Lights Go Out

Your short term Food Supply, is basically anything that you have in your Ice box, Freezer, and Pantry.  Back in October of 2011, the Northeast had a surprise snow storm.  Most of the people in New England were without power for several days up to two weeks in some areas.  My house was without power for one week.  Need less to say with no heat and no Lights this was a difficult time.  I was always told you learn from your mistakes.  Well my mistake was not being prepared.  Sure we had candles, and flash lights and extra blankets to cope, but what I never considered was my food supply.  The food we had in the fridge was fine for the first day.  On the Second day I was starting to get worried.  I moved a lot of the food from the freezer and fridge and covered them with snow on the back deck.  After day three it was becoming a big hassle to go outside into the snow and get the mayo out for a quick sandwich.  Then it hit me.   A light bulb went off in my head.  I gathered all the extra storage bottles we had on hand ( Empty two litter soda bottles. and Milk Jugs) cleaned them out and filled them up half way with water.  I then placed them outside and allowed them to freeze.  The meats and chicken from the freezer I left on the deck in the snow to remain frozen.  The fridge items I moved back into the fridge, along with the frozen water bottles.  The frozen water bottles worked like a charm keeping everything in the fridge nice and cool, until the power came back on.  Luckily for us the Power outage happened during the Winter, so freezing the water bottles were no problem..   If the Power would have went out for an extended period of time during any other part of the year,  It might have been a different story.  I would not have been able to freeze them and save my fridge items.   Now I keep Frozen water jugs in the deep freezer down stairs.  Just in case.   My short term food supply in the fridge will remain cool during any time of the year , and never again will I not be prepared for this type of situation.