Checklist L1 · 72 hours Event · Grid-down

Grid-down 72-hour checklist

The 72-hour grid-down checklist for the first three days of a regional power outage — heat or AC, comms, fridge, fuel, and the cash you forgot you needed.

Grid-down for 72 hours is the canonical American emergency: the storm took the lines down, the substation tripped, the utility's estimate keeps slipping. By hour 24 your phone is at 40%. By hour 48 the fridge is questionable. By hour 72 the gas station has nothing left to pump. The list below is the prep that gets a normal household through that arc without an ER trip, a food-poisoning incident, or a panic-shopping run for items the store no longer has.

The load-bearing domains

What this combination actually depends on

Every event–duration combination weights the nine domains differently. Here are the two or three that decide the outcome for this one.

Power & Light

When the grid goes.

A grid-down event is by definition a power problem. Power for comms, light, food preservation, and any medical device is the spine of the prep.

The power & light domain →

Communication

Stay in contact.

When the grid goes, the cell network leans on backup batteries that drain in 4–24 hours. The plan that survives is the plan that includes radio.

The communication domain →

Food

Eat well, store smart.

The fridge is a 4-hour countdown. The freezer is a 24-hour countdown. The pantry is the rest of the week. Most household waste in an outage is fridge-thaw waste.

The food domain →

The 72 hours list

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Two charged 20,000+ mAh power banks per adultEach bank holds about four phone charges. Two banks per adult covers a week of comms. Charge them before the outage; once the grid is down, they are a finite resource.
A portable power station, sized to your real load1,000 Wh runs a CPAP overnight, charges everything, runs a fan. 2,000 Wh runs a small fridge intermittently. Match the storage to what you actually need to keep running.
A NOAA weather radio with hand-crank backupThe cell network's backup batteries last 4–24 hours. NOAA frequencies broadcast on different infrastructure and come through when the carriers do not.
Headlamps for every adult, plus a backupHands-free in the dark is the rule. Two AAA batteries powers a headlamp for 20+ hours. A box of 24 spare batteries is a $12 month of light.
$200–500 in small billsATMs are on the grid. Card readers are on the grid. The corner store will sell you ice and bread for cash long after card readers stop working.
1 gallon of drinking water per person per day, 3 daysMunicipal water often keeps flowing for the first 24–48 hours of an outage before the pressure systems run out of stored capacity. Do not assume tap water will be available at hour 49.12 gal/family of 4
A camp stove or grill — used outside onlyCooking is morale. A propane camp stove and two canisters runs a household's hot food for the week. Never indoors, never in a garage — carbon monoxide is the largest post-outage killer.
Don't open the fridge or freezer unless you mustA closed fridge holds safe temperature for about 4 hours. A full freezer holds for about 48. Every opening cuts that. Decide what to eat before you open the door.
Refuel the car and confirm it can charge a phoneA full gas tank is a $5/hour power bank that also gets you out of town. Most modern cars charge from a USB port without the engine running for several hours.

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Common questions

Questions that come up

How long will food in my fridge last during a power outage?

An unopened fridge holds safe temperature (below 40°F) for about 4 hours. A full freezer holds for about 48 hours; a half-full freezer for about 24. Every time you open the door, you cut those windows. Decide what you are taking out before you open the door.

How much power do I need to run my CPAP during an outage?

Most CPAPs draw 30–60 watts. A 500–1,000 Wh portable power station runs a CPAP overnight (8 hours at ~50W = 400 Wh) with margin. Skip the humidifier feature during outages — it doubles the draw. A separate DC cable from the CPAP manufacturer is more efficient than running through an inverter.

Will my cell phone work during a long power outage?

For the first 4–24 hours, probably yes — cell towers have backup batteries. Beyond that, coverage degrades unpredictably as towers drop. The phone itself works as long as it has charge. Plan to text rather than call (text gets through on degraded networks) and keep a NOAA radio for the period after carrier batteries run out.

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Same event, different scope

Other grid-down durations

Same scope, different event

The 72-hour version for other events

Run the numbers

How much water and food, exactly, for this duration

The list above tells you what to stock. The calculators below tell you how much — sized to your household and this duration.

Go deeper