Believe it or not, whenever there's a brownout for an hour or more, the water stops as well. Apparently the city never heard of backup generators. Which brings me to my next point. I had to get a water pump for my water tank so that whenever there's a water outage, the water tank can supply the water. It's 80 gallons feeding the cold water line and the line to the hot water heater. If the hot water heater empties while on, the element can burn up. I experienced that while I was in North Carolina. I didn't like having to replace elements in the dead of winter there.

Of all the things I plan to do, one of them is to get a diesel-powered backup generator for our home. Then I don't have to worry about water, food going bad, etc.