How do I prepare for a power cut or emergency?

A realistic household preparation for power cuts, water interruptions and severe weather — what to have, and what to know.

Difficulty: beginner
Time: 1 hr 30 min
Read: 3 min
Safety: caution

Short answer

Keep torches with working batteries, a battery or wind-up radio, a power bank, some water and food that needs no cooking, and know where your stopcock, consumer unit and gas valve are. Knowing where things are matters as much as owning them.

Household emergency preparation gets treated as either paranoid or unnecessary, and the useful version is neither. A power cut lasting a day is a realistic event in most places, and the difference between manageable and miserable is a small amount of preparation done in advance.

Safety

Never use outdoor cooking equipment, generators or fuel-burning heaters indoors — they produce carbon monoxide, which is odourless and kills. Never use candles near anything flammable or leave them unattended. If you smell gas, do not use switches or naked flames; leave the property and call the national gas emergency number.

What you'll need

Torches and spare batteries
Battery or wind-up radio
Power bank
Bottled water
Food requiring no cooking
Carbon monoxide alarm (optional)

Step by step

Locate and label the stopcock, consumer unit and gas shut-off valve.Knowing where they are is more valuable than most equipment, and it takes ten minutes.
Keep torches accessible, with working batteries, in known places.Head torches are better than hand torches — they leave both hands free. Check them twice a year.
Keep a battery or wind-up radio.In a widespread outage, mobile networks can fail too. Radio is the reliable information channel.
Keep power banks charged for phones.Charge them when you charge anything else. A flat power bank is no use at all.
Store some drinking water and food that needs no cooking.A few litres per person and a few days of tinned or dried food that doesn't need heat.
Fit a carbon monoxide alarm if you have any fuel-burning appliance.This matters most in exactly the conditions where people improvise heating.
Keep important documents and contact numbers accessible offline.Printed or on a device that doesn't need the internet. Insurance details, utility emergency numbers, family contacts.
Know your utility providers' emergency numbers and how to report an outage.Many have a short national number for power cuts and gas emergencies. Write them down.
Keep the fridge and freezer closed during an outage.A full freezer holds temperature for around 24 hours if left shut. Opening it repeatedly is what loses the food.

Tips

Fill bottles or a bath with water if a supply interruption is announced in advance — it's much easier than sourcing water afterwards.
A gas hob can often still be lit with a match during a power cut, though modern ones with electronic safety valves may not work.
Check on neighbours, particularly older people and anyone dependent on powered medical equipment.
Keep some cash. Card payments fail in a power cut, and that catches people out more than anything else.

Common mistakes

Using outdoor cooking equipment or generators indoors — Carbon monoxide is odourless and kills. This causes deaths in every significant outage.
Opening the freezer repeatedly — A full closed freezer holds for about 24 hours. Opening it wastes that.
Relying entirely on a phone — Batteries run down and networks can fail. A radio and a torch don't depend on either.
Not knowing where the shut-offs are — Locating a stopcock by torchlight during a flood is the wrong time to be learning.

Questions people ask

How long does food last in a freezer during a power cut?

Roughly 24 hours in a full freezer and less in a half-empty one, if the door stays shut. Once food has thawed and warmed, it shouldn't be refrozen without cooking.

What's the most important thing to prepare?

Knowing where your stopcock, consumer unit and gas valve are, and having a working torch you can find in the dark. Both cost nothing and matter more than any kit.