I lived on the MA/NH border. We had a few hurricanes. The street was a little weird, and we were one of three houses that got power through the backyard neighbor off a main drag.
I think it was [a?] Hurricane Bob that felled that neighbor’s tree, snapping the power lines at the houses on either side. The treed neighbor had a punctured roof and lost his standalone garage, including car.
Ours, it snapped the supporting guy wire a couple of inches from the house, that is to say, leaving the eye-anchor firmly in the house instead of pulling it out or worse. Bent the conduit going into the meter, though.
We had power for a couple of days, supplying one neighbor until the tree guys went to work and realized the downed power line was still hot.
Had to run a couple of heavy duty cords to a house two doors away for just the chest freezer after they cut the power.
Propane grill and a NG water heater took care of the rest, save for batteries, candles, and lamp oil.
I think the repair crew in our area was from TN, or some Southern state.
You got lucky, power-wise. Normally it doesn’t work out that way. A big emergency backup generator is on my to-do list. I might get to it when I’m 90. My cousin and her husband in Tarpon Springs and caught the brunt of the one that hit the coast couple of years ago. They have a Class A motor home, so they just made sure they had full fuel and LP tanks, etc., gassed up the emergency generators, stocked the pantry, parked in the driveway which was somewhat leeward of the wind, and rode it out for two days. And theirs is a nicely apointed motor home, too, so I guess it was like a mini vacation in front of your house. When Katrina hit, it was like an endless line of power company cherry-pickers heading down I-85 south, once they got the all clear. They’d otherwise be parked on the shoulder, dozens at a time, waiting. My brother-in-law does commercial towing, and he and his driver went down to move FEMA and privately owned trailers. I think he said he made a year’s income in three weeks. He said he’s have stayed because there was so much more work down there, but he had family obligations. Back home in the Western MD mountains, we may catch the backwash off a nor’easter, but our big thing is lake-effect snow. Generally nothing violent, but if a strong low comes in off the Great Lakes, it’ll snow, and snow, and snow, and snow........winter of ‘96 was a beast. Where I was living in D.C., we got 30” from three snowstorms in four days. I got a nine day paid vacation out of it. I literally hiked to Safeway a mile away twice and backpacked all my provisions back to the house. Tricky when you’re balancing a case of beer on each shoulder, but that beer was ice cold by the time I got back.