If the power goes out for an extended period of time, it would behoove you not to open the freezer unnecessarily. You could rearrange your stock and bring some of the frozen stuff into the freezer section of the fridge in the house. We ended up with a boatload of freezer packs that I keep in the bottom of our freezer...if wouldn't hurt to freeze some large blocks of ice to have as drinking water and to keep the cold stuff from spoiling.
we have two fridge/freezers; garage and inside the kitchen.
our powerlines are below ground so we are less susceptible to outages but not immune. we had flickers in the last storm, a few in a row in series.
all beverages are kept in the garage which is ambient temp, cold. so we have plenty of fluids now as daughter just hit costco for 4 cases of H2O. Costco wasn't limiting water sales. but the gas lines were huge. i just filled up to full JIC.
strategy is to eat the house fridge first and canned foods without having to open any freezers. i am budgeting 2-3 days of no power which would be extraordinary for us from 20+ years in this home and 30+ years in Sacramento/SMUD service area.
backup plan 1 is kitchen freezer. backup plan 2 is garage freezer.
i already have 3 friends that offered for me to cook their meats if they lost power in their single fridge home in excess of 2 days no power. between wood for live cooking, bags of briqs and actual charcoal, we can survive weeks without power for food needs.
for me to run my business, i can drive to any place that has power and work remote via laptop and VoIP phones.
I think we're well prepared here. hopefully overprepared.
winds are already picking up. drove around some tumbleweeds to get costco gas. this will be an interesting 48 hours.
thanks for all your tips. much appreciated.
