Someone more official than me can probably answer but I think you are fine. All pilots I've had (including on an old stove so it was lit all the time) have a mechanical shut off-if the flame goes out, a non-electrical thermostat detects this and closes the valve.

January 26, 2011. One of those days I'll never forget. Between phone calls, texts, and Facebook, I was kept plenty of company. Still really grateful for everyone that kept me company.

sara, it was a different one. The 14+ hour commute home involved 13 of those hours parked on the GW Parkway. The creative critiquing of drivers anywhere in the DC/Baltimore area is an almost daily occurrence, so it's less useful in figuring out specific events.

Ugh, I'm sorry you're still having trouble with the porch leak.

Sophia, most furnace pilot lights have an automatic shutoff if the electricity goes off. I certainly had to turn on the pilot on my old furnace enough times that I had the routine of holding down the switch with one hand while I awkwardly reached a match towards the light with the other.

(The pilot wouldn't stay lit unless the thermocouple reached a certain temperature, which is when you could let off the switch and the regular furnace running would take over.)

It really takes a long time for an itty-bitty pilot light to flood a room with enough gas to be dangerous.

Sophia, the worry is if the pilot light goes out. As long as the pilot is lit, you're fine even if the electricity is off.

Looks like there's over 13,000 people without power already in Vermont. And trees have fallen over 91 in places and two state high ways. Looks like my county and the county for the Champlain Islands are the only counties without any power outages.

My lights have blinked a few times.

My boss's daughter is in Manhattan (at NYU). She was in an area where they didn't think they'd have to evacuate, but now she does. My boss is trying to read a slow-loading web-page to find where she's supposed to evacuate to.

Thanks guys. I do not like pilot lights. I especially do not like them in my living room, which is were the furnace is.

I feel bad, because I am hoping (a little bit) for some downed trees across the road from the huge cemetary by my house, this making it hard for me to get to work tomorrow. I would love another day off, and my uni does not close. Since we are a hospital, everyone is supposed to report in any weather, and if there are a lot of people out, they will put you to work doing other things (people in my position were delivering meals and cleaning during the 1991 ice storm because there was a shortage of those workers)

Tom, I don't know if it will help, but the Google Crisis Map has evac info: [link]

Thanks, but my boss managed to figure out where the shelter was. And then his daughter decided to stay where she is. (She's on he fourth floor.)