Don,
I'm kind of in your neck of the woods (E. Haddam, CT) and recently bought (just before Irene paid us a visit) a portable/home generator. Norther Tool ran and probably still is running a special on a Powerhorse 9000 Watt unit. Delivered, the total came to $888.00. It runs my 30 amp electric water heater, well pump,
oil furnace, two refrigerators and most of my homes lights - all at the same time. The killer load is the 30 amp water heater but I can breaker that off temporarily if all services in the house are running at the same time and click it back on when other services are not active. I had my electrician hard wire a manual 200 amp street/generator switch before my breaker panels and had him hard wire a line to the gen set (I use just the 240 V/30 amp output from the gen set). In a power failure I just wheel the generator (no extra charge wheel kit included in the delivered price) out my basement door and under my back porch where I plug it in to the hard wired input box. Plan on spending about $1K for the hook up and hardware (depending the complexity of your installation) and your set to go. As an aside, the generator is remarkably quiet - even under load. Here's hoping you never need it once it's installed.
Ron