As a resident, I saw first hand how Bloomington-Normal got the full “welcome to the Midwest, here’s your free natural disaster” package on Thursday, August 13.
Straight-line winds of 80–100+ mph tore through like a drunk bull in a china shop accompanied by Biblical rains. The place looked like a… disaster.
Better yet, tens of thousands of students were trying to move into college dorms! Welcome to school!
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses went dark. Grocers, gas stations, restaurants sat dark—suddenly tombs for slowly rotting produce, along with spoiled meat and dairy products.
Basements flooded in under an hour thanks to powerless sump pumps, wrecking finished and not-so-finished rooms, furnaces, washers, dryers and water heaters. And the water kept coming as we got upwards of 9” of rain over the course of two days.
No power also meant no lights and no power tools to help complete emergency repairs before the next storm hit later that night and then the next. Three days later nearly 2,500 homes were still dark. Now soggy carpet, padding and ruined furnishings have joined tree limbs on the curb waiting for pickup.
Coming back from Mattoon’s GSL meeting I hunted for an open gas station like it was 1973. Entire neighborhoods sat black. Almost zero generators running. I actually felt dumb for assuming many if not most homeowners had one. Silly me. I thought homeowners understood that electricity is not a God-given right.
Folks will drop $600–$800 on a snow blower they use twice a year, or more on a fancy grill for Instagram steaks and burgers.
But a generator that keeps the fridges and freezers cold and the sump pump alive? “Eh, I don’t need one of those.”
Thousands of those households just learned “it never happens” is not a plan. It’s misery for you and yours.
Here’s the kicker: a solid 3500–4000W inverter generator now sells for $600-800. That’s probably less than your insurance deductible. A smaller 2000W inverter genset costs about $400 these days, with tax! Add 10 additional gallons of stabilized fuel and you’ve bought power (and the better life it brings to your family) for a few days while repairs are made.
Why this isn’t optional gear
- Food’s spoiled in 24 hours. That generator keeps the cold foods cold and frozen foods colder.
- Sump pump. Without juice you get an indoor lake and a very sad insurance claim if you have coverage.
- Lights, phones, CPAPs, and meds don’t care about your “we’ll tough it out” speech.
- Your spouse and kids get irritable when hot, miserable and hungry.
- No power tools means you sit and wait for Round Two like a chump.
- Modern inverters are portable, quiet and clean—they won’t wake the block or fry your electronics.
The people who already had a generator kept their food, basements, and their dignity. Everyone else got the full misery package as Eric North wrote last month in GunNews about his power outage experience in the burbs (we’ll post that tomorrow).
Buy the darn generator. Stock the stabilized fuel. Exercise it once a quarter. Then when the next derecho shows up, you can drink a cold beverage under working lights with a dry basement while the unprepared fight it out for that last generator at Home Depot.
Or don’t.
The raccoons are patient.