Many people who live in rural areas store water, because when the power goes out, so does the water pump, which leaves exactly ONE flush remaining in the toilet. Another thing people tend to forget, is that their sump pump needs to have power, So a generator for houses with sump pumps and pump out septic systems is a MUST, otherwize your basement will quickly fill up with sewage and ground water. For most people in rural areas, a good back up generator is the single most important thing, along with plenty of fuel to keep it running. It keeps your toilet flushing, water flowing, freezer cold. All you have to do is keep the fire going and your eyes open for looters.
Anyhow, we have ALWAYS had a generator to power the fridge and the furnace blower (power outages in Atlanta traditionally occur during ice storms). We just added the sump pump to the list.
We did come up with an innovation after multiple power outages last year due to hurricanes & strong storms . . . we bought a little marine 12v bilge pump and stuffed it into the hole with the regular sump pump, and my hubby got hold of some salvaged 12v batteries (out of computer UPSs, I think - but they were FREE which I like a lot). We got a charger for the batteries, about 50 percent of them actually would hold a charge - so we have 6 or 8 12vs charged up and ready to go. We ran wires from the bilge pump, and now when the power goes out we just hook the wires to one of the batteries while we are messing with getting the generator up and running.