How We Lived Comfortably During a 24+ Hour Power Outage

Surviving the 2015 winter storm with a power outage in total comfort.

As I start to write this post, we are “iced in” at the house. It’s Friday and the husband can’t commute safely to work and the schools are shut down for the day. This homestead is in the Piedmont of North Carolina and though it may seem silly to this born and raised Chicagoan, it is serious to everyone else. And I do understand, the south doesn’t have the snow plows and salt trucks that the northerners are use to. The South gets one to two good storms a year and the cost for counties to carry that equipment is just not financially smart. So Southern states declare State of Emergencies and we all just sit and wait it out. The one big reason I love the South is that winter storms don’t last too long here, 2-4 days at most.

I lived in Florida for 11 years and lived through several hurricanes. Those years taught me quite a bit about prepping for weather situations. Winter storms are really not much different. Winter storms typically will knock out the power just like a hurricane. I can remember Hurricane Francis and Hurricane Jeanne, two major back to back hurricanes that hit the eastern coast of Florida. I was out of power for a week then a couple weeks later I was out of power for another week. It was the largest life lesson I could ever had gone through.

Here is what we do to prep for a power outage in the winter:

1. We charge all our phones and backup charges and keep them plugged in. It is always a good idea to have phones ready to go if you do have a serious emergency and need to call 911.
2. We all take showers. It may seem silly but if the power goes so does my useful hot water heater. I do not want to take a cold shower in the middle of winter, do you.
3. We gather all candles and headlamps for light. Night comes quickly in winter and it gets dark in my house with all our heavy drapes drawn shut. We keep candles in the few rooms being used often like the family room and kitchen. With little kids, I need to keep the candles up high so I don’t light many. The adults get the headlamps for hands-free ease of light around the rest of the house. Our camping gear comes in handy for light as well. We take out our solar inflatable lantern made but Luci. These are wonderful with the kids and give off a ton of light to read to or play games together or just walk around the house. I also prep our vintage oil lamps. I make sure I have plenty of wick and oil which is not a problem since I only use them in emergency situations. They are great and I personally like them better then candles because I don’t have to worry about dripping wax.
4. We gather up dry wood for outdoor cooking. My stove, ovens, and slow cookers are all electric. If the power goes so does my cooking methods. So the husband will start a fire and I will cook in my cast iron cookware over the fire. We also use our car camping propane single burner stove or backpacking butane pocket rocket cooker. Cooking food that only needs to boil water is great for the single burner stoves. It doesn’t take much effort or time at all.
5. Bake all my bread ahead of time. When a winter storm approaches, the grocery stores are packed with people buying staples like milk, bread, and eggs. Well we have chickens so we already have eggs, I keep powdered milk for emergencies like this so I have milk and I bake bread ahead so I don’t need to buy it. Making PB & J sandwiches are great for a quick lunch for the kiddos that doesn’t need to be cooked.
6. We make sure we have 1 gallon water per person. Now a power outage won’t affect my faucets directly but if the power goes and the heat gets turned off and then the pipes freeze; I essentially have no water. So we fill up all our kitchen pitchers full of water in the fridge for drinking. And have stored water in larger food grade containers which is primarily for cooking and washing. If things last a real long time, we also have our backpacking water purification system and a lake in walking distance.
7. Put our faucets on a drip. Now to try and prevent the pipes from freezing like I stated above, we put all the faucets on a slow drip. The movement of water will slow down the freezing process. I like to put a bucket or bowl under the drip to catch all the water and keep it in the fridge as well or use that water to pour down the toilet. Did you know if you pour enough water in the bowl of your toilet it will flush down the waste. Yup, this is a good method for people whose water is affected by power outages. .
8. Fill up our propane tank for our ventless fireplace. If the power goes out then our heat shuts off. This one, folks, is a big one for us and for most families who don’t live in Hawaii, Florida or California. We have a 100+-year-old home with very little insulation in the walls and single pane windows. It won’t be long at all before the interior temp goes from 68 degrees to the ’30s and ’40s. What we do is shut down the house but for two rooms; the family room and office which are joined. We don’t have open concept floor plan so we shut the doors to close off these two rooms, turn on our ventless propane logs and camp out for the night. We sleep on cots and on the couch, bundle under tons of blankets and stay cozy together as a family. It is actually my favorite part of a power outage and I look forward to it.

The snowstorm of January 2016 did effect us in a major way. We didn’t get but 1/2 inch of snow but we did get ice. And it is the ice that effected us by knocking out our power for over 24 hours. The temperature outside was in the high 20’s and inside without heat was around 48 degrees. By doing all the preparations I stated above, we lived so comfortably and happy for those cold and dark hours.

We have a 5 and 2 year old at this time. We had absolutely no problem entertaining them or ourselves. The girls played with Playdoh and read books together. We, as a family, played Scrabble and our 5 year old put on a shadow ghost story play. We actually made it educational by turning it into an Improv show. The husband and I would yell out a person/animal, a place, and a thing. And she would have to come up with a story that involved all three things. It was so much fun trying to trip her up with silly places and animals to be put into her story.

It helped tremendously that we limit their electronic usage. We only allow a small amount of TV, computer, or tablet time on a normal basis. So when these things were not able to be played with or watched, the kids never gave it a second thought.

My husband would play his guitars and finally had down time to learn how to flat-pick. He has been trying to teach himself how to read music but never has time to sit down and learn. I had several crochet projects that I needed get done so I worked on those. My husband and I actually had a long moment to sit and talk about what we want to see out of the garden. We came up with more plants we wanted to add to the yard. It doesn’t sound like much but it was very productive to sit and discuss what we wanted.

Cooking was never a problem. My husband started a fire outside and I would make up a cast iron Dutch oven pot full of chili for a hearty lunch. It was easier to start a fire when it was light outside and not so skin numbing cold. It cooked quickly and fed us for an early dinner as well. For breakfast and snacks, we turned on our camping single burner stove. I made scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast and boiled water and made soup with our dehydrate vegetables and Ramen noodles for anyone wanting just something hot in their bellies.

Our sleeping arrangements couldn’t of been simpler. We have 4 camping cots, but only needed 2, and laid them out with pillows and several blankets. My husband and 5 year old each slept on these. The baby slept in her pack n’ play also with blankets to snuggle up with and I slept on the couch. We were warm, comfy, and felt just like we were camping outside.

The true name of the game was to stay warm and happy during our “tiny house” living without needing to depend on outside help. We stayed quite toasty with our propane ventless fireplace logs. Being warm really kept the family’s spirits up. I know I felt good not freezing under a pile of blankets. And then getting upset when I would have to get out from under those blankets. With our propane tank, we could have been out of power for a good month before we ran out of gas. That would of brought us closer to Spring were we wouldn’t of needed the gas logs as much. I also had a stash of coats, hats, and scarfs for everyone going into the rest of the house. This helped to not let our body temperatures plummet too fast for the short period of time. We would be getting something from the other side of the house.

All in all, this was a great test in how much we could live without power for an uncertain amount of time. I truly didn’t know when the power would be restored and we really weren’t worried. All our neighbors were cold and miserable but we were happy and warm. I was personally glad it happened because it also made us think about our flaws. Made us think about things we would like to add to our prepping methods. To be even better equipped for things like this. I truly hope you read this post and it helps you prepare for serious weather events because it doesn’t matter where you live, things happen that you just don’t expect and being prepared is just smart!