Feeding the family after a hurricane

[joiei]

With the approaching Hurricane Harvey what foods do you normally stock for after the storm?   Growing up on the gulf coast, too many times the very first things that disappeared from the store shelves was bread, milk and frozen pizzas.  Who is going to want to deal with frozen pizzas when you have NO power.  Plus with the power out those babys are starting to defrost in your now not working freezer.  What do you normally stock up in your pantry for post hurricane dining?  Me, I go for canned goods, stuff I can heat up on my little butane stove  Or grill on the bbq.  I do not get frozen pizzas.  

[Thanks for the Crepes]

10 hours ago, joiei said:

With the approaching Hurricane Harvey what foods do you normally stock for after the storm?   Growing up on the gulf coast, too many times the very first things that disappeared from the store shelves was bread, milk and frozen pizzas.  Who is going to want to deal with frozen pizzas when you have NO power.  Plus with the power out those babys are starting to defrost in your now not working freezer.  What do you normally stock up in your pantry for post hurricane dining?  Me, I go for canned goods, stuff I can heat up on my little butane stove  Or grill on the bbq.  I do not get frozen pizzas.  

 

We are subject to hurricanes here in North Carolina. I could hardly believe it, since we are two hours from the coast, when I first moved here in '86, but in '96 Hurricane Fran sat and squatted on us for hours, taking down trees, taking out power, and bringing the creek almost, (almost) into my home. The power was out for nine days that seemed like months. I already have stuff in the fridge and freezers that is going to spoil and needs to be cooked ASAP before it does. I have canned goods in the pantry that will keep without power at all times.

 

I had a Coleman camp stove and a gas grill at the time. The best meal was ribeyes and striper from the freezer where I invited a bunch of people over and grilled them in the backyard, including the fisherwoman/neighbor who had caught and gifted me the fish. Everyone was fighting over the striper and ignoring the ribeyes. So a normally stocked household does not need to lay in food for an extended power outage, but will lose a lot of their stock anyway.

 

Now I have a gennie to run the fridges, the waterbed heater, a few lights, and an electric skillet. I had no gennie for Fran.

 

What I stock up on is ice and gas to run the gennie. You also need paper plates and plastic utensils because, remember, you are going to have to boil water for washing up without power. Paper towels are useful. Depending on whether you are a drinker or not, your poison of choice. If you have enough coolers and ice you can keep your most prized/expensive food cold and chill your beverages. This will be important because it is usually steamy and hot in a hurricane's aftermath. I thank God we didn't lose water here, because I needed to take several cold water showers a day to lower my core temp. It was so humid, the sweat had nowhere to go and the ambient temp was nearly blood heat even at night. If you think there's a chance you might lose water or drinkable water, you need to lay in a lot more bottled water than you would think. A very bare minimum of two gallons a day per person.

 

Chips, cookies, snacks, nuts, jerky and other stuff that doesn't need refrigeration is justifiable junk food during a hurricane. Fruit will usually last a few days at room temp.

 

Yeah, frozen pizza is almost always a bad idea, but especially when you are reduced to cooking it on a grill. The bread might be good for PBJ's or plain canned tuna sandwiches, but I'd be a afraid of using mayo after the fridge warms up. He he. I have even bought spray cheese (which doesn't need refrigeration) to use with crackers during a hurricane, but not otherwise. Milk, unless you have kids or teens who are going to drink it up real fast, is also a dumb idea.

 

Good luck! I hope you come through just fine.

 

Edit: There are other ideas here.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)