How Likely Is It You’ll Need A Generator At Home In Lawton?

When I became a homeowner, one of my top ten items on my new homeowner checklist was to add a generator to my home's internal grid. It wasn't a list of necessities per se, but a list of big-ticket items I thought I'd need one day.

For the record, in the fifteen-ish years I've lived here in Lawton, I can count on three fingers how many times I've gone without power for more than a few minutes. Still, I insisted on somewhat preparing myself for a winter power loss.

I installed a dedicated receptacle from the outside to the inside so I could run a small gasoline-powered generator powerful enough to run extension cords to my entertainment center and kickstart the natural gas heater. Fortunately, I've never had to use it. Still, I can't convince myself to cross that item off my list... yet.

The only time I lost power for any measurable amount of time was in 2018. It was mid-July and we had just left the gun range since it was so stinking hot. I remember pulling in the driveway and wondering why my garage door wouldn't open. We walked in and it was already getting warm inside.

Instead of sweating it out, we opted to ditch our gear and head out for lunch. When we drove by the neighborhood power station there was a flurry of activity, something had blown up in the heat.

I think we managed to sit in the wing joint for three hours waiting on the power to be restored at home. When we swung by to check, it was still out. This was apparently about six hours into the power loss event. We ended up catching a few movies at the theater, by which time the power had been restored. The other two power outages I've experienced over the years lasted an hour tops.

Still, I try to convince myself that I need a whole-home generator. The fancy kind that automatically kicks on when the power cuts out, runs on natural gas, big enough to run the air conditioner... but knowing how rare these power events are, I'm still not sold.

I'm sure one of these days I'll have a chunk of change burning a hole in my pocket, but until then I'll just have to let it wrestle in my own mind whether I need it or not.