Keep doors closed
USDA says an unopened refrigerator generally keeps food safe for about four hours; a full freezer about 48 hours and a half-full freezer about 24 hours. Use thermometers and current guidance.
Keep life going · Food and medication
Protect What Needs Cold, Timing, or Replacement.
A power outage turns two ordinary systems into clocks: the refrigerator and the refill schedule. You do not need to memorize every exception. You need thermometers, written names, and the right people to call.
Write down what cannot be guessed.
List medication names, doses, timing, prescribers, pharmacy, allergies, storage requirements, and the supplies or devices used with them. “The small white one” is a poor description.
Put appliance thermometers in the refrigerator and freezer. Keep food you can eat without cooking, including the dietary and texture needs already present in the household.
Give cold items time and give people options.
Make a cold plan
Keep cooler space and frozen packs available. Know where ice may be obtained and how medicine can be kept within its labeled range without freezing it.
Protect medicines from water and heat
Keep original labels and use a watertight container where flooding is possible. Do not leave medicine in a hot vehicle or assume room-temperature limits are the same for every product.
Build a replacement route
Know an alternate pharmacy, insurer contact, manufacturer number, clinic plan, and how to reach care if a medicine or device becomes unsafe or unavailable.
Plan around the actual diet and treatment.
Dietary needs
Include ready-to-eat food that works for allergies, diabetes, swallowing needs, infants, cultural practice, and the equipment available during an outage.
Refrigerated medicine
Use product labeling and pharmacist, clinician, or manufacturer guidance. FDA notes that exposure rules vary; do not use a general food rule for a life-sustaining drug.
Limited budget or storage
Rotate ordinary shelf-stable food, request refills when permitted, and add one dependable meal or day at a time. Avoid buying a separate pantry no one wants to eat.
Longer interruptions
Household supplies eventually depend on pharmacies, clinics, cold-chain delivery, safe water, benefits, food distribution, transport, and power restoration.
Do not stop, change, substitute, or ration a prescription on general web advice. Contact a pharmacist, clinician, manufacturer, emergency service, or shelter medical resource for product-specific direction.
Share errands, not medical files.
Someone may volunteer freezer space, ice, transport, or a pharmacy pickup without needing to know a diagnosis. Record only what the person wants shared.
Use the USDA's outage food-safety guidance for food and the FDA's disaster medication guidance for drugs exposed to power loss, flooding, or unsafe temperatures.
One adjacent move
Household workbook
Map the people, systems, places, and arrangements this capability depends on.
Current public help
Find Official Help for current local authorities, alerts, utilities, health guidance, roads, weather, or shelters.
Reviewed July 25, 2026 against USDA food-safety and FDA medication guidance. Recheck official instructions before publication and during any interruption.