Power Outage while out on vacation

[DrQ]

While we were away, we had a storm in DFW. I was able to remotely monitor and the power was out for 13 hours.

I checked with foodsafety.gov

Food Safety During Power Outage​

Food Safety During Power Outage

Find out from FoodSafety.gov how to keep food safe before, during, and after emergencies, such as floods, fires, natural disasters, or the loss of power.

www.foodsafety.gov

Fortunately, I had cleaned out the fridge before we left, so there should not be any perishables other than an unopened 1/2 gallon of A2 milk which will have to be discarded. It still looks as if we still have a lot of stuff needing to be thrown out.

It looks as if the freezers may be OK, I will have to check them too. UGH!

 

[Talent312]

I hear you.
We recently experienced a lengthy power outage.
Luckily, we had several gel ice packs in the freezer.
The ice cream softened up, so we ate all of it.
.

 

[DrQ]

I hear you.
We recently experienced a lengthy power outage.
Luckily, we had several gel ice packs in the freezer.
The ice cream softened up, so we ate all of it.
.

Our chest freezer is full, so it should be fine. I have IQF chicken breasts there. If they are frozen together onto a big mass, then I will know that there was some thawing in there.

The freezer on the bottom of the french door combo is my concern.

 

[Passepartout]

We keep a bowl of ice in the freezer with coins on top of the ice. If the coins are on the bottom when we come back, the food goes out

 

[moonstone]

Similar to Passepartout I keep a perfectly formed ice cube in a small ziploc bag in all my freezers (fridge & 2 chest) so I can tell how warm the freezer got. If is is slightly 'puddled' I know the freezer didn't get too warm, if the cube is an unrecognizable blob in the bottom of the bag, then the freezer got quite warm. I put all perishables from our fridge freezer into our chest freezers in the basement before we leave for any vacations. I just leave freezer packs, frozen water bottles and bread/buns in the fridge freezer that wont hurt thawing and refreezing. The chest freezers are very full and when they are not, I put 4 liter (1 gal.) jugs of water in them to freeze and fill up the spaces.

Our home had a 10hr power failure during and after a bad storm in April which we knew about from our home security monitor app while we were in Florida. When I got home 2 weeks later I found the fridge freezer ice cube had melted by less than half and the chest freezers in the basement still had perfectly formed cubes.

In 2004 (I think it was) Ontario and much of the north east had a major power failure that lasted 2 or 3 days in August. Both our chest freezers were very full and as soon as I heard we were going to be without electricity for a long time I gathered every sleeping bag and comforter we had and wrapped the freezers on all sides and the tops. When the power came back on I waited until the freezers motors stopped running before opening them. I found my ice cubes in bags were still perfectly formed! I did not have to throw a single thing out of the fridge either as I turned on our camper's fridge and transferred all our perishables from the fridge and its freezer out there when it cooled down. It was a bit of a pain to run out to the driveway for milk for my tea and other things, but I saved all our food. Combined with a gas stove and gas grill with deeply discounted meat and other perishables from our local IGA we were able to eat well for those days. We were even able to watch the Blue Jays games on the camper's 12v TV.


~Diane

 

[moonstone]

The ice cream softened up, so we ate all of it.

Ice cream is fine to refreeze. Our ice cream gets soft bringing it home from the grocery store, especially in Florida, and after a few hours in the freezer, you would never know it had been soft. Have you ever seen the skids of ice cream in the isles of your grocery store sitting waiting to get unpacked into the freezers? As long as it doesn't get warm it will be fine.


~Diane