OP, it sounds like you are well prepared. What is sad, is most around you were not prepared. Hopefully this will teach them a lesson.

I like the idea that you got creative with your smaller generator by doing the plug ins. That was a real smart idea.

I have a Briggs and Stratton 5550 that I had converted to run on natural gas via a conversion kit. My generator is able to be plugged into my circuit breaker box that we had an electrician do an add on for. We just flip the switch on the breaker box and it runs everything off generator power. We also converted our gas meter to be able to run the generator safely. Luckily my dad has a strong electrical background and was a gas meterman for an oil company for 40 years, so it saved us some money.

We can only run a few appliances and lights with the generator we have, but that is all I need. We ran it for 30 hours during Hurricane Gustav and my gas bill was only $7.00 higher the next month.

This is the site I used to convert it. [link to www.uscarburetion.com]
I used a C Kit. Anyone can convert a gas generator to run off of propane or natural gas using one of these kits. My generator can run either one.