Be Prepared: Power Outage

This is the kick-off of my series Be Prepared for Winter (With Food Allergies), which will run this week.  It never hurts to be prepared in general, but with special needs involved, some planning is prudent.

There are all sorts of blogs, books and articles out there on preparedness; you can decide for yourself how prepared you would like to be in your life  – I’m only talking here about preparing to get through a blizzard!  

You may not think your circumstances warrant preparation.  Perhaps you live on a beach in Florida, or downtown in a major city.  I’ve lived and visited a lot of places in my life, and I can verify that every location has its own pitfalls.  Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, mudslides, blizzards…we all get to deal with something!

But because I live in a place with a hearty winter, where I’ve already survived two “snowed in” scenarios – one with  no electricity – I am focusing on preparing for winter conditions.  Those of you who have short, mild winters might take what you can from this and use it for the conditions you live with.

Also, I will be primarily focusing on the specific things a Food Allergy Mama needs to consider.  There are tons of brilliant articles and blogs on general preparation; my aim is to highlight the issues that may arise due to specific food needs.  Please do not take my advice as the be-all, end-all of your winter preparation plans!  

So here we go!  Part I: Power Outage.

The first step in preparing for a power outage in winter conditions is to determine what your general plan will be: will you be able to leave your home and go somewhere with electricity (hotel, family, friends) or will you be forced – due to road conditions – to stay at home?

If you can leave safely, that will almost certainly be the best action to take…but then you’ll have the consideration of packing.  As a food allergy Mama, you know that finding the proper ingredients to feed your kiddos can be a challenge!  So make sure to pack your car as full as you can to survive 2-3 weeks worth of cooking in someone else’s kitchen.  (Of course, that means you’ll need to have 2-3 weeks worth of ingredients already on hand in your kitchen!  See Part II of this series for more details!)

If your child is highly allergic sensitive, you may consider also packing any cooking utensils you may need to avoid cross-contamination issues.  Think through what your needs are in this respect, and jot down a “abandon the house packing list” for your kitchen needs to have on hand in case you’re suddenly faced with hitting the road.

For those FAM’s (Food Allergy Mama’s) that have children still on formula, don’t forget to pack the formula and extra bottles and nipples.

Nursing FAM’s often stockpile milk in their freezer.  If you’re leaving your home, you have to decide if your milk will stay frozen in the freezer or if you want to bring it with you.  Check the stats on your personal freezer; most companies will tell you how long to expect it to retain temperature in power outage situations.  Then you have to decide whether it is worth the risk or not.  (Personally, I’m taking it with me.  Liquid gold, baby!)

If you’re going to a family or friends house, they’ll probably be more than happy to toss your milk into their freezer for your stay.  If you’re going to a hotel, you’ll need to call ahead and make sure they have a freezer/refrigerator for you to use.

Don’t forget to pack any ER forms, medical records or treatment plans for your kiddos, such as what most FPIES Mama’s have around!  The last thing you need is to be out of your home for the duration and have to endure an ER visit over a reaction without the documentation needed to make the hospital stay bearable!

If the roads are too dangerous and you must stay at home, you have a whole new set of issues to deal with.  The primary considerations in a power outage in winter weather are heat, food, and lighting.

So make a plan for how to keep warm and how to light your house in the evenings (and sometimes in the grey, overcast daytime).  For the FAM, though, you need to think ahead to how you will 1.) feed your food allergic kiddo and 2.) save any milk or medicines you have stored in the fridge and freezer.  

I’ll be going into greater detail about food preparation in Part III of this series, but for now I’ll simply plant the idea of thinking through how you could keep your medicines and pumped milk safely within temperature range in the event you lost power.

It might sound like a silly thing to mention when talking about losing power in a winter storm, but I have lived through two winter storms that knocked everything in our area out, and then promptly had lovely weather in the ’50’s for days following the storm!  That is certainly not cold enough to keep your medicines and milk safe, so you’ll want to have a plan for how to do so.

In my case, our upright freezer is on the porch.  Odds are that if I didn’t open it at all, it would stay pretty close to freezing temperatures inside during a power outage in winter.

We also invested in a small generator a few years back.  It isn’t large enough to run much of the house, but it will allow us to plug in a few things for a few hours per day so we can avoid losing all the food in our fridge and freezer, run a couple of space heaters on occasion, and cook some food on an electric skillet.

One more thing FAM’s need to consider, whether leaving or staying put, is diapering.  Many food allergic kiddos have sensitive heinies and consequently, many FAM’s cloth diaper their babies.

It’s a little hard to wash and dry your cloth diapers if your electricity is out!  Not impossible, just hard.  So if you’re leaving your house, you may consider making sure you have enough disposables to get through an extended stay outside of your home, or making sure you bring enough cloth diapers and the special soaps they require to stand up to a hotel washer/dryer.

If you stay at home, you’ll either need to plan on having disposables to get you through the power outage, or investing in a manual washer and a line dryer.  This is an excellent plunger washer; you simply put your clothes and soap into a large bucket and agitate repeatedly with the plunger.  Rinse and hang to dry!

Just don’t leave yourself – and your babies bottom – hanging out to dry!

Though I’m trying to primarily cover food allergic specific issues here, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you that no electricity means NO TV/Computer Games/Electronic playthings!  So dust off your board games, decks of cards, stock up on batteries and make sure you have plenty of crayons and paper…bored kiddos are a stress you don’t want to have when huddling around a space heater and cooking in the snow!

Again, please think about all your other needs in the event of a power outage; this is by no means a comprehensive list!

Stay tuned for Part II of Being Prepared for Winter with Food Allergies: Food Provisions.

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See the whole series:
Part II – Be Prepared: Food Provisions
Part III – Be Prepared: Food Preparation
Part IV – Be Prepared: The First Aid Kit
Part V – Be Prepared: The Car Kit 

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Do you have any suggestions you might add for a FAM to consider in the event of a power outage?  Please share!!

This post has been shared with Allergy-Free Wednesdays, and Real Food Wednesdays.