It would depend on the size of the generator. You would have to determine if you want an "emergency standby generator" or just a portable, and how much of your house or whatever you want to power. Just with a superficial look, I see that Northern and Grainger both offer them, as does Generac and some others. Harbor Freight may also.
I just took a quick look at portables and was reminded of why I decided against a whole house one. A 40# tank of propane lasts a little under 8 hours at half load. That's about the same length of time that it gets out of an 8 gallon tank of gas (duel fuel) at the same load. I guess if you just hook up the fridge & freezer and maybe charge a 12v battery with it to drive some LED lights and a phone charger, you could just run the thing every couple of hours. I forget what the whole house ones consume when I looked years ago, but I was shocked at what an outage of a few days would cost, propane or natural gas. If battery technology were better/faster/cheaper, I got a couple of acres I could devote to solar. Maybe technology will get to the point where we can use line voltage to maintain a battery bank to do the minimum required for a few days. Back to our Sunday storm: WeatherUnderground is now back up to 6.6" of total precipitation (I think), but rather than snowing all day and night Sunday into Monday, they call for snow to start at 10AM, then convert to all rain at 8PM, and continue to rain until 6AM Monday. It's an odd forecast: temps start rising at 6AM Sunday, peak at 38F Midnight, drop to 32F Monday morning, then follow a normal daily pattern.
A decent day today with some sun and 45 F . Will do the last of the errands tomorrow before the winter storm. Let it come. No job to get to.
Warm all week and low to high 40s overnight. Tonight possibly some rain 50% which won't bother me one bit. I love to hear that rain while I am all curled up in my warm electric blanket, which is of course almost as good as the invention of crushed ice. I guess you can really say crushed ice was not an invention, snow is free crushed ice right ?. Speaking of crushed ice and snow there is a very slight chance some of this state may see some over the next two days. That would really seem strange since we have ran fans and even air conditioning in some areas near me. I only needed a fan mid day no air. Glad I don't live in the East !
The forecasts for me keep changing and have a broad range, but so far, the trend is not getting worse. They range from 2"-5" (NOAA) to 3"-5" (Weather Channel) to a flat 6.5" (Weather Underground) to 6"-12" (NBC TV guy.) I'm concerned about the timing of the temperature change in the middle of this that could bring ice, causing power outages. Perhaps that last storm did sufficient pruning. As long as I don't lose power, I'll be OK. Heck, there are folks here who up just got theirs back the past day or so. There are still about 500 folks in Virginia without power (nearly 400 of them in Lee County in the far southwest part of the state) and they got THIS comin' at them!!! So what are they calling for in your area? Are you ready???
So all of the forecasts have settled into the 3"-5" range. Gee, the weather hysteria to make us look started off as 'A 12" event.' Ice still might be an issue, but by the time this ends at midnight the air temp is gonna be 37°
It seems everyone has their own flavor of exposure: -Well water or municipal -Wood heat or electricity-dependent -Gas cooking (at least stove top) or electricity-dependent -Food availability and refrigerated storage is pretty much a universal issue My main worry for others is their staying warm. If they have sufficient water and energy bars, they can survive for a week as long as they don't freeze to death. I read a couple of accounts during the power outage of home temps in the 30s..and that's in the mid-Atlantic states. I would think a kerosene heater (with adequate ventilation) would be most people's best option...I heated with one in my prior home. I currently heat with wood and have a propane stove. I'm on a well water and am stocked up with bottled, but you always wonder if it's enough. The fridge and the freezer are just gonna have to do what they're gonna do. I've looked at remediating the deficiencies at my place: install a manual well pump, have a generator transfer switch installed and deal with generator fuel & maintenance, etc. But after 11 years here I have had only two multiple-day outages, and one of them was caused by a mechanical failure at a main transfer station exacerbated by parts availability (transformer.) THAT outage shut down Walmart, Lowes and all the gas stations and restaurants off the interstate for 4 days!!! Heck, I have a half dozen hurricane lanterns I bought when I moved here (along with the fuel) worried about my rural location, and I've not lit a single one. I look off & on at generator options, usually after an "event." It's the same dilemma everyone has: when you need it you really need it, but when events are once-in-a-decade and are not perfectly foreseeable, and you gotta maintain a machine and have fresh gas that will burn at the rate of 1 gallon per hour, it's a difficult thing to reconcile. For short-term outages, it's just as easy to tough it out. I'm nor certain what the solution is.
Like I have said, when we were younger, we only had a small generator to power our freezers and it could be used intermittently. We have a wood stove and lanterns, but our climate in more severe than yours in winter. I got the bigger (10KW) portable generator when we got older and I became less able and we had no sons at home. If you know an outage is coming, like with the snowstorms or hurricanes, you can store water in pitchers and bathtubs if you need to, and the hot water heater has water if you have the tank type. For those outages you don't know about, such as transformer failures or earthquakes and tornados, you would have to tough it out, especially if you don't have a stream or pond on your property. If you are relying on a small kerosene heater, you can arrange to only heat one room unless your plumbing would be in danger. I find maintaining a generator no worse than maintaining a lawnmower.