Making sure that you do before November 3 may prove to be a very 'lucky' break....
This is likely to have a knock-on effect leading to a crash, which may be the 10 days of darkness and the closed banks that have been hinted at(what do people do when their cards stop working? I suspect the stealing of food will start after 2-3 days.....), and 11.3.................. when too many things line up.....
Wouldn't be thousands, would be millions..
Below freezing area with population of say 10 million, power gone, do you really think they have available resources to even keep half of those from freezing to death after a week ????
Maybe 5-10% would manage on their own.....