Winter Power Outage Scenario

We decided to see if our family was really prepared for a power outage in the middle of winter.  Winter storms can easily knock out power and, if you don't have a backup heat source, indoor temperatures can quickly drop to dangerous levels. 

We scheduled a time to turn off the power over night in the middle of winter.  Practicing before an actual disaster would give us a safety net because, if something went wrong, we could just turn the power back on and then made the necessary adjustment to our plans and emergency kits for next time.

Winter Survival Goals

As it turned out, it was a pretty mild day with a high of 36°F (2°C).  The overnight low was a nice 12°F (-11°C), however.  Daytime temperature was a little warm for a good test of surviving super cold temperatures as everything had warmed up pretty good, but it was still cold enough to test our emergency heating system, which was the primary goal of this exercise.

The other main goal of our winter power outage scenario was to test our survival cooking skills.  We have a pretty well thought out meal plan in our 72-hour kit.  My amazing wife put together our menu using non-perishable food that we normally eat and that our kids like.   But, as we would find out, our emergency food preparation skills and equipment needed some refinement.

I turned off the power at 5:00 PM.  Just in time to make dinner using the supplies our 72-hour emergency kit. About 5 minutes later I decided that we should shut the water off too.  This was not something we had originally planned for this disaster scenario, which made practicing this aspect all the more realistic.  This would test our ability to survive without running water.

We also learned a few things about surviving disasters with children, especially an infant.

Side note: We did leave the fridge and freezer powered throughout the scenario.  It was cold enough to simply put our food in coolers and take them outside to keep them from spoiling, but there was no point in going to all that trouble in light of what we were trying to accomplish this time around.

Did we freeze to death or was our emergency heat system sufficient?  Find out on the next page...

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Page 2: Emergency Heat System
Page 3: Surviving Without Running Water
Page 4: Survival Cooking Skills
Page 5: Surviving Disasters with Children