Ladyfisher, your story sounded like a carbon copy of the storm, we in WNY, experienced back in October. Perticularly, the part about disaster preparedness. Most of us were caught completely off guard, being that the storm was never forecast to be so intense. You are totally correct about individuals being prepared for just such situations.
I have a 3000 watt generator and a smaller quieter 1800 watt one for emergencies. Plus I have a gas stove that needs no electricty for the thermostat. It will keep the house warm enough so the pipes don’t freeze. I have -50f Sleeping bags for My wife and I. We have food for about 3 weeks. then enough rice on hand for another 3 . ( I hate rice )
There is emergency drinking water in the Hot water tank. Plus We usually have about 5 or 6 of those 18 litre water cooler bottles. I keep 20 gal of gas In plastic containers in a locked shed out back. I also have a couple of those hand crank emergency flashlights that don’t rely on batteries.
One thing to know, you can’t legally connect your generator to your house wiring. At least not in British Columbia because of the danger of feedback to power crews. It has to be stand alone.
We even have a 3 week supply of dog food for the pups.
We have this stuff on hand not really for emergencies , we use it while camping.
Our Motor home would be snug for about a month before we would need to refill the propane.
For someone who really is prepaired Danbob is the guy. He doesn’t need to rely on the outside world for very much. Solar power and all that.
What is a brand name of a generator that is truly quiet?
get an electric one, perfectly quiet. 
Honda has about the quietest one. Still too loud in a campground where I believe they should be banned.
You do pay more for the quieter ones. two strokes are really loud so go for a 4 stroke engine. I built a wooden box lined with styrofoam to keep the noise down. At first I built a plywood box with no bottom on it to put over the smaller generater, thinking it would quite it down a lot. Not so! The solid plywood box acted like a speaker and actually increased the noise. I added the styrofoam and now you can hardly hear it.