to work with out incident.  30 minutes later, the second wave of the storm, which was to remain north of my location suddenly developed a huge cell to my direct west.  Winds blew through at about 50MPH, and soon after power went out.  I got the boy packed up and ready for the baby sitter, hoping that by the time I got back home the power would be back on.  During my drive I listened to the scanner and was able to avoid a few blocked streets, and I heard of about 40 different reports of lines and trees down in my immediate area.  

No Joy!  I got home and the alarm was  still beeping notifying that the AC power was dead, so I got to work setting up the geni.  Took about 10 minutes to get the Honda running and the fridge and deep freeze hooked up.  It took another 40 minutes to get the following hooked up and extensions run:  4 box fans, keg fridge, modem, wireless router, laptop power supply, and one lamp.  I am currently running about 520 watts.  Next step is to get the house prepped for night time, in the event that we are still without power.  I figure the lamps and AC will be a priority for the wife and son, next comes the fridge, and finally the deep freeze.

Lessons learned so far....
-Surfing the net while the neighborhood is blacked out is nice.
-Need to get a head lamp, as changing a diaper without light is difficult.
-The Honda works like a charm and can barely hear it from the alley at full throttle, and not at all from the street out front.
-the Killa-watt is a great item to have when bringing things online.
-Handheld police scanner is a nice to have...especially if you have the county highway dept, and city street dept programmed in.

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Quoted: -the Killa-watt is a great item to have when bringing things online.

I have one and am planning on getting a generator. I am going to use it to evaluate the wattage requirements of the appliances I want to run but did not think about using it to monitor power usage with the gen.
Good idea

Thanks
Nick

P.S. For those who are wondering what a Kill A Watt is:
http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html

glad it all working great.

this is what we prep for. sure we all talk about a shtf event but thankfully that type of event is few and far

Fridge and deep freeze first, IMO.

Food is expensive to replace if it spoils.

I don't know your situation, but unless there is an allergy issue, AC is last on my priority list. The box fans should be fine.

Av.

Quoted: Fridge and deep freeze first, IMO. Food is expensive to replace if it spoils. I don't know your situation, but unless there is an allergy issue, AC is last on my priority list. The box fans should be fine. Av.

Agreed...But a happy wife and a happy baby is at the tops of the list.  The EU2000 will hold the small window unit, the fridge, and deep freeze, but if push came to shove, I could make the box fans work for cooling....

Thankfully, The outage started at 6am instead of 6pm, and it only lasted 9 hours.