Playbook Event · Winter storm & extended outage

Winter storm & extended power outage

The forecast calls for ice. The grid is going to fail. Here is what to do in the 48 hours before, during the outage, and in the days after.

Intricate fern-like frost crystals cover a window pane during a hard freeze, dark trees blurred beyond the glass in cold blue light.

A winter storm playbook covers two compounding problems at once: a sustained outage and the cold itself. Heat becomes the dominant risk — water, food, and comms matter, but it is the cold that hurts you.

Phase 1

Before — 24 to 48 hours out

  1. Fill the bathtub and several large containers with water. Free flushing supply if mains pressure drops.
  2. Charge every battery in the house. Phones, banks, power stations, headlamps.
  3. Top off the fuel tank. Stations lose pumps when the grid goes.
  4. Pull out cold-weather sleeping bags and consolidate the household into one heatable room.
  5. Cook anything in the freezer that you can eat over the next few days. Eat the perishables first.
  6. Test the generator outside. Pre-stage the cords now, not at midnight.
Phase 2

During — the outage

  1. Close off the heating room. One room, doors shut, blankets over the door cracks.
  2. Dress in layers and stay in them. Hat, socks, base layer. Bodies heat people more than space heaters.
  3. Do not run a generator indoors or in an attached garage. CO kills silently — outside, far from windows.
  4. Open faucets to a slow drip on exterior walls to prevent freeze-burst.
  5. Check on neighbors who live alone, especially older ones. Hypothermia is gradual and people minimize it.
  6. Conserve phone battery: airplane mode, dim screen, group check-ins via one device.
Phase 3

After — restoration

  1. Check the freezer before opening. If it stayed below 40°F, contents are safe. If not, when in doubt, throw it out.
  2. Reset breakers one at a time. Inrush current from everything coming back at once can pop them again.
  3. Run the generator dry before storing, or stabilize the remaining fuel.
  4. Replace anything you used: water jugs, batteries, fuel, propane.
  5. Write down what you wish you had. Today is the most honest review you will ever do of your kit.

A winter playbook leans on three of the nine domains hardest: shelter & warmth, power, and water. Everything else stays useful, but those three are where survival is decided.

The power layer is the one most households underprepare. The two weeks without grid power guide walks through the L2 arithmetic — light, charge, run, and the daily rhythm that holds together when an outage runs from one night to ten.

Sized to your scope

The winter storm & extended outage plan at four depths

The playbook above is the event. The links below are the prep system — sized to the depth your household can actually sustain, with checklists, weighted domains, and the questions that come up for each combination.