Extended Blackout Checklist

The first hour sets the shape of the whole outage

Do four things before you do anything else. Close the fridge and do not open it again without a plan. Unplug the sensitive electronics you cannot replace cheaply. Fill the washing-water containers while there is still pressure. Then check how long your stored power actually runs the load you care about.

That order matters because each window closes on its own. Cold food, water pressure and a charged bank are all resources that only leak down. Households that spend the first hour on the phone network tend to lose all four at once. Networks are usually the most congested thing in an outage area. Send one short message instead, then work the list.

Close the fridge, draw the water, unplug the sensitive things, then estimate your power. In that order.

How long the cold chain really holds

An unopened domestic fridge holds safe cold for only a short window. Think hours rather than days, and remember a full fridge holds cold better than a half-empty one. A chest freezer, left alone, can buy considerably longer. The honest instrument here is a thermometer you can read in the dark, not a recollection of when the power went.

So make the food plan instead of stretching the appliance. Eat perishables first, in the order of risk: soft foods and cooked meals, then hard cheeses and firmer items. Move the highest-value things into a cooler with ice packs and keep that cooler shut and shaded. Anything doubtful after the cold chain breaks is a trade worth refusing to make. Our guide to powering a refrigerator explains what a fridge actually draws, and the food-safety post covers how long the cold lasts. Remember that cold air sinks and leaks out at the door. A quick look is far cheaper than a long one, and a thermometer lets you decide rather than guess.

The trade to refuse: Refrigerated food that has been warm for an extended period is not worth testing by smell. When in doubt, it goes.

Heat and fuel: the dangerous part of a long outage

Electric heating and heat pumps stop, and gas boilers usually stop with them because their controls and pumps need power. A long cold outage is therefore a warmth problem, not a heating problem. Heat the people and one small room. Close off the rest of the house. Layers, hats, a dry base and a blanket each do more than a failed attempt at spot-heating a large living room.

Then hold the line on fuel. Never run a generator, barbecue, petrol tool or any camp stove indoors, or in a garage. Never use an unvented heater in a sealed bedroom either. Carbon monoxide is the disaster that turns an outage into an emergency. A working alarm is the only part of the plan that detects it. A cooking stove used with real ventilation is a legitimate heat source. A barbecue in a lounge is not.

Water, toilets and pressure across several days

Mains supply can survive an outage, but two things quietly end it. Pumps and boosted systems stop without electricity, and hot water from a stored tank is a one-day resource at most. So draw the washing water early. Fill the bath and a basin or two on day one, before you know whether you will need it. That single habit is the difference between coping and improvising on day three.

Flush is the harder question. A modern toilet can usually be flushed by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl. A designated bucket therefore beats hoping for a gravity system. If the supply is compromised or the sewers are not working, a portable toilet keeps a genuine hygiene problem contained. A bucket with thick bags and an absorbent does the same job for less. Read our water storage checklist for the quantities behind this.

Rationing power across successive nights

A bank that runs a router and a lamp for one night will run them flat by the second morning. Nothing refills it on its own. Extended outages therefore change the maths. Work out your real draw in watts and your required hours, and let that set the capacity. Then decide how you will replace what you use. Sun on a panel, a car socket on a permitted drive, or a deliberate decision to go without.

Ration by priority rather than by guilt. Phone charging and any medical device sit first. Light sits second, and only the rooms you are using. Entertainment sits last, which is where a week of outages becomes a week of books, cards and conversations. Turn the bank off entirely rather than leaving it idling, because a standby light consumes the reserve you are saving for tomorrow. Write down what you used each evening. A short log tells you, long before the battery does, whether you need to cut a load.

Bringing the power back safely

Restoration is not always gentle, and it can arrive as a surge. It can also come back to a house where a dishwasher had started filling or a freezer had quietly thawed. Leave one light switched on as your return signal. You will then notice the restart in the room you are standing in.

Then restart deliberately. Bring the major loads back one at a time over several minutes, and check the fridge and freezer before restocking them from the shop. Photograph anything that spoiled or failed while you were dealing with it. Insurance asks for that evidence later, and remembers it worse than you do.

Treat restoration as an event with its own risks, not as the moment the emergency ends.

Deciding to stay or to go

Most outages are far better ridden out at home, where your stock, your medicine and your beds are. There are exceptions worth naming in advance, because deciding them in the moment is hard. A medical device with no power reserve is one. So is a home that cannot be heated in a hard frost, a water advisory with no treatment option, or a damaged building.

Agree the trigger points while things are calm, and write them on the same sheet as the contacts. Decide who goes where, and how you will tell each other. A household that argued about this on a good afternoon does not have to argue by torchlight. That difference is worth more than most of the gear on this list.

Night two is the real test

The first night of an outage has a strange energy to it. People talk, the lanterns look novel, and cold food feels like a picnic. Night two is when a long outage becomes a long outage. The bank is flat and the house is cold. The toilet situation has got awkward, and nobody slept well. Everything on this list aims at that second evening, because that is where unprepared households start improvising badly.

So plan the second night specifically. Decide where everyone sleeps, and which one room stays lit. Set a charge routine before bed rather than by morning demand. Keep one light reachable without getting up. Eat a proper hot thing if you safely can. Households that hold a routine through night two hold their judgement for the rest of the outage.

Preparation is not for the first night. It is for the second one, when the novelty has worn off.