I was hosting a welcome to my new home party, about 50 people, and the electricity went out about an hour before everyone was to arrive. I had to take my pork roast a few blocks down, knock on a strangers door, and ask if I could cook it there. She let me. Luckily one of the gifts given to me that night was a hurricane lamp (candle inside of a glass protection) that I could put outside so people could identify the front of my house. The electricity came on about 45 minutes after the set start time of the party.
I have been days without electricity after hurricanes. I think Hurricane Wilma was the worst, about 8 days. The pumps were not working to pump out the sewage, so some people in my subdivision had sewage back up into their house. I was lucky, my block didn’t have it happen. They tell everyone to open the thingy outside so if it backs up it spills out onto the lawn, but I never have bothered to do it. We took everything out of the fridge and freezer and into styrofoam boxes with lots of ice. Everything kept cold for several days. During hurricane aftermath it is bazaar to be out of electricity, your entire community, and then drive on streets without working traffic lights and trees down, and eventually come to a part of town that is all cleaned up and completely functioning normally. We go to friends houses to have some normalcy for a few hours. But, there is curfew after hurricanes when electricity is out over extensive areas, so everyone needs to be off the road by nightfall, and then we would just listen to the radio, have some flashlights or candles on, and go to sleep. Luckily, hurricane season is during the time of the year the days are rather long, and so sleep time is not far different from when the sun goes down.
One year we had a lot of hurricanes in one summer. We had all the hurricane shutters up for weeks, it was like living in a cave. But, the electricity only went out a few days that year.