Since you have experience with wiring lighting, I would recommend you use wire up a string of car headlights directly to a 12V battery.  A car battery will work, but a deep cycle battery is better.  Please be careful not to run the car battery dead, as that shortens the life expectancy of car batteries.  If you are willing to have less bright lights, car tail lights use about 25 watt bulbs.

Multiply the number of lights (3 or 4) times the wattage use of each light bulb, times the hours a day you will have them on equals daily wattage consumption.

For example, four 100 watt bulbs will use 400 watts an hour, times 4 hours daily, equals 1600 watts.

That means that you need a solar panel that can produce 1600 watts a day.

You typically get 6 hours of good sunlight a day.  1600 watts divided by 6 hours equals 266.6 watts of necessary production.  You may want to get 300W of panels to be on the safe side.  Solar panels cost roughly $4 per watt.  300W of solar panels will cost you about $1200.  Going solar, it will cost you $300 to run a 100 watt lightbulb 4 hours a day.

Another alternative would be to use your car to recharge the battery for the lights, or to rig up a lawn mower engine running a car alternator for battery charging.

Most industrial forklift batteries are 36V.  That is where I got the 36V from.

Also, you may want to look into 12V compact fluorescent light bulbs.  Compact fluorescents use much lower watts, and still produce the same lumens as incandescent light bulbs.

For your situation, it seems to me, that there is much more to think about than for the average installation.  Although it would be easy to throw up something simple and quick, it strikes me that a little thought about how to do it may be in order if it is to truely work when you need it.  

I'm not certain as to your long term plans for the system, but if you plan to expand it over time, then a modular approach may have more long term value.  Economics are also a big variable that determine what is the best approach to help solve the problem.  

Given your location, whatever you build will have to have a method of being secured when the 'next freindly hurricane' comes your way.  I have never seen a wind turbine or a solar panel for that matter that I would expect to survive a major hurricane.  Since your area is apparently subject to storm surge, the batteries and electrical component would have to be protected from that as well.  While you could build a bunker into which your components would be secured during a storm, I am not sure how to protect them from a storm surge, short of a heavy plate steel container with a sealed entrance that is anchored such that it could survive both the winds and the forces upon it from being submerged.  

For a very basic system, I would start with a solar panel(s), a battery, a charge controller, and some flourescent or compact flourescent lighting that would work with the voltage you choose.  That way I could hopefully take down and secure the whole system during a hurricane, and put it back up in short order afterwards.

The voltage I would choose would depend upon my ultimate goals for the system.  If all I ever wanted was a few lights and maybe a small (few hundred watts) inverter, then 12V would be fine.  The more power I planned to draw, in general, the higher the system voltage I would choose.  (wire size needed to move a given amount of power is larger for lower voltages)  12V, 24V, and 48V inverters are fairly common.  Higher voltage such as 120V are also made, but from my experience harder to find.  Also, generally, as the voltage goes up, the shock hazard increases.   12V items such as fans, small appliances and such are commonly available.  For a higher voltage system, you will probably use an inverter and 120V AC appliances.