Back in '96 we were without power for 4 days one winter after a snowstorm. At about day 3 we were ready for power again...the fun and novelty of being without electricity had ended. We live way out in the sticks on the end of a long single phase distribution that makes its way through a lot of wooded areas to our house. Since that time we have had many many outages. We now have a 200A double throw manual switch at our main electric service entrance and I own 3 generators...an 800W, a 5000W, and a 16,000W. We actually had a summertime outage in 2005 after a bad storm. The outage lasted 96 hours. At hour 95 I called the power company to inquire about when they would be able to get our power turned back on. The nice lady asked me if I was reporting a new outage. I said, "no, just checking on when the power would be back on...I had reported the outage 4 days ago." She says, "so your power went out again?" "No Ma'am! It never came back on...been off for 4 days since the storm....our entire road has been out the whole time." She says, "Sir, can you stay by your phone...I'll have the lineman who worked your area 3 days ago give you a call!" Thirty seconds later, phone rings. Lineman introduces himself. Then says, "Sir, I turned the power for all the homes on your road back on 3 days ago." So I say, "Neither my house nor any of the 19 other homes on our road has had power since the storm!" He says, "But I drove up your road that night and the lights were on in nearly every house on your road!" So I say, "We all have generators out here...did you check voltage?" Silence...….then he says, "Nope I did not....and that is my fault completely....I am very VERY sorry....we'll have a crew out there within 30 minutes. 20 minutes later power comes on! That lineman came to my house and personally apologized again! I shook his hand and told him I completely understood the mistake and we're all good! He promised he would always check and confirm voltage from that time forward when working outages in our area!