15 Emergency Essentials You Don’t Want to Be Without

Ice

When you first hear that a storm might strike during the coming week, start making and storing as much ice as the freezer can handle.

Also, start eating as much food as possible out of the fridge and freezer to avoid waste in case the power goes out.

Fill clean, empty plastic bottles with water and freeze them to serve as an emergency supply of ice and water.

Be sure to leave a couple of inches empty at the top, so the freezing water has room to expand.

The filled bottles even reduce electricity consumption in normal circumstances, because keeping ice frozen uses less energy than cooling empty air, and helps food stay cold during a power failure.