Dan wrote:
... WAY better than
frying some poor lineman who is trying to hook your power back up for you.

Several replies have voiced this sentiment and it is the official
position of the power company and every other authority that you could
think of.

BUT, it seems to me that as a _load_ the power-less mains coming into
your house look like a dead short! I.e., the combined loads of all your
neighbors as well as the load back through your local pole pig. In
which case your generator breaker would blow in about a millisecond.
The chance of a lineman touching the line AND being grounded during that
ms would be very small. And even if he were, the momentary shock is
unlikely to be fatal or traumatic.

The exception, of course, is is the power outage is in your drop. I.e.,
isolated from your neighbors.

Strictly my opinion of course. I'm sure there are those who will
disagree :-)

Bob