Generators, help!

[OuterBanker]

I am thinking of buying a generator after Isabel last year but still have trouble with the minuses. Storage of generator, gasoline, and costs are very big minuses. Not to mention that I may never have to use it. What size? Above 5000 watts, 7500, 10,000 etc. Gasoline, natural gas, propane? The only reason that I am contemplating a purchase is because of Isabel. The loss of food topped 1,500.00 between my fridge and freezer. Not to mention that the freezer still contained over 400 lbs of dolphin (the fish, not flipper), tuna, wahoo in which we caught deep sea fishing. We ate like kings for a couple days but still had to throw out everything that we couldn't eat. If we had had a generator we would still be eating that food today. One of the hardest things we had to do was to throw out all that good food. Any loss of power for more than 24 hrs would more than pay for a generator. Trouble is that we rarely loose power here and Isabel is the first that I can remember that we lost it for such an extended period. The generators listed in Home Depot all seem to last 12 hrs before refilling (around 5 gals for 12 hrs), do they have to run 24 hrs, or can you let them rest a few hours and still maintain temps. How much to you store in advance, should you get one that burns propane or natural gas and a large tank. Not only can you run your fridge and freezer, but lights, TV, dvd, etc (you can forget cable for a couple days at least), all pluses. I just can't seem to get over warranting the cost and storage problems though. Comments and suggestions welcome.

[hial2]

My experience says that unless you have the big bucks to get a diesel powered generator powerful enough to be professionally hooked up to your house power grid to take over when the power goes out, you are better off taking the money and getting a hotel room (most home insurances have that clause, btw)..All you get from Home Depot specials are noisy and underpowered pieces of aggravation that make enough racket to wake up the dead..