20 Items for a Power Outage

This was the sunset before all Hell broke loose weather-wise. We have had very windy, very rainy, very cold weather with a bit of snow(!) here and there over the past few days. Added to this mess were more than a half dozen power outages in our area over the past few days but hopefully the storms are over now!

Here are the preparedness items we were happy to have on hand when the power went out...

1. Two battery banks; one 300wh bank and one 1000wh bank, along with solar panels to charge them back up should the power outage last a long time
2. A small 32" TV (this TV draws much less power than our huge TV so it is easily powered for hours by the smaller battery bank)
3. An over-the-air antenna (this works to provide a signal to the TV when the power/internet is out)
4. Flashlights (one for each room; some rechargeable, some with regular batteries)
5. Candles (for more general lighting during the power outage)
6. Matches/grill lighter (to manually light our gas range so we could cook dinner, also to light the candles)
7. Fire extinguisher (always good to have on hand)
8. Travel-sized battery banks to keep our cell phones charged up
9. Radio (for listening entertainment)
10. Extra blankets (to keep warm when the power/heat goes out)
11. Small portable fans (these draw less power when plugged in to the battery bank and kept us cool when the power went out last summer)
12. Snacks and easy-to-prepare food (making a meal from scratch during a power outage is not much fun; soup was easy to heat and eat)
13. Smoke/CO detector (lots of people die during power outages due to cooking/heating their home with combustible appliances, a big no no)
14. Books/book light (another good source of entertainment during a power outage)
15. We put a coin on top of an ice cube trav so we would know if the freezer got warm enough to melt the food inside (fortunately it didn't!)
16. Cell phones with hot spot capability (if we had to use our computers/tablets we can still access the internet this way when our home internet is out)
17. Warm clothing--sweatpants, sweatshirts, warm socks, warm hat. We rarely ever wear these sorts of clothes in such a warm climate but it's good to have a set on hand in case of power outages during the winter (nubby was bundled up from his head to his feet then wrapped in a big blanket too!)
18. Backpacking gear. We no longer backpack but still have the gear including down sleeping bags, headlamps, small cook stoves, etc which could come in handy during an extended power outage
19. Apps on my phone (for our local power company which shows power outages/estimated time to be fixed, DEM app, weather app, news apps, etc)
20. When we lived in a much colder area, we always had a propane heater and extra propane on hand for emergency use during a power outage; it doesn't stay cold for long where we currently live