Emergency Preparedness

Every cooking option ranked by safety, why a butane stove is the one to own, what a microwave costs in battery, and the fuels that never come indoors.

Safe room temperature, refrigeration for formula and insulin, indoor-safe power for monitors and CPAPs, and a written rule for when to leave the house.

Why the internet usually survives on the provider side, how to power your modem and router for a full day, and how to keep phones alive when the cell towers start to fade.

The three ways to keep a sump pump running when the storm takes out the power, what each costs, how long each lasts, and which combination fits your basement.

Why powering your furnace beats any space heater, how to run it from a generator or battery, indoor-safe propane heat, the warm-room strategy, and protecting your pipes.

Where to put a generator, why the garage is never safe even with the door open, which CO alarms work during an outage, and the symptoms people mistake for the flu.

A weekend of preparation carries your home through three to seven days without power. Food, water, light, heat, and a 48-hour countdown.

Hurricane season peaks in August. Here is the complete plan to get your home ready for the power outage that follows the storm.

A layered plan for multi-day outages: water, food, power, heat, communication and sanitation, with a 7-day winter outage walkthrough.

How long your fridge and freezer really stay safe, what to toss and what to keep, and how to stretch cold storage through a long outage.