An Amusing Emergency: Somewhere Else for a Change

This is a generator, and what a siphon apparatus might look like. Of course, this picture is taken in much better weather !

        

   As I mentioned in my last post, we had a late season snowstorm which has left us without power for the last four days.  We were also without internet and landline telephone.  The internet and landline telephone were restored in a day, but as of this posting, our power is still out.  We have been running a generator during parts of the day.
              The following story comes from one of our son's college friends and happened this week.  Our son's friend lives within the commutable environs of Charlottesville, Virginia and travels to college from there.  This week, he went home to find the power out following the storm.  His father connected the generator, and all was well inside the house until the generator abruptly cut off.  Both father and son looked outside to see a man neither of them knew, had turned off the generator and was in the process of attempting to siphon the gasoline out of the generator !   The father grabbed and shotgun, and the son grabbed his nearest weapon, which turned out to be an airgun equipped with plastic pellets.  When the perpetrator saw them coming, rather than simply running, he carefully gathered his siphon out of the fuel, then he ran.   As the father and son chased him, the son shot him with the air gun, hitting him in the back of the head with a plastic pellet.  The man running probably thought a shotgun blast was next.   All in all, it worked out well.  The family was left with the perpetrator's rather nice gasoline can, which they promptly put away. The perpetrator continued to run off, likely no worse off, at least physically, from the encounter.
              On the surface, this is a humorous story, and all is well. For a moment, I would like you to consider something.  If on the second day of a power outage, people are willing to turn off a generator and siphon fuel for their own use, what might they do after five days ?   How long would it be before a person fought them for their fuel or used a weapon against them in order to get their generator ?   Please give some thought as to how you and your family would exist through a protracted power outage.  If you had a generator, how would you minimize the possibility of its theft ?   Would you defend it against those who come to take it ?  How would you continue to get water, if in fact, you have a well which depends upon electricity to pump the water?  Please answer these questions now, before something difficult or dangerous occurs.  Stay safe.