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Power outage checklist

Check off water, food that does not need a cold fridge, a flashlight, a NOAA Weather Radio, phone charging, a thermometer, and carbon monoxide and smoke alarms before you need them. The timed blocks below follow USDA FSIS for food and the CDC, Ready.gov, NFPA, and the Red Cross for generators. To print, use the browser print command. Navigation and the advertising line are left off the paper.

What should already be in the kit?

Ready.gov’s basic kit is water at one gallon per person per day for several days, food for several days, a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert, a flashlight, and spare batteries. The Red Cross sizes a kit you can carry for at least three days and a stay-at-home supply for at least two weeks. Add prescriptions and a clinician’s plan for refrigerated medicine or powered devices. This checklist cannot write that plan.

Water: one gallon per person per day for several days (Ready.gov). More if you are building the Red Cross two-week home supply.
Food that does not need a stove or a refrigerator, for several days, plus a manual can opener.
Flashlight and extra batteries for each person. No candles.
Battery or hand-crank radio that receives NOAA Weather Radio tone alerts.
Phone charger or backup battery, and a paper contact list.
Appliance thermometer in the refrigerator and the freezer.
First-aid kit, whistle, sanitation supplies, and copies of IDs and prescriptions.
Smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms with battery backup, tested this month.
Pet food and extra water, if you have animals.

What do I do in the first 24 hours?

Keep both appliance doors closed and switch to the flashlight. USDA FSIS gives the unopened refrigerator up to 4 hours, so do not treat the whole first day as safe fridge time. A full freezer’s about-48-hour hold can still cover this first day if the door stays closed. Do not run a generator indoors or heat the house with a gas oven.

Refrigerator and freezer doors stayed closed.
Flashlights are in use. Candles are not.
Official alerts are on the radio or a local message, not only a social feed.
Appliances and electronics are unplugged to limit surge damage when power returns.
No gas oven, grill, or generator is being used as indoor heat.
Someone outside the home knows you are all right.
Downed lines, if any, are staying at least 35 feet away, including anything they touch. Call 911.

What should I recheck at 72 hours?

Seventy-two hours is a Red Cross go-kit length and sits inside Ready.gov’s several-day supply. It is past the FSIS freezer windows: about 48 hours if the freezer was full, about 24 hours if it was half full. Use the thermometer. Food at 40 °F or below, or frozen food that still has ice crystals, is the FSIS line for what may be kept or refrozen. Do not put perishable food outside in the snow. FSIS says temperatures vary and animals and dirt reach it.

Fridge perishables past 4 hours without power were discarded, or moved to a cooler that is holding 40 °F or below.
Freezer food was checked with a thermometer or for ice crystals. Nothing was tasted as a test.
Drinking water is still about one gallon per person per day for the people still home.
Prescriptions and any powered medical device still have the backup the clinician described.
If the home is too hot or too cold, the plan is to go to a safer place, not to improvise combustion heat.

What should be true at one week?

One week is not a special food-safety number. It is a planning mark inside the Red Cross advice to keep at least two weeks of food and water at home. Pharmacies and groceries may still be closed. The Red Cross checklist talks about keeping a one-month supply of medication. A battery station does not replace that supply. If you use one, match it to nameplate watts. This site has not run that test for you.

Food and water on hand still cover the days you expect to stay, aiming at the Red Cross two-week home supply.
Medication plan still holds, including anything that must stay cold.
Carbon monoxide alarms were tested this month and still have working batteries.
You know the local warming or cooling site if the house is no longer safe.

How do I use a generator without carbon monoxide poisoning?

Run it outdoors only, at least 20 feet from doors, windows, and vents, with the exhaust pointed away from the building. NFPA says never in an attached garage, even with the door open. The CDC uses that same 20-foot rule and says not to use a gasoline engine in a basement or garage. The Red Cross says fans and open windows do not stop carbon monoxide from building up in the house.

Generator is outdoors, 20 feet or more from every door, window, and vent.
It is not in a garage, basement, crawlspace, or other partly closed space.
It is dry, and it is cooled before refueling.
Appliances are plugged into the generator or a heavy-duty outdoor cord, not into a wall outlet.
Everyone knows headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion as the CDC’s common carbon monoxide symptoms, and to call 911 or 1-800-222-1222.

Longer notes, with the same sources, are in the generator and carbon monoxide guide. The explanation of the kit is on the home page.

Questions

How do I print this power outage checklist?

Use the browser’s print command. The page has a print stylesheet that hides the site header, footer, and advertising banner. The boxes are ordinary checkboxes. Check them before you print if you want the marks on paper.

Does a full freezer stay safe for 72 hours?

Not by USDA FSIS’s figure. A full freezer holds temperature for about 48 hours if the door stays closed, and a half-full freezer for about 24 hours. Seventy-two hours is past both of those holds unless you have added ice and kept the food at a safe temperature.

Sources

Retrieved 7 November 2026. Figures are not mixed across agencies. Each time limit is attributed to the agency that published it.