“People are really starting to understand the impact of what a power outage means to them, and it is changing their behavior,” says Melanie Tydrich, a senior manager at Kohler, which sells kitchen and bath appliances and standby generators, among other things. “It’s just not something they want to live through again.”

LAURA GIANGERUSO, the mother of two girls, 4 weeks old and 7 years old, certainly fits that description.

In the wake of the storm, Ms. Giangeruso, who is 42 and lives in Glen Ridge, N.J., spent nine of 10 nights living with relatives because her house had no power. With a newborn, she says, she had little choice but to leave. But she says the solution became obvious during a visit with her sister, who lives nearby.

“It was like a miracle,” she says. “The power went out, and then in like 30 seconds, I heard this hum.” She lifts her hands from her hips upward, along her sides. “And then the power came on.”

So now she is leading an electrical contractor through her home’s cold and dark basement, pointing out the electric box and meter, all so she can get an estimate on a standby generator of her own. A neighbor, Chris Nehrbauer, tags along, partly to be neighborly but partly because he is getting an estimate next.

Jack Lamb, the contractor, who works for Bloomfield Cooling, Heating and Electric, says he has been working nonstop since the storm, providing estimates. When he shows up for an estimate, often four or five neighbors are waiting, he says, adding that he is booked through Jan. 8.

Ms. Giangeruso, who notes that last year, after the “Snowtober storm” on Halloween, her house was powerless for six days. “If we are talking in the neighborhood of $6,000, it is worth every dollar. If I could get it right now, I’d write a check,” she says. “The wives in this area don’t want jewelry for Christmas. They want generators.”