Why Does Anna Quindlen Love Her Standby Generator?

Some people think an emergency power generator is a waste of money, yet a lot more think of it as a kind of insurance policy.  It's a relief to have it when you need it!

A Message Delivered by Tornado After five days without power, a desperate writer calls her contractor to say: 'Generator. Please. Soon.'

Author Anna Quindlen Explains Why
She Loves Her Emergency Power Generator

By Anna Quindlen April 11, 2013 10:00 p.m. ET I love my generator. It's not much to look at, a beige box half the size of my desk, hidden by a scrim of native grasses. If my power goes out for more than two minutes, it clears its throat and rumbles into life.

The fridge hums, the TV flares, the water flows from the faucet. Every once in a while I give the generator a pat in passing to show my appreciation.
For a long time I didn't think I needed a generator at all. Several times each summer, the power at our house in eastern Pennsylvania would go in the middle of a thunderstorm. I bought some Coleman lanterns, the battery-powered kind that I thought looked nice scattered about the house, in the corner of the upstairs hallway, tucked behind a chair in the den. It seemed romantic and retro, reading by Coleman light. The only real downside of those outages, which usually lasted less than a day, was when the power would be restored in the middle of the night and I would shoot out of bed to the sudden glare of three standing lamps and the sound of reruns of a "Law & Order" franchise from downstairs.

Why an Emergency Power Generator Became a Priority

But then, in 2009, the tornado came. One of the things that was freaky was how exactly it conformed to every news report I'd ever seen. Dark air like demonic possession, a sharp path cut across the land by meteorological shears. We were lucky; the sharp path fell directly between the house and the garage. You could follow it from there by looking at the empty spaces in a solid line of trees, the rootballs waving their witchy root toes in the air. We lost a lot of trees. And the power, for five days. Five long days. It's funny the little things you miss. Our coffee maker is electric. Each morning my friend, Emily, would bring a thermos of coffee and take my phone away to charge it.
But there was a big thing missing, too, and it wasn't light. Where we live, if you lose power, you lose water. And after five days of keeping a bucket by the back door so I could get water from the pond for the toilets, five days of trying to convince myself that going in the pool was almost like an actual shower, I called the contractor and said, "Generator. Please. Soon."

I didn't want one of those transient generators, the gasoline-powered kind on wheels in a generator stroller connected to your power system with an umbilical cord of cables. I'd had a permanent scare from the tornado, and I wanted a permanent solution. And I got one, and more. When the contractor was putting in the underground propane tank for the generator—because every home project proves the domino theory, doesn't it, the new windows begetting the new moldings begetting the new paint job—he said, "You know, you could have a gas stove now." And everyone who had heard me wax poetic about the horror of electric stoves breathed a sigh of relief as my big cast-iron white enamel six-burner gas stove was installed along with the generator. The generator was a godsend during Hurricane Sandy, although not for us. We were in New York, and in a part of New York where it almost seemed that nothing had happened, where you could still get pizza deliveries and stop by the Duane Reade for toothpaste and celeb magazines. But our friends in the country lost power for 11 days, and because of our generator they could use our place for showers and wireless and refrigeration and that pot of coffee that turns out to be more central to a comfortable existence than you'd ever imagined.

Quindlen at her home, which is kept up and running with occasional use of her beloved generator. Evan Sklar for The Wall Street Journal

After the storm, one of my brothers-in-law said you couldn't even talk to a contractor about an emergency power generator; they were so backed up with requests. Suddenly everyone had discovered they needed one. I had one. It felt good. It felt like insurance. We act the way about our homes that teenagers sometimes do about having unprotected sex—yeah, yeah, I know, but the worst won't happen to me. Then it happened to us, and we got a generator. It gives us the illusion of security, although sometimes still when the wind picks up, I get a feeling I never had before the tornado. It's not a good feeling.
One night after Sandy, I saw footage on the news of a beautiful beach-side house at the Jersey Shore that was leaning over as though its third floor was trying to whisper to the waves. It was a goner, that house, and clearly visible next to it was a generator. It looked like mine; I was sure it was the same size, the same model. Same illusion of protection and safety, I bet. Just like in the tale about the three pigs, houses are basically made out of three things: straw, sticks and bricks. You add in the sump pump, the French drain, the alarm system, the slate roof, the gutters, the generator and you convince yourself that you're safe. And most of the time you are. Most of the time the generator just tests itself for 10 minutes on Thursdays at 5, then hangs around, nothing more required. Most of the time.

—Ms. Quindlen is the author of six novels. Her latest book, "Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake," is a memoir.

Article taken from the Wall Street Journal


An emergency power generator may not be at the top of everyone's emergency preparedness list, but for some it's an absolute necessity.