OK - I just finished assuring our children that hurricanes do not come this far. They only affect the people who live near the ocean. Well, Ike made a liar out of me!!! We lost power for 34 hours when Ike delivered hurricane strength wind to Ohio Sunday afternoon. I must say that I was not prepared for a power outage that lasted that long. We've never had an outage last more than four hours. I could not remember how long the freezer food would be good for without power. Since we didn't have Internet access, I had no way of looking it up. Luckily, I have a friend who did have power and had lots of space in her freezer. She let us bring all of our food to her house. We are so grateful, considering we just did our freezer exchange on Tuesday of last week and I had many meals in my freezer. Thanks Kristen!!! I haven't spoken to all of our Freezer Friendz yet, but I am hoping everyone has been able to salvage their freezer food!
http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/Preparedness/PowerOutage.pdf
I am going to post links to info about how to handle power outages with your freezer food because I have learned that it's better to know how to handle the situation ahead of time. http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/Preparedness/PowerOutage.pdf
http://ohioline.osu.edu/home/freezer.html
So, what lessons did I learn from Ike?
1. Make sure you have good friends with empty freezers.
2. Learn about freezer food safety during power outages before you actually need to use that knowledge. (Or at least have it on paper somewhere.)
3. We are so blessed to have electricity!
We lost our power for six days that week. I lost all the food in my fridge and my fully packed big freezer. It was awful! I was so sad tossing all of my food away.
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