How To Prepare Your Home For A Blizzard

11/5/2020 (Permalink)

How to Prepare Your Home for a Blizzard or Extreme Cold

1. Stock Up on Food & Water: Winter storms and blizzards sometimes make travel impossible, and during a winter weather event, most city officials ask people to stay off the road. So you need to have plenty of nonperishable food and water on hand, ideally in a long term food pantry, so there’s no need for you to drive on dangerous roads. A food pantry also ensures you have the foods you like to eat instead of worrying about facing empty store shelves picked over by panicked shoppers.

It can get expensive to start a long-term food pantry from scratch, but it doesn’t have to. If you start now, picking up a bit of extra nonperishable food each week when it’s on sale, it won’t make much of a difference in your food budget.

Some foods to stock up on:

Rice

Dried beans, lentils, or peas

Trail mix bars, protein bars, granola bars, or fruit bars

Canned vegetables, soups, and fruit

Peanut butter and jelly

Tea, coffee, and hot chocolate

Powdered drink mixes

Dried pasta

Instant soup mixes

Sugar

Pickled vegetables

Trail mix

Beef jerky

Applesauce

Instant oatmeal

Sweets like cookies, candy bars, and chocolate

Evaporated or condensed milk

Nuts and dried fruits like mango, apples, apricots, and strawberries

Oils like olive oil, vegetable oil, and coconut oil

Whole-grain crackers

Shelf-stable milk, tea, and hot cocoa

Waffle and pancake mix

Breakfast cereal, including hot cereals like Cream of Wheat

Vegetable, chicken, beef, and bouillon cubes

Packaged foods, including macaroni and cheese and instant potatoes

Canned meats, including tuna, sardines, oysters, chicken, turkey, pork, sausage, and Spam

Formula or baby food if you have very young children

Pet food if you have pets

You also need plenty of fresh water, especially if your pipes freeze during a cold snap. Each person in your home needs at least 1 gallon per day for drinking and sanitation. And don’t forget to have extra on hand for pets. If you have a wood stove, you can always melt snow, providing you have plenty of firewood, but you must also prepare for snowless cold weather.

2. Consider Cooking & Easy Food Prep

If you were to lose power during a winter storm, do you have a way to cook food and clean up? If you have an electric stove in your kitchen, it’s not going to work when the power goes out, so you need a backup way to heat water and cook. A small camp stove, camping gas stove, It is inexpensive and easy to operate. Just make sure you use gas-powered stoves in the garage – with the garage door open – to avoid carbon monoxide buildup in your home. if you have a propane grill, you can use it to cook food during a power outage too.

3. Stock Up on Supplies

Having plenty of food in your pantry is an essential first step. But you also need personal care products and handy necessities, such as:

• A manual can opener
• Diapers
• Toilet paper
• Moist towelettes
• Toothbrush and toothpaste
• Feminine care products
• Paper towels, paper plates, and disposable silverware
• Dish soap
• An emergency phone charger
• Candles
• Batteries
• Bleach or other disinfectant
• Laundry detergent

In addition to having plenty of supplies around for your family, if you have room, stock up on extra in case your neighbors or extended family members aren’t prepared.

Last, if you’re on any medications, talk to your doctor about how long it’s safe to store them for an emergency.

4. Purchase an Emergency Sump Pump

Consider this scenario: A lot of snow has fallen in your area, and you’ve lost power. Thankfully, the weather has started to warm back up, and the snow is melting. However, the power company hasn’t been able to turn the lights back on. If you have a basement that means your sump pump doesn’t have any power to work right when it’s needed most.

A battery operated sump pump will kick on and pump for hours or days when the power is off, keeping water out of your basement. And this is a time when it pays to spend more on a quality product.

You’ll also need to buy a battery in addition to the pump itself. Most reviewers on Amazon recommend getting a Deep cycle marine battery. While these are more expensive, they last much longer than an auto battery.

5. Consider Portable Power

 The power often goes out during winter storms, and even extreme cold weather events can cause power outages due to increased demand.