Keeping Foods Cold Without Electricity

By Reality Check (Guest Post)

Your ideas about ice only work if you have moved all frozen food to the fridge or have nothing but ice in your freezer. Otherwise, you will speed up the defrosting of your frozen foods with opening and closing the door in addition to the removal of the ice.

BEFORE the storm hits you should fill up several gallon jugs you've saved from old milk or juice containers with water. More depending on the size of your family so you have adequate drinking, bathing and flushing waters for at least 4-5 days. Figure on a few gallons per person. Don't forget to include pets in your head counts!

Also, BEFORE the storm hits, put ALL of your freezer packs into your freezer and make as much ice as possible, rotating your trays as quickly as you can. Then you're prepared to help keep your essentials safely cool for at least a few days. Organize your fridge and freezer before the storm so you know exactly where everything is and can grab things quickly. Keep the foods loaded with preservatives (if you have any) towards the back so you use up the fresh and more easily perishable foods first.

People always run to the store and fight over the last can of pineapple before a storm but they seldom prepare adequately.

Saving the jugs costs you nothing and if the storm isn't that bad; use the water for your garden, etc instead of throwing down the sink especially if you're in a drought prone area.

In the spirit of preparation, you should also make certain you have adequate candles, matches and batteries/flashlights. I'm more of a fan of candles as there is no toxic waste produced from batteries which people rotate just to "be safe". It's also much cheaper and can double as a helpful fire starter if you have a fireplace or BBQ you need to use for cooking.

By Carol (Guest Post)

Good idea. Plus if you know the storm might be coming your way, you can freeze a huge block of ice in the same hospital container or a couple of empty plastic milk 'jugs'. Another idea....fill one bathtub up with water use this for flushing toilets, washing, drinking, etc.

By

meoowmom

Harlean,
sorry to hear about you getting Hurricane Ike.
Good tip for those to use during outages!
Annie,
Missouri