The Power Went Out at 9 p.m. By Midnight, I Knew We Weren’t Ready.
Three kids, an ice storm, and a fridge full of groceries. I thought an outage was just an inconvenience. Here’s what I changed.
The lights flickered twice during dinner, then went out for good. The whole street went dark. The kids thought it was fun for about ten minutes.
I found a flashlight in the junk drawer. The batteries were half dead. My wife asked the questions I couldn’t answer: “How long will the food last? Is the house going to get cold? Should we call your dad?”
I didn’t know any of it
I kept opening the fridge to check if it was still cold. Every time, I let more cold out.
By midnight the house was getting cold. We put the kids in one bed under every blanket we owned. I actually thought about turning on the gas oven for heat.
“I actually thought about turning on the oven for heat. I didn’t know that was one of the worst things I could do.”
Then I thought about my dad
He lives ten minutes away, alone, and sleeps with a CPAP machine. I had no idea whether it had a battery. His phone went to voicemail.
The power came back after 31 hours. We threw out most of the fridge. My dad was fine, but only because a neighbor checked on him.
A plan on paper
I wanted a plan I could follow in the dark. I found the Home Power Outage Playbook, a printable PDF, and worked through it that weekend:
- 1We printed the First-Hour Checklist. Seven steps, in order. It lives in the drawer with a working flashlight now.
- 2We learned the fridge clock. Write down the time, keep the doors shut, and use the keep-or-toss table instead of guessing.
- 3We made a plan for my dad. His device runtime, a backup, and who checks on him first.
What changed
We have lanterns instead of candles, a power station sized with the wattage worksheet, and the outage plan on the fridge.
Last month we did the Lights-Out Night Drill: one evening on outage gear only. The kids kept score. They want to do it again.
- A 7-step first-hour checklist and a guide to the first 24 hours
- The 4 / 24 / 48-hour fridge and freezer clock, plus a keep-or-toss table
- Safe light, heat and cooling, CO rules, and a medical device power plan
- Backup power compared, with a wattage worksheet and generator safety
- Bonus: The Lights-Out Night Drill
Know what to do in the first hour, before the next storm.
Get the First-Hour Checklist →