GVLanon here. I do still exist, just with a lower profile.
Also, should every anon who owns a house/property be prioritizing a solar panel installation? A modest solar setup may not be able to provide you with every comfort of modern life (A/C being #1 here) but the ability to maintain refrigeration is like having superpowers in a SHTF scenario. Maintaining a steady caloric intake becomes so much easier wheb one can preserve fresh foods through refrigeration and freezing. Not only can one stock up on perishables well beforehand, one can preserve the fruits of their post-SHTF gardening efforts far longer. It also allows for far more vaiety in one's diet which, as anyone who has tested their SHTF beans n' rice diet can attest, is gold when it comes to maintaining morale and overall mental health.
Like that other anon said, this is generally illegal in the states, or at least it's illegal if done on the scale needed to produce meaningful, consistent power. The problem with relying on a creek is that creeks regularly run dry to the point that you can almost guarantee you'll be out of power for at least a week or two at certain times of year. You could always dam up a reservoir to account for that but a sufficiently large reservoir will require both a large amount of land and is definitely illegal without proper permits and a dam design signed off on by an engineer.
There's been a large crackdown on private dams in my area due to a massive flood a few years back. The state government thought there were only 2-3,000 private dams in the state but after a cascading series of failures that led to a major river taking out 1/5th of the capitol city, they started surveying all the state's waterways and found something like 20,000 previously unknown dams on private land. Now you're basically fucked if you try to build a new one for cheap.
Root cellars are great in regions where the below ground temperature stays at a steady 50-55° F like it does in most of the northern US but they don't work well in the southeast. The average below ground temperature in my area is 64° which gives all the benefits of leaving food out on the counter in what Canadians and other frozen peoples consider to be room remperature. That ans digging a cellad in Piedmont clay requires serious heavy equipment.
As for the reliability of refrigerators and freezers, yes they aren't 100% dependable but bare bones refrigerators are cheap and good drop in freezers are astoundingly cheap. I already have 2 refrigerators and getting a backup chest freezer would only cost me $200. The amount of calories one can pack in all 4 would be enough to live a comparably "luxurious" SHTF lifestyle and there would still be plenty of storage if I lose one of each due to shitty chinesium build quality.
My reasoning is also partially driven by my expectations of how SHTF would play out in my region. At worst, I expect a month of abject chaos after a short buildup period of instability. After the initial "Days of Rage" have calmed down there will be an intermittent and inconsistent availability of fresh foodstuffs from local farms. That local supply will not be enough to support local demand but one will be able to obtain fresh meats and vegetables at a hefty premium during the early aftermath period. Those who have the resources to trade/barter for as much as they can at any one time and also possess the ability to preserve that food indefinitely are going to have a huge advantage. When supply is inconsistent, those who can command more of whatever is available in the moment and have it last through supply droughts win.