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The two best options for safe indoor cooking are first, a single burner butane stove, for about $25, plus some cans of butane, which last forever. Second is a Sterno stove, which is usually foldable, and some cans of Sterno. Both are compact, inexpensive, and totally safe indoors.
For your phone and other USB devices, the battery pack is a nice idea - IF you always keep it charged! Even that will draw down quickly, so you might want to get a compact folding solar panel of 15 to 20 watts. These are often used by backpackers and hikers, and are pretty reasonable.
For really cheap, you can get an adapter that lets you charge USB devices with your 12v car charger. I also recommend a 12v "power center", usually a jump starter as well, but with 110v AC, 12v DC, and USB connections.
BTW, I live full time off grid, so every day's a power outage for me!
Yes, I think a burner butane stove, for about $25 would be perfect. I'm going to check that out for sure. The compact folding solar panel sounds interesting too. But from what I understand, solar power is pretty hit and miss here in Oregon. A lot of the RV people here often find their solar panels to be worthless in the winter time, and have to resort to using generators.
Most of the year it is not as warm here as Puerto Rico is. I have a chest freezer loaded with frozen dinners that I buy when they are sale. I'm sure I could keep everything frozen for 24 hours with no power. After that I expect I would start to lose some of the food. The rest would be in various degrees of coldness. I'm not really sure how many days it would last. It's not something I want to test. But if I decided to get a portable gas generator, I could probably hook that up to the freezer a couple of times a day to get it cold again. In that case I could keep it cold until I run out of gas.
One tip on your chest freezer. The fuller it is with frozen stuff the longer it will stay frozen. If you only have it half full, fill gallon milk jugs or other bottles with potable water and freeze them, long before the winter storms. Fill the bottom with them if you have room. Take up any spare space. The large blocks of ice in the jugs will help keep the freezer cold. When they do thaw, if your power is still out, they are at least another source of potable water.
One tip on your chest freezer. The fuller it is with frozen stuff the longer it will stay frozen. If you only have it half full, fill gallon milk jugs or other bottles with potable water and freeze them, long before the winter storms. Fill the bottom with them if you have room. Take up any spare space. The large blocks of ice in the jugs will help keep the freezer cold. When they do thaw, if your power is still out, they are at least another source of potable water.
Yeah, my freezer is usually pretty full. I think it would take a while for it to all defrost. Even after it defrosted, it would still be somewhat cold for a while. That's what started me thinking about this. If I was stuck here with no power and all the frozen food, all I would need is some way of heating the food. I think the butane stove that Nor'Eastah mentioned would take care of that problem.
The next biggest issue for you might be heat, if it's really cold... How will you stay warm? There are indoor *safe* propane or kerosene heaters, but you want to read about them carefully and be careful with them.
Next crisis might be toilet flushing water. If you are on city water, and are planning on having that available, it may not be.
The next biggest issue for you might be heat, if it's really cold... How will you stay warm? There are indoor *safe* propane or kerosene heaters, but you want to read about them carefully and be careful with them.
Next crisis might be toilet flushing water. If you are on city water, and are planning on having that available, it may not be.
Heat shouldn't be much of a problem. It usually stays above freezing here. So it doesn't get that cold. If the temperature did drop, that would be my clue to take off and drive to some place with power.
As for flushing the toilet, I wouldn't expect that to be a problem in a storm. But I suppose a tsunami could take out the water treatment plant. In that case I guess I would have to go outside. Tsunamis are probably the biggest threats to me as far as natural disasters go. I'm out of the tsunami zone, but a major tsunami could flood the roads in every direction and trap me. That would be the one thing that I might not have the option to evacuate from.
How do you expect to keep frozen food frozen for a week or three? People on Puerto Rico are now facing this problem. Store freezers are starting to thaw when they ran out of diesel fuel.
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Yah, if you have a good seal on your refrigerator/freezer (a freezer with a lid that swings up would be best - keeps the cold in better) - if you can get some dry ice - frozen CO2 - you can keep food frozen for a while. Weeks, actually, if you can avoid opening the freezer door - but it will be hard frozen.
Mind your fingers, don't touch the stuff directly - your fingers will adhere to it. Extended power outages in the Southwest - dry ice can be handy. Try the places that cater to long-haul trucks - call first, see if they'll sell you some small chunks. & take a cooler or something to transport it in.
The cooler is important - in a small space (like a small car), if CO2 melts, the CO2 could put you out. Just be careful with it. (Or you can keep a car window cracked.) Good luck.
Most of the year it is not as warm here as Puerto Rico is. I have a chest freezer loaded with frozen dinners that I buy when they are sale. I'm sure I could keep everything frozen for 24 hours with no power. After that I expect I would start to lose some of the food. The rest would be in various degrees of coldness. I'm not really sure how many days it would last. It's not something I want to test. But if I decided to get a portable gas generator, I could probably hook that up to the freezer a couple of times a day to get it cold again. In that case I could keep it cold until I run out of gas.
Even though it isn't as warm as Puerto Rico, it can still be quite warm in the summer. Every time you open that freezer, you lose coolness. I'd be like taking a whole turkey and placing it inside your fridge. How long does it take to thaw? 3 days? But remember that the fridge stays around 40 degrees. Your freezer will lose temps or gain temps fairly quickly.
We have family in Puerto Rico, and it has not been fun. They don't have cell phones right now (now power and the towers have been damaged where they live).
We haven't heard from them since Marie and it was 4 days after Irma before they had cell phones working.
We live in bush Alaska off the road. If it's winter, it'll be a challenge to stay alive (heating issues) but we use can food. Lots of canned salmon. We did it ourselves, and we have lots of dehydrated veggies.
I'm now working on water (our water has to be treated, and I need a better system for emergencies) and supplementary heating.
Canned foods are your friend as are hiking stoves.
I already set myself up for extended power loss. I have a whole house 15KW generator and a 100gal propane tank. Using it efficiently it could last a couple of weeks. If I lived in a higher risk area I would have a larger propane tank.
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Good to think ahead
