That storm taught me a lot about preparedness. When Sandy hit, I was ready with food, gas, coffee, and ordnance. My power stayed on (miraculously) but three to four days later, with power still out the gas stations became donnybrooks. Everyone with generators seems to have only a few cans of gas. There were reports of fights breaking out, people cutting in line, and so on.
As such, it only takes 96 hours of no electricity for civilization to collapse.
I’m a dozen miles west of NYC, and we were part of targeted power outages (as the damage to the power stations would be worse if they flooded while active). Because of the population density, we knew we would be among the first restored (and we were); I really sympathized with those who had moved out to the idyllic hills to the west, as the population was so much smaller they’d be the last to have power restored (and that is exactly what happened). Generators are like sump pumps; the former needs a reliable source of fuel while the latter needs reliable electricity.
Sandy taught us that the development we’d engaged in for decades wasn’t planned very well; like some parts of New Orleans, they either shouldn’t have built in these places or they should have built smarter. I’ve seen large new homes on the Outer Banks, and each one is perched atop its own hill with a steep driveway heading up to it. The streets could be under ten feet of water and these places would be dry as a bone; none had basements, either (so water that might get in would simply flow downhill out). It looks odd, but it works - and these homes were mansions.
Ice storms are the absolute worst. I would rather have three feet of snow than even a moderate ice storm.
And the worst sound in the world to me is the sound of branches cracking in the middle of the night during an ice storm. That's a sure sign that your power is about to go out for a long time. That's the price you pay for living in suburbia with a lot of trees around you.