Most houses are powered by gas, oil, coal, LPG and electricity.
Has anybody here experienced a gas supply cut as a result of a storm or electricity failure ?
I would suspect not, as there is always a substantial amount of gas in the pipes, keeping supply going, even if local gas pumping stations suffer electricity cuts.
And if you have oil tanks, they take weeks (if not months) to empty.
Coal can last weeks.
So the killer issue is lack of electricity to run the essentials: gas or oil central heating, water pumps, fridge freezers, LED lighting, broadband and mobile phone chargers.
(Corded phones, remember them, do not require mains power, and have no batteries to run flat.)
As I understand it, wind and solar inverters require an existing mains supply before they will feed power into the wiring. So they are of no use in a power cut. And generators require refueling every ~4 hours (and should be stopped, while being refueled with explosive petrol).
So the trick is a continuous supply of electricity, in the ~<500W region, to run the essentials.
A mains inverter (1500W pure sine wave continuous output) and a couple of 130Ah lead acid batteries can keep the essentials going for several days, for a cost of ~£210, and can be recharged from your Rover 75 (other cars are available
) assuming you have a reasonable amount of fuel in it, and a set of jump leads.
As long as the mains isolator is turned OFF, the inverter output can be fed into any 13A socket, powering up all the essentials.
Obviously electric ovens, microwaves, electric kettles, washing machines, dishwashers, etc, are unusable, but in my opinion, not essential. Toasters are doable.
(PS Mobile phone charging doesn't even need mains power, a cigar lighter socket in your Rover 75 can charge a phone in less than 2 hours, without taking much power from the battery.)
(I noticed that somebody complained that their electric toothbrush was unusable, during a power cut. I really do wonder at people nowadays ! Toothbrushes are available !)