What would be an acceptable amount of time for your power to be restored, if your power went out due to a storm (in winter weather)?

Here in the Northeast, we experienced Hurricane Sandy on October 29–30 (about 12 days ago). They just said on the news that there are still over 100,000 people without power.

People are getting mad, temperatures are dropping (freezing at night, 40’s during the day) and politicians are crying foul (i.e. NY Gov. Cuomo).

My power was out for 8 nights. Luckily I had a place to stay during that period. It was pretty cold and I have a child, so I was grateful to be away from the problem, although I had to take 6 days off of work (I got paid but it’s 6 less days I can use for something fun like a vacation or during the holidays). People in my area who had to use generators spent hundreds per week on fuel, and many gas stations were out of gas or had no power, which caused hours-long lines and people were discussing on FB how they had to travel over one hour to find gas.

I know people personally who still have no power. I don’t know how they deal with staying home and sleeping in the cold and taking cold showers. One person that I know lives with an elderly, bedbound father.

To the power companies’ credit, there are trucks here from Canada and the mid-west, and I see many of these trucks on the highways on my way to work, so they’re definitely around and working, I assume, to the best of their ability. On the news, they just said that in some areas they are considering having the military take over power restoration, because the power companies are not doing a good enough job.

However, 13 days without power and heat in near-freezing temperatures is unacceptable for many. What do you think is an acceptable period for a power company to restore power?