Earlier this year a tree fell on a power line in our neighborhood and we lost power. Fortunately I had one of these 12V to 110V AC Car Inverters to power our computers and charge our phones. It has two USB ports and two standard AC outlets. We have a plug-in hybrid so we didn’t have to keep the car’s gas engine running all the time, but even if you do have a gas-powered car, you can use this inverter for a short while to power appliances on an as-needed basis. It’s on sale right now on Amazon.