I do hope you get your electric back soon. It is eye opening how much we have become dependent on electricity. We lost power for about an hour a couple weeks ago. Had to get my litte generator going to power the sump pump in the basement.
Personally, I would make it without electric and have. Not sure about my wife though.
I don't have a classic basement, I have a shaft with a water pump and a 120-liter water boiler, but there is enough space for a winter garden.
Although I am in the basin of two large rivers, the Danube and the Tisa. The Danube is about a kilometer from ours and the Tisa is about 15 km. But this is an old settlement from the 15th-16th century, built before the embankment and canal and was not flooded then. The so-called Lešena plateau, so we are safe from groundwater
Does the basement fill with water?
It will if left unchecked. Especially when there has been lots of rain. Supposedly, according to neighborhood lore, there is an underground spring running under our house.
It can be quite nasty.