I worked in a supermarket during the Oct 11 snow storm in the northeast. Normally in power outages, we could get plenty of dry ice for frozen foods, reefer trailers for the open refrigerated case or large diesel generators to run the refrigeration racks in a extended outage. The natural gas gensets in the store only carried lights, POS, pones, and a few outlets.
With most of CT, MA and RI out we couldn’t get enough dry ice or trailers and the nearest generators (500kW range) ended up coming from the Carolinas about 48-72 hrs after the power went out. We almost had customers fight over melted ice cream that had been sitting in glass door cases with no refrigeration for 72 hrs.