Preparing for Blackouts

When it comes to power outages, you have to consider what the main risks for you are, and how long the power outage is going to be. If you’re living in a developed country, chances are that your power is pretty reliable, and maybe only goes out for a few hours at a time perhaps once or twice a year. For situations like these, you probably don’t really need to prepare at all. It will just be a mild inconvenience—you light some candles, eat some cold canned beans, and maybe read a book or play a board game with your family.

But what if the power outage lasts more than a few hours? What if it lasts days, or even weeks? What if it’s not just your house, but your whole neighborhood, city, or region? Those in hurricane-prone regions probably already have an idea of what to do. But events like the 2021 Texas Freeze and the Carrington Event (a solar storm) show the rest of us just how dangerous events like these can be, and how they can happen even in places where you wouldn’t expect.

So what can you do? Here are some of the main considerations you’ll need to make when preparing for a days-long power outage.

How will you stay warm/cool?

Many people rely on electricity for their heating and cooling systems, and not just for comfort—many need it to live. How long do you think you could last in -20F or 120F weather? You may think that you won’t need to worry about it since the chance of a power outage happening at the same time as a cold snap or heat wave seems pretty low. But in fact, if everyone is using their heating and cooling systems at full blast, that places abnormal strain on the grid that can actually lead to a power outage on its own! So you’ll definitely need to have a plan.

Note that even if you have a gas heating system, you might not be safe! Many gas furnaces still require electricity to run the thermostat and blower fan, as well as to start up. If you’re not sure whether your system will continue to run during a power outage, turn off your house’s power at the breaker box and see if it works. You’d rather know now than in the middle of a blizzard. If it doesn’t work, see if there’s a way to hook it up to a generator or large battery in order to get it started.

Likewise, that old fireplace you have might not be a great backup if you’re not sure how to use it, and especially not if you don’t have a ton of wood for it! And in the end, they’re not terribly efficient at heating a house, either.

For staying warm, I recommend the following:

• Keep a large amount of warm clothes and blankets around.
• Try to keep everyone in the same part of the house, so that you can concentrate everyone’s body heat in one place. Close the doors, obviously.
• Try to make that area extra insulated; consider taping a layer of plastic wrap or garbage bags over your windows to create makeshift “double-paned” windows. Maybe stuff a towel under the door too.
• Consider sleeping in a tent on the floor or your mattress; the even smaller area will stay even warmer from your body heat.
• Make sure you have some sort of cooking method. This will allow you to make warm drinks and foods. A basic camp stove and some propane tanks will suffice.
  • Do NOT use a camp stove, barbeque, etc. inside, because they produce harmful gases (like carbon monoxide) that can kill you.
  • Do NOT rely on butane, because butane does not burn below 32F. Propane burns at much lower temperatures.
  • If your kitchen has a natural gas range, you may do some light cooking with it; many will work even without power, though you may need to light it yourself since the auto-light feature is probably electric.
    • If you do this, crack a window and make sure you have a functioning carbon monoxide detector (battery-powered), because stoves produce harmful gases that need to be vented outside, and you won’t be able to use your vent hood fan if the power is out.
    • Do NOT just leave a gas range on inside to heat your house, because they are not designed to be used like this, and too many harmful gases may build up (or oxygen may be depleted) and silently suffocate you.
    • I wouldn’t rely entirely on your regular stove though, since cold snaps and power outages might affect the natural gas lines as well. It’s best to keep some propane tanks as a backup.
• If you want to warm up your house with propane, consider a portable indoor propane heater, such as the Mr. Heater. These burn propane extremely efficiently so that they don’t produce much in the way of harmful gases, and can therefore be used inside.
• You can try warming up in your car, but again, only run it in a well-ventilated area! Do NOT run it in a closed garage! Preferably, move it out to the driveway or street. You may wish to keep some extra gasoline on hand.
  • This will be more effective if you insulate the windows, e.g. with plastic wrap, garbage bags, wadded-up newspaper, styrofoam, etc.
• Consider moving to another building if you can get there safely—your neighbor’s house, your office, or even a public building (such as a library or grocery store). If they have power/heat, great! If not, at least you can pool resources (and body heat) and get through it together.
• You can even consider evacuating if things get bad enough, but if it’s that cold, chances are that are roads are going to be treacherous, so I’d recommend this as a last resort.
• Use a generator to keep your heating system running, assuming it’s a gas unit that just needs a little bit of power for the fan and controls. If you use electric heating, it’s probably more efficient to use a portable propane heater, like I mentioned earlier. More on generators later.

Staying cool can be a little bit harder since you can’t just make a fire or something, but there are still some options.

For staying cool, I recommend the following:

• Consider building a swamp cooler. You may be able to use a battery-powered (or generator-powered) fan to run it. Note that this won’t work in extremely humid areas, though.
• Get wet! Wearing wet clothes will basically cool you down the same way that sweat would, but faster. Note that this won’t work in extremely humid areas either.
  • However, if the temperature of the water is below your body temperature, it will probably still cool you down! Tap water is often cooler than the outside temperature on hot days. Try taking a cold shower, or even going swimming!
• Use a fan! Those little battery-powered handheld ones might help, but if you want something better, consider something like a box fan hooked up to a generator or battery (more on these later).
  • Combining a fan with wet clothes is essentially turning your own body into a swamp cooler!
  • Note that fans won’t help if temperatures and humidity are high enough; even with a wet shirt, you’ll only be cooled down to the wet bulb temperature.
• You can try cooling down in your car, but again, only run it in a well-ventilated area! Do NOT run it in a closed garage! Preferably, move it out to the driveway or street. You may wish to keep some extra gasoline on hand.
  • This will be more effective if you put aluminum foil (or similar) in the windows in order to reflect sunlight. You can even insulate the windows on top of that, e.g. with plastic wrap, garbage bags, wadded-up newspaper, styrofoam, etc.
• Consider evacuating to somewhere cooler or somewhere with air conditioning. Sometimes public buildings like libraries, hospitals, grocery stores, etc. will still have power and air conditioning even if you don’t. A neighbor or friend might still have power as well.
• If you still have anything cold in your freezer, consider holding it against your body (e.g. frozen peas) to cool down. Then once it’s defrosted, you can just eat it!
  • You can even keep a bunch of water bottles in your freezer specifically for this purpose! Just make sure to dump out at least 10% of the water before putting them in, or they might explode (since ice expands).
• If a nearby store still sells ice or cool beverages, consider buying some. Power outages often don’t hit every single building in an area, and many stores also have backup generators.
• Use a generator to keep your normal cooling system running. More on this later.

Water and food

In a cold snap, water pipes may freeze. You’ll want to make sure you have enough water stored in containers to get through. FEMA recommends storing at least one gallon of water per person, per day for at least 2 weeks. For a family of four, that means storing at least 56 gallons of water! I recommend getting a heavy-duty shelf or two, putting it in a closet or basement, and filling it with water containers. You don’t have to do it all at once; an easy way to prepare is to just buy a gallon or two every time you go to the grocery store. If you’re more serious though, I recommend getting some dedicated emergency water containers, since they will be more durable and space-efficient.

If you’re on well water, you have some other options—you can get a backup power source for your well pump (more on generators and solar panels here), or you can even get backup pumps that can be operated by hand. But it’s still not a bad idea to have some emergency water storage too!

As for food, the contents of your fridge and freezer might go bad during a prolonged power outage—fridges often only keep food cold for about 4 hours after an outage, even if you don’t open them. Freezers—especially chest freezers—can last longer, but still only for a couple of days. So if spoiling food is something you’re concerned about, then here are some tips.

• Don’t open the doors more often or for longer than you have to.
• Consider getting a chest freezer. Since they open from the top, they don’t lose as much cold air every time you open them.
• If you have lots of extra space in your fridge and freezer, consider filling them with water bottles. During a power outage, the bottles will make your fridge and freezer work just like a cooler full of ice, allowing the contents to stay cold for days. Just make sure to dump out some of the water before putting them in the freezer, or they might explode.
  • You can pull frozen water bottles from your freezer and put them into your fridge to help your fridge stay cold longer.
  • Don’t fill your fridge/freezer too full, or else the cold air might not have enough room to circulate inside, causing “cold spots” and “hot spots” inside.
  • The cold water (or even frozen water, if it’s not freezing outside too) can also double as emergency water!
• If it’s cold outside, you can just put your food outside directly instead of keeping in in the fridge/freezer (where it will gradually warm to the same temperature as your house). Just make sure you keep it in bins or something so that it’s protected from bugs, animals, rain, etc. You might also want to hide it in a backyard or shed or something so that passersby don’t just steal it.

Phones and other small devices

After shelter, water, and food, the most important thing for many people is their phones. And this makes sense; not only can you use it for entertainment, but you can also use it during an emergency to get weather forecasts, view power outage information, find resources, call for help, etc. Luckily, phones actually don’t use very much power, so it’s pretty easy to keep them charged!

Here’s what I recommend for keeping your phone charged:

• Use “battery saver” mode, even if your battery is mostly full. Many phones will automatically turn on battery saver mode when the battery gets low, but you can usually go into the settings and turn it on manually.
• When you’re not actively using it, consider turning on airplane mode, which will save even more battery. You can even consider turning your phone off entirely.
• Many phones (especially older ones) will lose battery or die entirely if they get too cold. You can often extend battery life by warming up the phone, e.g. by placing it inside your jacket pocket.
• Get a USB battery! I personally have one of these and I love it. It’s great because it can charge directly off of a wall or via micro-USB, and it has built-in micro-USB, USB-C, and Lightning cables in order to charge practically any smartphone. Plus an extra regular USB-A port, so you can use your own cable too. It’s very compact and easy to carry around, and holds enough charge to recharge most smartphone batteries about twice.
• Consider getting an even larger portable battery system, such as this one. Systems like these are way bigger than a USB battery and can keep a smartphone charged for months. Plus, you can often plug in even larger devices, such as laptops, fans, CPAP machines, etc. (though usually not power-hungry stuff like space heaters, air conditioners, hotplates, and refrigerators).
• Consider getting some portable solar panels! There exist smaller systems suitable or charging a phone or small USB battery, as well as larger ones that can recharge those larger handheld battery systems. We’ll also touch on larger fixed solar installations below.
• Consider charging stuff with your car! You’ve probably seen those little USB chargers that you can plug into the 12V ports in your car, but you can also get larger “inverters” that provide 120V wall plugs. These are powerful enough to power small devices like laptops, similar to the larger handheld battery systems described above.

When it comes to other small devices, they’ll probably either charge via USB, or need AA/AAA batteries. For devices that use AA/AAA batteries (or similar), I recommend keeping a stash of rechargeable ones (instead of single-use ones), because then you can’t just “run out” of batteries—you can reuse them for years! You can use a USB battery charger (hooked up to a larger battery system) or a regular battery charger (plugged into a generator) to keep them charged. I personally like this USB charger, because not only can you charge it from just about any source (because it’s USB), but you can actually run it in reverse and use the AA or AAA batteries inside it to charge another USB device, such as your phone. This will allow you to use even non-rechargeable AA or AAA batteries to charge your phone, which can be useful in a pinch!

Lights

Speaking of AA/AAA batteries, chances are that you’re going to be using these to power your light sources. Sure, you can use the flashlight on your phone, but it’s really not ideal for the longer term, especially if you need to light up a room, see outside in the rain, or use your hands. For this reason, I recommend having a headlamp for each person so that you can get around and light up whatever you’re working on hands-free. It’s also nice to have an electric lantern or two for area lighting. You can use flashlights if you want, but having to hold a flashlight all the time is really annoying, since you lose the use of one of your hands.

Hand-crank chargers

These can work for small lights and radios, but not very well—and don’t even think about charging your phone with one. They’re crazy inefficient, and you have better things to do than crank for 3 hours to get 1% charge. Just get a generator or solar panel or something instead, or even just more batteries.

Generators and solar panels

I felt like these deserved their own article, so here it is! You may wish to skim through it first and then come back here.

Intro to Generators and Solar Panels

Summary

That was a lot of text! But the short of it this. Chances are that during a power outage, you will probably survive, assuming there’s not a massive heat wave or cold snap at the same time. And even if there is, there is usually something you can do to stay cool/warm with strategies and stuff that you already know/have. For many, a power outage is simply an inconvenience. But if you do want to minimize the inconvenience without breaking the bank, there are a couple of small things you can pick up to make life easier.

Budget picks

Here are the things that I would mark as top priorities. You can probably pick all of this up for about $100.

• Emergency water (preferably at least a dozen gallons per person)
• A basic camp stove and a few 1lb propane tanks
• A USB battery
• A headlamp and extra batteries

Luxury picks

If you have a couple thousand to spend, here are some extra things I would recommend:

• A portable propane heater (if you live in an area where deadly cold is a concern)
• Some 20lb propane tanks (instead of 1lb tanks)
  • These let you can use stoves and heaters for longer without swapping out tanks. Plus, you can refill them cheaply, and they’re more compact as well.
• A 20lb-tank-to-1lb-device adapter hose for devices that accept 1lb propane tanks
  • These let you run your stove/heater directly from the larger tanks.
  • You need to confirm that the device you are using can accept the higher pressure of a 20lb tank. The Mr. Heater I linked earlier and this camp stove both work with 20lb tanks (you can’t use the cheaper camp stove I mentioned earlier because it uses the 1lb tank as a structural base).
  • Note that the hose I mentioned is “oil-free”, which means you don’t need to attach a fuel filter onto the device before connecting the hose. Other hoses may require a filter.
• An electric lantern and maybe some extra headlamps.
• A battery charger, along with rechargeable batteries
  • Make sure you have batteries that fit your headlamps, lanterns, etc.
  • Eneloop is widely considered to be a reliable brand for rechargeable batteries; cheaper ones may die quickly or not hold a charge.
  • Again, I like the USB charger model I linked because you can run it in reverse to charge USB devices with either rechargeable or disposable batteries.
• A portable battery pack
• Some portable solar panels, small or large (or both)
• A generator
• A portable air conditioner that can run off of your generator/battery, if you live in an area where deadly heat is a concern
  • Preferably, get a window unit or a 2-hose portable model (not a 1-hose portable model), as they are more efficient

The Readyist’s Personal Choices

Personally, I live in an area where power outages, heat waves, and cold snaps are all uncommon, and even if they did happen, I would probably be ok. But just in case, I do keep everything in the lists above (except a generator and portable A/C unit) just in case, because I would much rather ride out a blackout my own house than try to evacuate somewhere, especially because I actually don’t own a car (I live in a big city).

My plan for a cold snap is to just use blankets and clothes, and if I really need to, I can use propane to heat water for warm drinks, or even use a propane heater. And for heat waves, I can take cold showers or head to one of my city’s cooling centers if I really need to.

A solar generator system just seems too expensive to me for something that I would only use during emergencies. And while a generator might make an emergency situation easier (while also being cheaper than solar), I just don’t want to deal with the hassle and maintenance of owning one. And if I wouldn’t keep it in good working order, it might not do me any good in an emergency anyway! It’s important to be honest with yourself, and just do what you can instead of making everything perfect. If you’re in a similar situation, you might want to follow the same strategy!