My parents' house got run over by Hurricane Katrina. There was no electricity for over a week. As their freezer thawed out, we had epic barbecues. It was miserable as it was still hot as blazes in early September. Sure - we're a good 90 miles inland, but Katrina was so nasty because it was moving so slow. From start to finish, it was over us for 36 hours of noisy, exciting weather that turned telephone poles into splinters. Some of our trees were so damaged, they died over the next few years and had to be removed. We had a blue FEMA roof until we could get a crew to re-roof the house.
You don't appreciate refrigeration and air conditioning until they're gone for a while.