Winter power outage, what to do?

[Misty89]

I have never had to think about this until now!
What do you need to do or have ready in the event the power goes
Out in winter?
We have electric/gas combo furnace (doe not work without power )
So we would have no heat... That's scary
What do I need to have ready in case?
We are under a blizzard,with temps to go to -20wc Wednesday night

What equipment works without power? Cell phone ?iPod touch? Laptop?

Ty

 

[AshleyW]

I have never had to think about this until now!
What do you need to do or have ready in the event the power goes
Out in winter?
We have electric/gas combo furnace (doe not work without power )
So we would have no heat... That's scary
What do I need to have ready in case?
We are under a blizzard,with temps to go to -20wc Wednesday night

What equipment works without power? Cell phone ?iPod touch? Laptop?

Ty

I've lost power due to ice storms 3 or 4 times in the past couple years, so I've got it done pretty well, or at least I think so.

I keep stocked:

2 cases of bottled water in the garage
Lots of food that doesn't need to be cooked - I keep bread in the freezer (it only takes about an hour to thaw whenever you need it), peanut butter, canned veggies, crackers, canned fruit juice
Candles and matches/lighters
LOTS of blankets/sweaters/slippers/etc.
Extra pet food.
Flashlights w/extra batteries
Board games - we like Monopoly because it takes us fooorever to play and time goes by pretty quickly
Books
Battery powered or crank weather radio

Make sure not to open your fridge and freezer unless it's absolutely necessary - everything will stay colder longer. Last time I put my milk and a few other things outside in the snow and they stayed plenty cold.

Your cell phone, laptop, and ipods should all work without power - but you won't have internet access if your power is out. I have a spare cell phone battery that I keep charged in the winter in case mine were to die during a power outage.

During our last ice storm, we didn't have heat - and after about two days of no power, it only got down to about 50 degrees in our house. Granted, that IS cold, but it's tolerable if you wear lots of warm clothing.

 

[debster812]

Few things we always do.

Charge everything! Ipods, portable DVD player, cell phones, laptop, camera batteries, EVERYTHING.

If you don't have a corded phone, get one. If you only have cordless in the house, the house phone won't work if power's out. We have an old corded phone that we pull out when we need to. If the weather's really bad, our cell reception is sketchy inside the house.

If it's winter, and there's snow on the ground, you can stash your perishables out on the porch in a snowbank, or fill a cooler or two with snow, and put the highly perishable stuff in there.

Plenty of fuel for snow blowers, and make sure any car(s) are filled up too.

Food you can eat that does not require cooking (unless you cook with gas, and can light your range or stove without electricity).

Candles and flashlights. We have a great LCD camping lantern, and DS has a headlamp he got for camp a couple of years ago.

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

I've had that happen. I also lost all heat last year when a the main gas line in town ruptured. Make sure that you are well stocked on flashlights. A battery powered radio is another good thing to have. Have food that you can eat without heating, and that you don't have to refrigerate. I'm sure you know this, but you dont' want to open the refrigerator once the power has gone out, because if it stays shut the food can stay good for quite awhile. If you don't have heavy curtains, I would put a blanket over the windows to protect from drafts. And just have plenty of blankets anyway.

Most communities will have shelters of some kind for these types of events. Find otu where they are now since obviously you wouldn't be able to look them up online.

Set all your faucets to steady drip to help keep the water moving through. This will keep the pipes from freezing and bursting.

 

[maelstrom]

Make sure your pipes don't freeze. Then you'll have an even bigger problem on your hands.

 

[OK!]

If it's not too late, you might consider picking up a generator, too. My parents have one and had to use it for a few days a couple of years ago when they lost power during a winter storm. My mom said that the first thing my dad hooked up was the big flat-screen TV. Typical. They also hung sheets over the doorways leading down the hall and into the den to try to keep as much heat from the space heater in the living room as possible when they were in there, and she said at night they ended up with both dogs and 3 cats in bed with them.

Other than that, they have a manual can opener so they could have canned fruit and stuff, and I know they did some cooking in the fireplace. It was kinda fun for a few days, but definitely not something you'd want to have to get used to! I would so never have made it as a pioneer woman.

 

[Macca1111]

I couldn't believe the timeliness of this thread - our power was out for 3 hours tonight! I'm not sure what we would have done if it had stayed out - the temp had already dropped 8 degrees in the house. Other than that we were doing well. We lit lots of candles, and I even managed to clean my room by candlelight!

 

[manning]

Flashlight and radio that cranks.

You never want to use a stove for heat (gas) but a good time to cook a roast.

If using a generator be sure it is outside, not in the garage. Also if you are going to hook it up to the outside outlet be sure it is allowed under code. There has to be a switch that disconnects the service from the outside. Otherwise you are feeding power to the grid and that can be nasty for the lineman.

Consider flashlights that have a L.E.D. bulb. They give off a lot of light with little battery drain.

It is possible to lose cell phone service if the tower also has lost power. It happened to us once.

A goose down or something equal sleeping bag for each person. I also have a couple of goose down coats. And a goose down comforter.

Fleece is good too.

 

[DisMN]

If it's out for a while and you need to eat some of your canned goods, many of them come with the pop type lids these days but just in case you have the *old fashioned* canned goods, don't forget the old fashioned hand crank can opener. You'd be surprised how often this one is left off the lists!

We have frequent power outages in the winter but it sometimes gets so cold up here that the furnace has trouble keeping up. In either case we close off areas of the house that don't NEED to be heated to help keep the warmer air where the humans are.

Lots of blankets and candles and matches...blankets for the warmth of course and candles for the light and the little bit of heat they give off in the evening.

 

[MidgeD79]

Find someone who has electricity and move in!

 

[bicker]

One thing we were pleasantly surprised to learn here is that our electrically-ignited gas fireplace apparently holds enough of a charge to light (once) after a power outage.

 

[Ohiodislover]

Don't forget to have a non-electric can opener--Learned that one the hard way

We have a weather radio/flashlight/tv that plugs in and charges. It has a flashlight in it that is portable, and two built in bulbs that will light the whole room. We just keep it charged all the time in the laundry room, and it stays charged for quite a while--not days, but at least 6-7 hours.

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

My DMIL is alone now (in Michigan) and they had their share of outages in the winter-not fun..so she bought a really nice generator that is hard wired into the house. It comes on automatically as soon as the power goes out, and actually tests itself once a week. I don't know how much it cost, but my guess is that it wasn't cheap-but worth it.

 

[simonsmom]

gas for the bbq grill- a great way to cook the food before it spoils

 

[KirstenB]

We have a generator. It doesn't run the whole house, but we can run the gas fireplace (the blower is electric), the fridge, tv, etc. But one thing I do before a big storm is cook something like a turkey breast. That way, you have plenty of food for sandwiches, soup etc for a few days.

 

[HeatherC]

We luckily can use our propane fireplace for heat.

As for cooking, we use our Coleman camping stove.

Last year we had a big ice storm where we lost power for several days. With our camping equipment we were quite comfy. I made coffee in my french press. (Just boiled the water on my camp stove). I also made a huge pot of Past E Fagioli (spelling?) soup and we had the neighbors over to play games. We used our camping lanterns for light along with some candles.

 

[golfgal]

We have never lost power because of a winter storm so we are pretty lazy about preparing for one. Most of our power lines are buried and even in bad thunderstorms we MIGHT get a flicker of the lights. I think in the past 4 years we have been without power for MAYBE an hour total??

 

[hereyago]

I also say have a generator, they are life savers. We first bought a generator right before hurricane Isabel. I forgot how long power was out.

We can't use everything on it, but we can use portable fans or portable heaters. I can use a crock pot or my electric griddle thing. As well as we have the grill.

Also as another poster said, be careful not to have generator in garages as people will succumb to carbon monoxide.

We had a Nor' Easter a few weeks ago, in my resisdential area, we were out of power from Thursday night until early sunday morning.

 

[mlynn]

I can't stress this enough. If you have a generator please make sure you keep it outside and run the lines through a window/door. This is common sense but there are so many deaths a year by people putting the unit in there homes and the home filling up with CO.One of my neices in laws died 2 years ago from doing this.

 

[Misty89]

thank you all, the power outages are starting, the next county over is reporting widespread outages.
knock on wood we wil not have to worry about it.
we are stocked with the items listed we have, but no access to a generator or non powered source of heat Dh said if it got to cold in here, we would pack up and find somwhere to go that has heat.
prayers for anyone out there with this happening.