If I wanted to come out balls-swinging like half the comments in this thread, I'd point out that those are likely just 170 volt power lines, and you could just take a length of dry plastic pipe and maybe some improvised arc flash protection and just move them. But there are damn good reasons why we repeat the mantra to not go near any downed power lines, especially in emergency situations where ad-hoc solutions tend to compound problems.
I'm thankful for OP writing up his experience. Did he do some ridiculous things due to stress? Yes! The whole point of writing it up is so that others can learn from it with cool heads, to avoid repeating those mistakes.
Ah, thanks. I saw the photo of the car with lines on it and naively assumed it was part of the restoration, not the initial problem. Of course it's not surprising that "price gouging" (or, supply and demand, whatever you want to call it) is going on when lots of people need vehicles. and there aren't many available.
You don't even need a car to transport a small generator. A hand trolley bought at the same place is enough. I saw some people carrying generators to their shop that way when we had the global electricity outage in Spain nearly 2 weeks ago.
