My extended power outage story: Hurricane Rita, which hit land a couple years after Katrina and Ike. We were living in the NE Houston suburbs, and had a week-old baby. If you drew a line straight south from downtown Houston all the way to the coast, everything to the east of that line lost power for several days. Our power was out for 9. Fortunately, we were blessed with mild weather (mid-80's instead of the typical mid-90's for that time of year), and I was working a job in the western suburbs, so I could get groceries, ice, etc.
The first night after the hurricane passed, it was eerily dark and silent. Like, seriously spooky. It was the world's biggest cookout for the 2-3 days following the hurricane, as everyone got the most out of their frozen meat.
Other than a lot of downed fences and trees, our area was not terribly hard-hit. But the neighborhood response was awesome--people helping each other cut up trees, cleaning up the mess, stacking downed sections of fence next to the roads for easy disposal, sharing generators, sitting outside in the evenings and talking to neighbors.
We bought a generator after the panic had passed. We've never needed to use it ourselves, but we've had several occasions to lend it out to friends who lost power and were getting water in their basement.