The Generator that Saved my Family During the Last Big Hurricane

 I moved to Florida in 2013 and had never been in a hurricane before. This was the period that Florida had a ten-plus year drought from an actual hurricane making landfall on its soil. So while I was cognizant of the hurricane threat to Florida—and the general southeastern states overall—it was not something that was really on my mind.

I was, after-all, a Yankee moving south and it was all new to me.

I moved to Polk County, which is just east of Tampa and south-southwest of Orlando. I am not on the coast and see much more pastureland and cows than beach and waves.

And to be fair, I think most Floridians had become pretty complacent to the hurricane threat during that hurricane drought.

So when Hurricane Irma started to form in early September 2017, I was unsure of what to do.

I mean nowadays, hurricane tracking is so good you can see hurricanes develop deep in the Atlantic. Then come the Spaghetti Models that make it look like everywhere is under threat.

The general attitude when Irma formed east and far out to see of Puerto Rico was: Who cares? It is so far away there’s no way it will hit Florida---let alone Polk County! And it was just a Cat 2!

But then the news coverage picked up.

And so did the storm.

I remember going to bed September 02nd and it was a Category 2 hurricane. The next morning it had strengthened to a Cat 3.

It stayed a Cat 3 all-day and the models showed it going well east of Florida. I went to bed September 3rd and the next morning it was almost a Cat 4. Then it was a Cat 4 by early afternoon!

People started to get a little nervous. My neighbor—who had lived in Florida since the 1990s and gone through a few big ones—told me he was going to get ahead of this, just in case. He went to Lowe’s and got plywood and other basic supplies.

I wrote it off to sensational journalism.

Then I woke up on the 5th of September and Irma was a raging Cat 5! They showed the pictures of it from space. It was enormous!

And the models showed it was now a little closer to hitting the east coast of Florida. But even the closest path was still over a hundred miles off the east coast of Daytona. It was going to miss us for sure.

Then it slammed into Puerto Rico on September 6th at a Cat 5 and the models changed again—closer still to Florida.

Then more of the Spaghetti Model arms hit Florida. I saw the destruction in Puerto Rico and the other Caribbean islands.

I jumped online to see what I might need for hurricane preparedness. At the top of the list, after food, water and medical supplies, was a generator.

I hadn’t even thought about losing power—let alone for a long period of time like the horror stories I saw online—like the months of outages in some areas destroyed by Katrina!

I had a young child at the time that primarily drank milk, so I could not afford to lose power! So I did some research on what kind of generator I needed and the watts and gas requirements and then jumped into my car to go to Lowe’s. They were out of generators. Same at Home Depot. And Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart.

The panic had already struck and I had missed the generator stocks in the stores!

So I jumped on Amazon to see what I could get delivered with Prime on time.  A lot of the cheaper generators were sold out and the ones available were large watt generators that would suck too much gas.

Then I came across the Wen 2000watt inverter generator. I didn’t know what an inverter generator was—and it was more expensive than the other ones I’d priced out. Then I did my research and read the reviews.

An inverter generator was much more efficient than a traditional generator and produced a much cleaner energy that would be safer to run electronics on. And they are significantly quieter!

I ordered it and hoped it would make it.

I went to the gas station to fill all 6 of my 5-gallon gas cans. And when I saw the I4 traffic and lines at the gas stations, I thought there is no way I was getting my generator. I had ordered it on the afternoon of the 6th and it was madness everywhere. They had probably stopped delivering.

Nonetheless, I stocked my fridge with mil and fresh food and cranked it to max and figured if I lost power it would stay cool a little bit.

Then we began to hunker down and prepare the house. The models were now showing a direct hit on Florida. Right up the middle of the state. Projected Cat 5. I totally forgot I’d even ordered a generator.

Then, on September 08, less than 48 hours before Irma made landfall, I hear my doorbell ding.

My generator had been dropped off. Before I opened the door the driver had already rushed off to get his route done.

To say I was impressed was an understatement. I’m not sure how far it had to travel to get here, or if it had simply come from a huge Amazon warehouse a few miles away in Lakeland, but it had showed up on-time!

Boy was I impressed with the logistics of Amazon Prime!

I read the directions and fired it up to get accustomed to its operation.  It was really quiet!

I was only looking to run my refrigerator and a window AC unit in the event we lost power, as I really needed to preserve the fresh milk for my toddler and of course the AC to stay cool in the scorching Florida September heat.

Unfortunately, I had to put this to the test, as once the hurricane finally hit, we lost power and did not get it back for over five days. Now five days doesn’t seem like much, and in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t, but without having a generator, those five days would have been unbearable.

We lost power in the middle of the night and I had had my fridge on max in case this happened, so it would stay cool longer if we lost power. And because the weather was bad, I couldn’t get my generator going until the next morning.

The Wen Inverter Generator started on the first pull and I ran an extension cord to where I had it set-up outside. This is obviously important so as not to let the exhaust into the house! It was also securely grounded.

I first hooked up my fridge and set it to a lower setting. The fridge specs said it drew 700 watts, so I had plenty of extra power for the AC unit. The AC unit I had for emergency cooling situations was an 8,000 BTU window banger that wouldn’t keep my whole house cool, but was good for my bedroom if I kept the door shut and had the family in there.

The AC unit drew another 650 watts and was a lifesaver. Because the Wen had 1700 watts available for continuous generating power, I figured I had about 300+ watts to use as needed. So I plugged in a 32” LED TV (another 200 watts) and connected some HD bunny ears for free local channels. I think I get about 40 channels with the HD bunny ears.

This gave us entertainment for the kids, but also the local and some national news. We got to stay posted and up to date on what was happening with the storm aftermath.

The Wen Inverter generator was not very thirsty, even at near max capacity. In the five days we were without power, I had the TV, refrigerator and window AC unit on for the entire time. I had about thirty gallons of gas and do not recall what I used total, but I do know that I did not come close to running out.

The Wen 2000 watt generator’s official specs said it could run at a half-load for seven hours and burn only one gallon of gas.

In hindsight, waiting so long to get a generator in Florida during hurricane season was a big mistake. Luckily, I found one that turned out to be a real lifesaver. I am not an expert on generators, but as a layperson on the subject, with personal real-world experience, I can say that the Wen 2000 watt Inverter generator is easy to use, starts when needed, and can run continuously without issue.

It has two standard three-prong plugs and two USB ports. It even has a 12v DC port, which is nice to have, although we didn’t use it.

All-in-all, this is a great generator that I think anyone could use in any situation where they don’t have grid power, from hurricane preparedness to out glamping and tailgating.