The first four hours decide most of the outcome. Not the equipment you own, the order you do things in.
Why does the order matter more than the gear?
Because the two things you are spending, stored cold and stored heat, both leak faster the longer you take to decide what to do with them.
A refrigerator holds about four hours unopened and a full freezer about 48, which is what Ready.gov publishes. Those are the clocks that start the moment the lights go. A household that spends the first hour looking for candles and the second opening the freezer to see what is in there has already spent a meaningful part of both, and no purchase later in the outage buys them back.
This is why we write the sequence down. Under stress, in the dark, with children asking questions, nobody improvises well, and a list on the inside of a cupboard door is the cheapest equipment in the house.
The first four hours, in order
Eleven steps, most of them free, none of them requiring anything you would have to buy tonight.
- Write down the time. On paper, where everyone can see it. Every later decision refers back to it.
- Check whether it is only you. Look at the street. A single dark house is a breaker, not an outage.
- Report it to the utility, then ask for a restoration estimate rather than a status.
- Turn off or unplug electronics and anything with a motor. Power returns with surges and that is when appliances die.
- Leave one light switched on so you know the moment it comes back.
- Open the refrigerator once, take out everything for the next day, and shut it.
- Do not open the freezer at all. Note the thermometer reading through the door if you can see it.
- Choose the room you will heat or cool, and close every door between it and the rest of the house.
- Get lights out and distributed before dark: one lantern per level, a headlamp per person.
- Charge phones from a power bank now, while you still have the choice, and put them on low power mode.
- Check on anyone on the street over 70, on oxygen, or alone with small children.
Step four is the one people skip and regret. In the 2022 storm one household on my circuit lost a furnace control board, a television and a well pump controller to the surge when we re-energised, roughly nineteen hundred dollars, because nothing had been unplugged. The house two doors down had thrown the main breaker and lost nothing.
Expert note from Dan Brackett, founder and former distribution lineman
When you call the utility, ask for the estimated restoration time and write it down with the time you asked. Status tells you nothing you cannot see out of the window. The estimate is the number that tells you whether this is a candles evening or a week.
What can the utility actually tell you?
More than most people ask for, and less than they hope. Knowing the difference saves a lot of frustration.
| Question | Can they answer it? | Why | What to ask instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is my outage reported? | Yes, immediately | Automated systems confirm it | Nothing, this is the useful one |
| When will power return? | An estimate, sometimes wide | It depends on damage nobody has surveyed yet | Ask again in four hours, estimates sharpen fast |
| Why is my neighbour on? | Usually yes | Different circuit or different phase | Which circuit am I on |
| Is my line down and live? | They will treat it as live | Assume every downed line is energised | Report the location, then stay away |
| Can you prioritise my house? | Only via a medical register | Restoration follows circuit size, not need | How do I get on the medical register |
There is a real trade in restoration order that is worth understanding rather than resenting. Crews restore transmission, then substations, then the main lines, then the spurs. Fixing the spur first would leave more people dark for longer. If you live at the end of a long rural line, that arithmetic will never work in your favour, and it is the argument for storing more rather than complaining more.
The three mistakes that cost the most
Opening the freezer, running a generator too close to the house, and heating with the kitchen range.
- Checking the freezer. Every opening costs part of a 48 hour budget you cannot top up. Use a thermometer you can read through the door.
- The generator in the garage. Twenty feet from every window and door, pointed away, and never inside anything with a roof. This is the mistake with no second chance.
- The oven as a heater. It is a carbon monoxide risk and a fire risk, and it is explicitly warned against in the federal guidance.
Expert note from Renata Sowell, water and evacuation editor
In warm weather the same four hours are about heat rather than cold. Close the house up early, before the inside warms, and pick the room with the fewest windows rather than the biggest. It is the same discipline, working in the opposite direction.
What happens after hour four?
Cooking becomes the question, then routine does. Both have their own sequences.
- Hours four to twelve. Eat down the refrigerator. Decide nothing about the freezer yet.
- Hour twelve. First freezer reading. Anything at or near 40 degrees gets cooked today rather than protected.
- Day two onward. A daily routine matters more than supplies, which is covered in what the second week actually looks like.
The cold chain arithmetic behind those readings is in how long a home freezer really holds without power, and cooking without the range is in cooking when the kitchen range has no power.