Power Outage Gear: What You Need for the First Hour, the First Night and the First Week

In the order you will reach for it: headlamps and a lantern, a power bank and a radio for the first hour; stored water, a camp stove with propane, blankets and cold rated sleeping bags for the first night; a power station or generator, fuel, two-way radios, cash, medications and hygiene supplies for the week. Buy in that order and the first purchases cover the most common outages.

Check whether it is just you: look at the neighbors and the breaker panel. Report it to the utility so the outage is on their map. Keep the fridge and freezer shut. Put a headlamp on every person and a lantern on the table. Unplug the computer and TV so the surge when power returns does not take them. Turn the radio on, fill the bathtub if the water is on a pump, and start the stove only when it is dark enough to need dinner.

About 4 hours in the fridge if the door stays closed. A full freezer holds 48 hours, a half full one 24. After that, anything that has been above 40 degrees for more than two hours gets thrown out. A thermometer in each one tells you instead of guessing. A generator run two hours in the morning and two in the evening keeps both cold for as long as the fuel lasts.

One big enough to charge every phone in the house for several days. I use the Anker 548: 60,000 mAh, or 192 watt hours, with 60 watt and 27 watt USB-C ports, so it charges a laptop as well as phones, more than ten phone charges per fill. It recharges from a folding solar panel through the same cable, has a built-in light and an SOS strobe. Keep it topped up; a power bank at 30 percent when the lights go out is half a power bank.

A rechargeable LED lantern that lights the whole room on low for days and has a USB port to charge a phone. Mine is the Devos LightRanger: up to 1,200 lumens, up to 80 hours on the low setting, USB-C charging to full in about 3.5 hours, IPX6 waterproof, and it works as a power bank. One per room you will actually use, plus a headlamp per person.

Because card readers, ATMs and most registers stop with the power. The store that stays open sells fuel, ice and food for cash, in small bills, because nobody can make change for a hundred. A few hundred dollars in fives, tens and twenties in the document box is the cheapest piece of outage gear you will own.

A two burner propane camp stove on 1 pound bottles or a 20 pound tank with an adapter hose, used outside, on the porch, or at a wide open window. Gas grills and camp stoves make carbon monoxide; every winter storm kills people who bring one into the kitchen or the garage. A gas range with electronic ignition still lights with a match. A wood stove cooks and heats at the same time.

Pick one room, close the doors, hang blankets over the openings, and everyone sleeps there in cold rated sleeping bags with wool layers on. Only a heater rated for indoor use goes inside, with a window cracked and a CO alarm running, and never left burning while you sleep. Let the faucets drip and open the cabinet doors under sinks so the pipes do not freeze. A furnace blower on a generator or a wood stove is the long-term answer.