Power Outages

Are you prepared? During winter in our area, power can go out & stay out for 3-5 days. Fortunately, this hasn’t happened in several years, BUT it can. (how about those summer “rolling blackouts" in California? We’ve never been part of one, but it’s a possibility here.)

What does it take to “be prepared” for a power outage? If you use a generator, do you have enough fuel stored for longer outages? If you are one of the many families without a generator (we don’t have one, yet), what do you do when there’s an outage?

For starters, you need a heat source, a light source, and methods of preparing healthy meals/heating water. Right up on my list of “must haves” is a plan to keep everyone occupied & sane while the power is out.

Heat: At this point, we’d be miserable if power went out for any duration! We need to get propane again, but have to wait for the $$...we should have this situation remedied by end of January! We have extra blankets, warm clothing, and those hand/foot warmers. We would close off all rooms except the living room & contain our body heat in there. BUT, are there alternate heat sources that would be SAFE to use indoors?

Light: We’re set here. Kerosene & battery operated lanterns, with extra fuel & batteries on hand. We have flashlights in every room. We got a wind-up flashlight for each car for Christmas - these are pretty cool! We also have a stash of light sticks, if needed. We also have plenty candles, but don’t often use them – too dangerous with a curious cat!

Cooking: I’m fine here, too. Cooking during a power outage is easy if you enjoy camp cooking! We have our camp stoves with extra fuel, 3 Dutch ovens, bbq with plenty charcoal, and “camp fire.” I used to have a supply of the tuna-can stoves (buddy burners?), but we're out...note to self: make more! We LOVE outdoor cooking, so this is not a hardship for us :) Since this is a FOOD storage blog, I should mention WHAT to cook, not only HOW to cook it...if you have the equipment mentioned, you can cook any meal outside that you can cook inside, with a bit of extra thought. Be sure to start thawing meats earlier, or plan to use canned meat. Cooking in a Dutch oven can take a while, so if needed, be sure to start your food to cooking early. This is a good time to use up some of that "almost ready to expire" canned food in a big pot of soup.

If you don't have the cooking equipment, you can still eat well. Tuna or p.b. sandwiches are always yummy. Heat a can of chili, stew, or soup on a tuna-can stove or over an open fire. If you can boil water, you can eat cup o' soup or any number of the freeze-dried/dehydrated foods in your stash. Be sure to check your food storage for foods that can be prepared with little or no preparation! Now that I'm writing this, I don't have enough in this category...

I also like to keep a big pot of water simmering. We use it for hot cocoa or scoop (with a ladle) a bit out for hand washing.

Sanity/entertainment: Our family loves to play games, so a power outage always means lots of games – board games, card games, it doesn’t matter. Our youngest is learning to play guitar, so I’m sure we could talk him into some live entertainment! We also have the keyboard that has battery-backup, so we can always have piano music, as well.

For longer outages, you should be prepared to save the foods in your freezer…can you cook up big batches of whatever is thawing and can it? I’m thinking mostly about meat because it would be such a shame to lose! I know, home-owner’s insurance should cover lost contents, BUT it’s still such a waste. I wish that I could say I’m fully prepared, but I can’t – yet. I have so much meat in my freezer that I don’t have a way YET to process it all without the electricity. I have a pressure cooker/canner, but I’ve only used it in the kitchen. (if we had the generator up & running, I shouldn’t need to worry about the freezer.

OH, one last thought…every home should have a regular (non-cordless) phone to use in case of power outage…

Original at: http://mormonfoodstorage.blogspot.com/