The first sixty seconds
The lights go out and the house gets quiet in a way it never is when you choose the quiet. Not silent. The refrigerator stops. The hum you forgot was always there is gone. Your phone says 34 percent. Outside, a neighbor's porch light is also dark. The outage is not just yours.
Your body wants to do something. Flip a switch. Check the breaker. Call someone. Most of these are fine. Some of them are not. The ones that are not tend to happen in the first sixty seconds, before you have taken a single breath and looked at what you actually have.
Start with three facts. How long has it been out. How many blocks are affected. How much battery you have. Everything else follows from those three.
What your instincts get wrong
The impulse to open the fridge is almost reflexive. You are not hungry. You are checking. That check costs you nothing when the power has been out for four minutes. It costs you a great deal when it becomes a habit over the next four hours.
A refrigerator that stays closed holds its temperature for roughly four hours. A full freezer holds for 48. A half-full freezer, about 24. These numbers come from the CDC and they are not approximate. They are the line between food that is safe and food that will make you sick.
The fridge is a clock. Every time you open it, you reset the timer.
The second wrong instinct is the generator. People pull it out of the garage and run it in the garage, or in the carport, or just inside the back door because it is raining. Carbon monoxide has no smell. It has no color. It does not announce itself. The CDC reports that generator-related carbon monoxide poisoning kills people in the United States every year, and the majority of those deaths happen at home, not at a job site.
The third wrong instinct is assumption. You assume it will be back in an hour. You assume the outage is small. You assume the utility already knows. None of these are guaranteed. Report your outage to your provider if you have any battery left to do it. Do not assume you are in the queue.
What you actually do, in order
This is not a list of everything that could help. It is the sequence that matters, prioritized by consequence.
- 1Account for everyone in the building. Not a headcount at dinner. Right now, before anything else.
- 2Find your light source without using your phone screen as a flashlight. A headlamp or a battery-powered lantern preserves battery. Candles are a fire risk in a high-stress, unfamiliar-dark environment and are a last option, not a first one.
- 3Keep the refrigerator and freezer closed. Put a piece of tape over the handle if it helps you remember. The four-hour clock starts now.
- 4Unplug or switch off sensitive electronics: televisions, computers, anything with a power supply that can be damaged by a surge when the grid comes back. Leave one lamp switched on so you know when power is restored.
- 5Check on neighbors who are elderly, have medical equipment, or live alone. A power outage is a medical event for some households. It is an inconvenience for yours.
- 6Report your outage to your utility provider. Most have text or app options that do not require much battery.
- 7Tune to a battery-powered or hand-crank weather radio for updates. Your local emergency management will broadcast timelines and any associated hazards.
FEMA recommends keeping a battery-powered or hand-crank radio specifically because it does not depend on the same infrastructure that just failed [1]. The CDC adds that if you use a generator, power washer, or any gasoline-powered engine, it must be kept at least 20 feet from windows and doors [2].
Prepared is not a thing you are in the moment. It is a thing you already were.
Test Your Decision-Making
It's the middle of a summer heatwave. Temperatures have been above 100F for three days. The power goes out in your neighborhood, and your air conditioning stops. You have a portable generator in the garage. What do you do with the generator?
Be honest. No one's watching.
When the situation is not straightforward
Most power outages resolve in hours. Some do not. The protocol above covers the first phase. What follows covers the branches.
Extreme heat or cold. A house loses heat faster than most people expect. In a cold climate, without heat, interior temperatures can drop to unsafe levels within hours if the outside temperature is low enough. If you have a wood stove or fireplace you know how to use safely, now is the time. If not, gather everyone into one interior room, use body heat and layers, and know the location of your nearest warming shelter before you need it. Your local emergency management broadcasts this.
Medical equipment. Oxygen concentrators, nebulizers, home dialysis equipment, and powered wheelchairs all require electricity. If anyone in your home depends on powered medical equipment, contact your utility in advance to register as a medical baseline customer. Most utilities maintain a list. Being on it does not guarantee priority, but it creates a record. If the outage extends beyond what your backup battery can cover, your local fire department is trained for this.
Medication refrigeration. Most medications that require refrigeration are more stable than the packaging implies, but the margin varies. The standard guidance is to contact your pharmacist or physician as soon as you have reason to believe a medication has been above its required temperature range. Do not make assumptions in either direction.
Extended outage, over 24 hours. If the fridge has been closed, the four-hour window has passed, and you have a food thermometer, use it. The CDC's rule is direct: discard any refrigerated food that has been above 40°F for more than two hours. If you do not have a thermometer, default to discarding perishables. Food poisoning on top of a power outage is not a situation to test your tolerance for.
Never use a generator, grill, camp stove or other gasoline, propane, natural gas or charcoal-burning devices inside a home, garage, basement, crawlspace or any partially enclosed area.
Downed power lines. If lines are down near your home, assume they are live. Stay back at least 30 feet. Do not touch any object that is in contact with a downed line, including a car or a fence. Call 911 and then your utility, in that order.
When the power comes back
The moment the lights return, there is a small window where most people stop thinking. They feel the relief and they are done. The work is not quite done.
Check your freezer and refrigerator. If food has ice crystals and is still below 40°F, it is safe. If it smells off, if the texture has changed, if you are not certain, you already know the answer. The CDC's rule has no exceptions for 'probably fine.'
Let sensitive electronics stabilize before you plug them back in. The surge at restoration is real. Give it a few minutes.
Then: charge everything. Your phone. Your backup battery. The headlamp you found in a drawer and will probably put back in the same drawer. Charge it anyway.
The people who handle outages well are not the ones with the biggest generator. They are the ones who already knew where the flashlight was.
The grid went down. It came back. The gap between those two moments is where you found out what you had already decided. Next time, you will have already decided more.