A dark residential street at night during a power outage, with lantern light glowing in the front window of one house

Be ready before the lights go out

A power outage runs on three clocks: the fridge at 4 hours, a half-full freezer at 24 and a full one at 48. Plan for 72 hours as the floor.

Get the free outage guideHow the clocks work →

Browse by topic

Eight topics, each with three places to start. Power outages and water have full hub pages; the others are on the way.

A dark kitchen during a power outage, with a lantern on the counter beside an open cooler holding a thermometer
Topic hub

Power outages

The fridge, freezer and medicine clocks, and what to run a generator on.

Water jugs, a blue 5-gallon container, a stainless gravity filter, a small dropper bottle and a pot on a camp stove, on a pantry floor
Topic hub

Emergency water

How much to store, and how to filter or purify the rest.

A pantry shelf of no-cook food: peanut butter, crackers, dried fruit, trail mix, nut packs and shelf-stable cartons, with a can opener and spoon

Emergency food

Food you can eat with no power, and how to store it.

An SUV cargo area packed with storage boxes, a duffel, two fuel cans, a tow strap, a tire inflator and a shovel

Kits and go-bags

What goes in the bag, the car and your pockets.

The side of a house with a strip of gravel along the wall, a mesh-covered foundation vent and a coiled garden hose, beside dry grass hills

Disasters

Hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and the rest, one at a time.

An open bleeding control kit on a counter: a tourniquet, packs of gauze, a compression bandage, blue gloves, trauma shears and a marker

First aid

Bleeding, breaks and cold, when help is far away.

A debris hut in an autumn forest: a ridgepole propped against a tree stump, ribbed with sticks and piled thick with dry leaves

Survival skills

Fire, shelter and finding your way without a phone.

Three neighbors talking on a sidewalk at dusk, one holding a clipboard, on a residential street

Home, family and radio

Locks, radios and a plan with the neighbors.

What actually broke since 2021

The 10 biggest outages in our free guide, by what households lost.

1 of 10cut household power. The rest cut something else: phones, fuel, food, pharmacy claims, apps and flights.

2 of 10cut phone calls, and one blocked calls to 911.

3 of 10were attacks. The other 7 were failures: a bad update, a network fault, a grid fault.

So plan for more than the lights. Keep cash, written phone numbers and a plan for reaching family without a phone. The record and every source are in the free guide.

WhenWhatWhat households lostCause
Nov 2026Microsoft 365Work email and chatFailure
Oct 2026French supermarketsFood in about 700 storesAttack
Jan 2026VerizonCalls and textsFailure
Oct 2025Amazon Web ServicesApps, including payment appsFailure
Apr 2025Spain and Portugal gridPowerFailure
Jul 2024CrowdStrike updateFlights and office PCsFailure
Feb 2024AT&TCalls, including to 911Failure
Feb 2024Change HealthcarePharmacy claimsAttack
Jan 2023FAAFlightsFailure
May 2021Colonial PipelineFuelAttack

Start here: 72 hours, then a week

At 1 gallon per person per day, a family of four needs 12 gallons for 72 hours and 28 for a week. Do these in order.

  1. WaterStore 3 gallons per person. Emergency water
  2. Food with no cookingThree days of meals that need no power. The 72-hour plan
  3. Light, radio, powerThe few things that matter when the grid is down. Power outages
  4. Stretch it to a weekThen 7 gallons each, and food you rotate. Food storage

Gear

Overhead view of outage gear on a wooden floor: a hand-crank radio, four flashlights, a headlamp, AA batteries, a power bank, a carbon monoxide alarm, a cooler, two fridge thermometers, a can opener and a water jug

The outage gear list: what to buy first and what each piece is for.

See the outage gear list