I scoff at my neighbor who refuses to prep for things out of the ordinary.

Heavy rains tonight and power went out while I was in the garage watching the rain and lightning show.

Okay, I manually closed the garage door, secured with screw-drivers to ensure it could not be opened from the outside and went into the house.

My kids had already went to my office and grabbed the small LED lamps for the bathrooms and their flashlights. The wife had the LED lantern going in the kitchen and was getting ready for them to play a family game of cards.

I don't usually "open carry" at home, but always do when we get power outages so I enjoyed switching holsters. The battery-backup sump pump did it's job and we all plugged our phones into the portable charger that I have.

Meanwhile across the street, I am getting frantic texts from them that their basement is about to flood because the power is out. I have zero sympathy for them, I loaned them a spare generator a few years ago when this happened and I had to go ask for it back a week after the power was back on. I was pissed that they didn't even bother to refill it with gas...I told the husband that they were cut off for borrowing it in the future.

It feels good to be prepared.

... prepare now, survive now ..

if they are decent folks I suppose help them out. Some people are just not up to the task of preparing. Lazy mostly. But some folks do struggle with certain things.

If you really needed help. Say someone was sick or injured. Would they help you then? Could you rely on them?

Just a random thought. Glad you prepared and safe.

You can only teach the ones who want to learn.

I can relate to the OP.

In '08, I sheltered in place for Hurricane Ike. Prior to hurricane season, I had built up a pretty good amount of supplies for my hurricane kit. When the Ike was in the gulf, I got lucky and arrived at HD at the same time as a truckload of generators so I grabbed one, a 4-pack of 5 gallon gas cans, several 50 to 100 ft extension cords, a window AC, and picked up 20 gal of gas on the way home. After the hurricane passed, I chained the generator to the tree, ran some extension cords to my house, installed the window AC, gassed up the generator, and fired it up.

Contrast this to my neighbors:

Next door - attorney and school teacher w/o kids. They went to Whole Paycheck and bought organic, gourmet cheese. We lost power for 4.5 days and they didn't own an extension cord or gas can. We had been friends since the day I moved in so I was happy I had a generator outlet and extension cord I could spare. I ran an extension cord to their kitchen in exchange and in return they helped out by going to the gas station every other day to buy gas. (Not many gas stations open so it was an hour or two wait in line at the ones open).

Across the street - both were attorneys and had 2 kids. They were never friendly prior to the hurricane or during the hurricane, but felt the need to knock on my door and explain their displeasure that the power came on on my side of the street not theirs (it took 2 more days for them to get power). They were pissed that I chose to loan my generator a couple doors down to a home for people with traumatic brain injuries (ie. the reason my side of the street got priority power reestablishment. Unfortunately, a branch went through the knife disconnect on their feeder line and there was a delay on them getting grid power) instead of them. It wasn't a real tough call to help someone who was on disability because he was a gas station clerk hit in the head with a baseball bat during a robbery instead of two attorneys who chose not to use their money to buy a generator of their own.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

At one time I had two generators. One was too small so before hurricane Sandy hit I went out and bought a larger unit. My neighbor across the street, a nice guy who makes good money was without power. I lent him my smaller generator that at the time had less than 50 hours on it. All that I asked was that he give the generator a break every 8-10 hours to let it cool down and check the oil. He ran it 4 days non stop and I had to ask for it back a week later. Nice guy or not, I didn't appreciate that he ran it non stop until the power went on. He did return it full of fuel. He has since bought a nice size generator.