Power Outage Tips

I didn't know where else to share this. There are several good ideas that I'm going to use.

When Is the Power Coming Back On?
by Pamela Parks
Being prepared for a power outage
 
Ah, the beauty of winter! The snow gently falling, the crisp
chill in the air, the frequent power outages... We get a lot
out here. The worst was a windstorm that left our metro-region
looking like a war zone, with downed power lines and no power
for eight days. Ever since then, I've been prepared for the
next "Big One," although thankfully our power outages only
average four hours. But those four hours can be mighty
irritating, if I am just preparing dinner and the kids are
hungry. It gets worse once the kids get bored. You know what
it's like to be on a long car trip with the kids chanting,
"Are we there yet?" It's worse when they ask, "When will the
power come on?" Much worse.
 
The first thing to think about is food. I cook everything from
scratch, but that is hard to do when you have no power. So I
keep an "emergency box" in the pantry filled with all the
convenience junk foods I wouldn't normally buy like cereal,
toaster pastries, and crackers. A few things we can heat on
the woodstove, such as canned pasta, canned soup, instant
oatmeal, and ramen. The junk food is a treat to my kids, who
never get to eat it otherwise, so there is less complaining
about the power outage and more celebrating. The junk food is,
of course, only purchased on sale and never eaten unless the
power is out. "I'm too tired to cook" days don't count!
 
The worst thing you can do to your food is to open your
upright refrigerator. All the cold air spills out.
Fortunately, I have a chest-style deep freeze. I went through
my "Once-a-Month Cooking" cookbook
<http://www.stretcher.com/r/672.htm> and selected things that
would be easy to reheat on the outdoor barbecue grill. I have
those dishes in a wire pull-box in the freezer. I yank the
entire basket out and slam the door, hoping the least bit of
cold air leaks out. Then the basket gets transferred to a
camping cooler. If the power returns before I cook every
dinner, oh well, I cook them normally. Don't re-freeze
something that's started to thaw.
 
No matter how cold it is outside, never move your grill
indoors! The carbon monoxide build up is undetectable until it
reaches lethal levels.
 
For light, we have sconces at strategic spots around the
house. (We made them by sawing a shelf into 5" lengths, and
drilling a hole sized to hold a tea light glass.) IKEA sells
100 tea lights for about $4, which is a lot of light for very
little cash. If you don't want sconces, at least plan ahead
where to place your candles, so that you can light them
quickly.
 
After food and light, the next big challenge is keeping the
kids entertained.  I'm trying desperately to run a paperless
house (ha ha), and I made the mistake one time of having all
the interesting craft projects on the computer. That's not
much help during a power outage. Now I keep a three-ring
binder on the bookshelf. It has craft projects, sewing and
knitting patterns, a list of radio stations (because who can
remember all of them?), and ideas for games to play. The kids
love the drama games that I stole from British Television show
"Whose Line is it Anyway?" and the list of "200+ Ideas For
Summertime Fun"
<http://www.stretcher.com/stories/03/03jul21h.cfm> that I
copied off of The Dollar Stretcher site. Also good are those
classic car games such as I Spy and 20 Questions.
 
My binder also has a "menu" for meal ideas and recipes for
things that are easy to do on the grill, such as Powwow bread,
camp bread, quick fried taters, refried beans, etc.
 
In the pantry box, snuggled among the junk food, we keep other
items so that everything is together. We keep a few book
lights, the kind you clip to your book so that you can read in
the dark, a battery-powered radio, and a packet of glow sticks
I got on sale at the dollar store after the 4th of July. The
kids love putting them on and dancing around when it gets
dark. Most important of all is a cheap flashlight for each
child. That changes the darkness into an adventure.
 
One of the most important things I have in the folder is the
phone number for the power company. They have a saying, "We
don't know until you call." They take power outages very
seriously, and their emergency line tells me what number
person I am to report the outage, if they know what caused it,
and if they have an estimated time of repair. After the big
windstorm of several years ago, we could see how hard the
utility workers were doing their job. 

P.S. from Megan-always keep a pair of shoes and flashlight at your bed, because disasters are most likely to occur at night and you need those 2 things!