Power Outage at Home: What to Do and What Not to Do

First Minutes: What to Do Right Away

When the lights go out, the most useful thing you can do first is stay calm and check the basics. Find out whether the outage is just your home or the whole neighborhood — a quick look outside at streetlights and neighbors’ houses, or a call to your utility, usually answers that. If it is only your home, check your breaker box for a tripped breaker before assuming it is a wider outage.

Next, gather light and information. Use flashlights rather than candles where possible, keep a charged phone and a portable charger handy, and have a battery-powered or hand-crank radio nearby for updates if cell service gets spotty. Ready.gov advises taking an inventory of the items in your home that rely on electricity, and planning for batteries and other alternative power sources, such as a portable charger or power bank, before an outage happens.

Then protect your home’s electronics. Disconnect appliances and electronics to avoid damage from electrical surges when power returns, since power often flickers on and off before it settles. Leave one lamp switched on so you can tell immediately when power is back.

If heat or cold is extreme, do not try to ride it out at home at all costs. Go to a community location with power if heat or cold is extreme, and check with local officials about heating and cooling locations open near you. Checking on neighbors, especially older adults living alone, is one of the most valuable things you can do during a neighborhood outage.

Food: The 4-Hour Rule That Protects Your Fridge

Food safety is where most people make expensive mistakes during an outage, and the rule is simpler than it feels. Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible while the power is out. Every opening lets cold air out and shortens the safe window.

The numbers from the CDC are worth memorizing. Your refrigerator will keep food safe for up to 4 hours without power if you do not open the door. A full freezer will keep food safe for 48 hours without power, and a half-full freezer for 24 hours, as long as the door stays closed.

After 4 hours without power, throw out perishable foods in your refrigerator — meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk and leftovers. Throw out any food with an unusual smell, color or texture. For the freezer, you can safely refreeze or cook thawed food that still contains ice crystals or feels as cold as if refrigerated. The CDC’s rule of thumb is blunt and worth following: never taste food to know if it is safe to eat — when in doubt, throw it out.

A few practical moves help before the next outage. Keep a thermometer in your fridge so you can check whether food is still at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below. Buy ice early in a long outage to keep food or medicines in coolers. And use food supplies that do not require refrigeration first, so the perishables you do keep last as long as possible.

Generators and Heating: The Deadly Mistakes to Avoid

The most dangerous part of a power outage is rarely the dark — it is unsafe heating and generator use. Use a generator, but ONLY outdoors and away from windows. Running a generator indoors or in a garage, even with the door open, can fill a home with carbon monoxide, an invisible and odorless gas that can kill. People who are sleeping or who have been drinking alcohol can die from carbon monoxide poisoning before ever having symptoms.

The same rule applies to other fuel-burning equipment. Do not use a gas stove or oven to heat your home. Ready.gov warns that it increases the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, and it also increases the risk of fires, burns and damage to the appliance. Do not use outdoor stoves, grills or camp stoves inside for cooking or heating either.

If someone shows signs of carbon monoxide poisoning — headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea or confusion — call 911 or your local Poison Control Center at 1-800-222-1222 right away, and get the person into fresh air. A working carbon monoxide alarm with battery backup is one of the cheapest life-saving devices in a home, and it belongs on the same checklist as smoke alarms.

For warmth without power, the safe approach is boring and effective: layer clothing, use blankets and sleeping bags, close off one small room to concentrate warmth, and keep curtains closed at night. Never leave candles burning unattended, and keep them away from curtains, bedding and children.

Medical Devices, Medicines and Water

If anyone in your household depends on electrically powered medical equipment, an outage needs a plan made in advance, not improvised in the dark. Have alternate plans for refrigerating medicines or using power-dependent medical devices, and register with your utility’s medical baseline or life-support program before an outage occurs, so you appear on priority restoration lists where those programs exist.

Keep at least a few days of essential medicines on hand, know how long each device runs on battery backup, and know the nearest location with power — a library, community center or hospital — where you can recharge or seek help. If a device is life-sustaining and its battery is running low, do not wait: seek a powered location or call emergency services.

Water needs attention too. When power goes out, water purification systems may not be functioning fully, so safe water for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene includes bottled, boiled or treated water. Your state, local or tribal health department can make specific recommendations for boiling or treating water in your area. Filling bathtubs with water before a storm is also useful for flushing toilets if pressure drops.

When Power Returns: The Checklist

When the lights come back, resist the urge to switch everything on at once. Reconnect appliances gradually to avoid another surge, and check your fridge and freezer against the 4-hour rule before eating anything — if you are unsure how long power was out, throw perishables out rather than risking it.

Restock what the outage used up: fresh batteries, flashlight bulbs, bottled water, non-perishable food, cash (ATMs and card readers often fail during outages) and any medicines that ran low. Write down what worked and what did not — a dead flashlight, a missing charger, a cooler you wished you had — and fix those gaps before the next storm.

Finally, remember that outages often come with other hazards. Flooding, fallen trees and damaged roads can follow the same storm that cut power, so check local guidance before driving. Preparedness guides for other seasonal hazards, such as our report on the Southern California king tides flood warning, follow the same principle as this one: official guidance, simple steps, and no guesswork. And just as with seasonal health steps covered in our flu vaccine guide for adults over 50, the best time to prepare is before you need it — not during the outage itself.

What we know: the 4-hour fridge rule, the 48-hour full-freezer rule, the generator-outdoors-only rule and the Poison Control number above all come from CDC and Ready.gov guidance. What we don’t know in any given outage: how long power will stay out, which is exactly why the safe defaults — doors closed, generator outside, perishables discarded after 4 hours — are worth following every time.