Software engineer Kenna Ofoegbu in Houston, Texas tries hard to keep his three kids cool during the summer and that means air conditioning.
Yet their house has lost power three times in just the past two and a half months. One of those outages lasted three days.
That time, Ofoegbu and his wife decided to pay for two nights at a hotel, both for the air conditioning and the connectivity.
“I could not afford to go multiple days without having internet connection,” the 42-year-old said. “Having power and internet access is critical to my daily work.”
When that ordeal was over, the couple did what many do if they can afford it: They bought a generator. It cost $1,500 plus some $800 for an electrician to do some wiring,