We're bracing for the big one! Our town like all our surrounding neighboring towns are under a state of emergency. Schools have been cancelled for the next few days. Beach homes have been evacuated. I'm in Southwestern CT on Long Island Sound but inland so I shouldn't get the flooding-only the rain, wind and power outages. They're saying it could be up to a week.

So-for all of you that weather these storms, what do you cook? Of course my freezer is full, so I'm hoping I don't lose the food. I pulled out steaks for dinner tonight, and I'm roasting a chicken for tomorrow, pulled pork will go in the crock tomorrow as well. I figure better off to cook it than throw it out.

We don't have a generator, and I have electric everything DDs are around the corner and they have gas so we may be over there a few days.

Any extra advise?

quote:

I'm in Southwestern CT on Long Island Sound but inland so I shouldn't get the flooding-only the rain,

Oh, you remind me that my nephew lives in Old Greenwich right on the sound! I'd better call his mom.

I should be going to the store and am not. We have a wood stove in the basement if we lose elec and can cook on that. I don't think it will hit as hard as they say (maybe naive but that seems to usually be the case.

Do you have a basement? We always get water in a severe rain storm and we use our basement intensely for work space. So have tons of stuff there. We make sure we have high boots upstairs. No elec cords where water could touch them. No paper or cloth or such on the floor.

Fill a tub or such with water in case you lose your water. Then you can flush toilets. Have drinking/cooking water available. Flashlights, candles, canned foods, warm/dry clothes, blankets etc.

Good luck to you and all of us~

We get our shares of hurricanes down here. We've had some bad ones where we have been w/o power for several days but for the most part they are few and far between and there is much drama over nothing.

I make sure we have batteries for the flashlights and some tap water caught up in a couple of pitchers.Plenty of candles-which we always have. and fuel for our lanterns. other than that nothing. I am one of the ones that doesn't panic and buy our the stores.

We are fortunate that we have a gas stove so we make sure we have a couple of bags of ice in case the power goes out and we cook as usual.

The time we were w/o power for several days, was when we had an electric stove. We had a no cook breakfast of cereal and milk. we went to town and got a hot lunch and a bag of ice for our cooler from the salvation army, and we cooked dinner on our grill. We were fine and there was no need for all the panicked buying that people do. but we were so glad when the power came back on!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Becky56,

We have a generator and this will be the fist time it will be needed without a doubt. DH tests it regularly to ensure it's in good working order. We have it hooked up to necessary things like the well pump cuz w/o it, we can't flush toilets w/o dumping water into the bowl, some lights, the refrigerator, etc.. It's not a whole house generator and it won't keep heat or AC running which is why we have space heaters and fans.

We stopped at the grocery store early this morning and the lines for the deli were out the wazoo (standard for impending storms here), the bottled water almost nill and people gobbling up staples like bread, peanut butter, eggs, bags of ice, etc..

Our house is powered by electric w/ a propane backup. My cooktop was orginally electric, but we converted it to propane.

If you have a fireplace, you can cook some on it. Before our generator, we bought a camper's kettle to warm soup or canned stew over a roaring fire. You probably have little or no time now, but assuming you do have a fireplace that's wood burning, stop at a camping store or sporting goods store that carries camping supplies...even Walmart's sportsmen's dept. and grab some tools they use to basically camp in.
W/ basic tools, you could make toast or toasted cheese sandwiches, soups, stews, beans, canned veggies, etc. Stock things like paper products, bottled water, soup stock/soup cans, canned tuna, cereals, powdered milk, canned fruits, energy bars, batteries, etc. BTW, a few years ago, I ordered an LL Bean radio that's powered by batteries, w/ a crank back up and is also solar powered. Have lots of flashlights on hand and batteries.

Stay safe.

Make sure you fill up your car(s) with gas and take some extra cash out. Do all your laundry now before your electricity goes out, so you'll have clean clothes and undies. Seriously.

Keep a National Weather Service/NOAA battery-operated radio handy, for emergency updates. Note where the emergency shelters are located in your area. Prepare a grab-and-go-kit: http://www.realsimple.com/home...-kit-10000001181853/

I am nowhere near the path of this monster storm, but my sister and lots of family and friends are. I have checked in with some of them today, and these are some of the things they are doing to prepare for the worst.

Be careful out there, please.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: aychihuahua,

When we lose our power we lose our land line phones so don't forget to charge your cell phones!

We expect temps in the 40's and 20 foot sea surges but we are 70 feet high. Our water would be ground water from too much rain.

Good luck to all!

LOS do you lose your landline because you have the wirelass phones that sit on electric chargers? We have an ugly, faded pink princess phone that was MIL's dating back to the 60s that we can plug in to the jack and have phone service if the power goes out. But we have our phone through the phone company, not internet or satelitte.

If you have freezers...fill everything you can find with water & stuff those freezers full NOW!
Not only will it help keep your foods if the power goes, it can provide extra water if absolutely necessary. Don't open the freezer if possible & throw a couple of heavy blankets over it...that will also help keep it cold.
Have your coolers ready & ice for them to put stuff from the fridge. We have 3 coolers we can use if necessary. I dump the ice maker as often as possible & keep that in my fridge freezer and I also do ice trays & dump them at least once a day in zip bags to get as much as possible.
Have bread, peanut butter & anything else you want on it. Some canned meats or some of that roasted chicken you can make into chicken salad...sort of...chopped chicken & mayo...or tuna. Beef stew, soups...stuff like that.

Landline phones work just fine when the power goes out if they are hardwired & not portable...we have both, cells don't work out here half the time and who knows, the cell towers can come down or get damaged in a storm.

Games to keep everyone entertained...playing cards, stuff like that.

Everyone in the way...PLEASE stay safe!

Thoughts and pray*ers to everyone in the path of the storm. I am hoping that all stay safe....

I didn't know this thread was started so started one in Cleaning. Please gnore that one.

Hope everyone stays safe. If possible, give updates when you can. Thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Landline phones work if electricity goes off as long as the phone lines outdoors are intact. I'm not referring to cordless phones but the kind that are connected to the phone line with a cord.
We have never been more than a few hours without electricity, but my brother and his young family were without for 10 days after an ice storm one winter. Luckily they had a generator they powered up every few hours which ran the whole house: furnace, washer & dryer and all.
You might also consider a butane fueled burner for stovetop cooking type capabilities if you have no electical and don't own a gas stove.

If things start to get too warm in the frig and you don't have enough coolers, line a cardboard box with newspapers. They help with insulation. Find that out in an ice storm that put us without power for 5 days.

Actually, I"m glad CCM started the "please up-date" thread on the cleaning/organizing board. This one is really good for hints and suggestions ~ let's use the other one to let everyone know how you are doing.... crossing fingers here that everyone comes through this storm safely.

Fill up all of your gas tanks in case of a long electricity outage. Also have a back up gas container for generator. Buy lots of ice for coolers for cold food and bread, water, whole barbeque chickens and make some potato salad ahead. get out the warm blankies and flashlights and any kind of battery lights to read by. We were in the blizzard of 78 and it took us 2 weeks to get back to normal. We never lost our electricity though. Good luck to all in the path of this storm.

Saw this hint recently:
Bring in some outdoor solar lights that can either be turned off (to save battery power, after fully charged) or remove the charged batteries.
They can make easy emergency or night lights in a garage or basement if needed.

Oh, and stay connected with your neighbors! Many in a group can solve problems that come up and share supplies and ideas.

We're getting pounded with wind and rain and we haven't even started to see the worst of it. Just learned our power sub station is flooding so they are going to turn off our power in a few hrs. to prevent a bigger problem. The combination of storm and high tides is making things so much worse. I'm sure I'll be too nervous to sleep! stay safe eveyone

Our phone is through our cable supplier, so if we lose power, we lose cable, internet and phone. They make certain you are aware of that. we are 125 miles SE of Buffalo and getting a ton of rain right now. I have candles, oil lamps, a stove top percolator and a gas stove so we have cooking facilities.

What I DON'T have is batteries or flashlights and there were NONE in town to be had.
I will check again later when the truck for KM arrives in an hour.

we also don't have a battery radio, but go out to the car to listen.. which generally isn't worth the effort since when we lose power the only stations within range are without power too so its all dead air.

We are on a hill so we seldom get anything more than an inch of water around the edges of the cellar.

But this town was nearly washed away in 1972 during Hurricaine Agnes. That was horrible.

Remember AGnes. Was only time I ever locked myself out of apartment... with all four burners going on stove to boil water... a precaution from TV/radio. Luckily, someone was home across the haal so I could call super. He sounded a bit put off... will be there eventually... UNTIL I mentioned I could hear tea kettle whistling and when that stopped!!

Have an OLD corded phone... curly cord and wire to jack are permanent parts of the thing... works when power is out.

Lost power for about 25 hours... an eternity. No school Monday, Tuesday or today. School site says no power yet today, so might be a ONE day school week? Didn't get torrential rains that were called for so NO water in basement!! Stuff in freezer not even remotely starting to thaw... only opened it a few times for ice. Fridge was "cold" but not COLD... didn't toss anything. When able to get out yesterday bought several bags of ice and hauled out coolers... anticipating unloading fridge at some point. Luckily power came back on around 6 last night. I loaded as much of that ice into BIG containers and put in fridge... help bring temp down quicker??