Oh, wonderful....

"Our power goes out here when a bird burps. If I don't lose power it will be a miracle."

  LOL

  The birds could be doing a lot more than just burping.  A fellow electrician told me a story from when he had worked for a large utility company, who had just installed  a brand new large high voltage transmission line that was having a lot of nuisance trips.  These turned out to be caused by large pond birds roosting on the conductors.   Occasionally the birds would touch beaks, and short out the whole line.  They actually had to move the wires far enough apart to where the suicidal birds could no longer touch beaks.

  I experienced something similar when my plant had a new 69KV substation installed which was having nuisance trips.  It didn' t take long to figure out why.  The charred crow carcasses underneath a large 69KV reactor were a dead give away.  The reactor had to be retrofitted with wire mesh to keep the crows out.

  The longest power failure I've experienced was 38 hours.  I had to move the stuff from my fridge to a cooler full of ice.  The stuff in my two freezers made it through it alright.  Just before the power returned I was thinking about driving a hundred miles to find a motel with a working AC.  I know people that were without power for six weeks after that storm.

   Oooooh!  I just saw the picture you posted of your kerosene heater.  I thought those things were outlawed years ago!  I knew a couple of guys that burned their whole house down with a similar looking portable kerosene heater.

One of the guys got trapped inside by their burglar bars and died. 

  I just checked out the Buddy heaters on Amazon, which look a whole lot safer.  Is it too late for you to get one with one day shipping?

  Well, anyway good luck!  And be careful if you have to use that kerosene heater!