Generators are now a necessity in New Jersey homes (Opinion)

First we have a pandemic, then we have protests. Staying in the Ps, now we power outages. It's all contributing to making us P-O'd in New Jersey.

Our Governor who art in Trenton, Murphy be thy name, is tweeting us Some of these outages may last for a few days due to the severity of the storm. We are working closely with the utilities to restore power as quickly and safely as possible."

Is it the severity of the storm or the incompetency of the electric companies to keep these things from happening with the frequency that they are now? How much of these problems are weather-related? I wonder if the governor would share that data with us since he won't share his reopening data.

As of Wednesday morning, nearly 1 million homes and businesses remained without power. All of these people will still be expected to pay their full electric bills when they come due. All of these people are at the mercy of these electric companies. Thanks to COVID-19, which is forcing people and possibly students to work from home, we need them more than ever. Since we can't rely on our electricity being there, the time may have come for us to have a backup plan.

That would be the backup generator.

It really is a shame that it has to come to this, but we just can't trust our power companies to be there for us. Another thing we may want to do is split the power, so if we lose our electricity, we do not lose everything. Perhaps gas cooking we would be good help, so some food could be cooked rather than thrown out after it has melted in your freezer. Another thing, you may want to turn your phone into a personal hotspot, so you will at least you will have wifi; it will cost you more money, but that is what we are about in New Jersey.

Once upon a time, we drank water from the sink and now, even though we still could, we buy cases of plastic bottles. Once upon a time, we watched TV with an antenna, for free. Now we pay hundreds of dollars for cable, which we do not get to watch, because we work too hard to be able to afford to live in New Jersey. Once upon a time, we relied on our power companies to keep us safe and warm through the storm. Now we have to pay more money for backup generators. None of this is allowing us to live happily ever after.