When the lights blinked out last Thursday right as Darlene was pulling the potatoes from the oven, I had one of those familiar moments where I thought, here we go again. We live in Missouri, and out here the power company does its best, but all it takes is one branch leaning too heavy on the wrong line and supper turns into a guessing game. I remember looking at the darkened oven clock, hearing the hum of the fridge die off, and catching that split second of silence before the cicadas outside took over. You know the feeling, like the world hit pause.

Cooking When the Stove Quits
I always keep a two burner propane camp stove tucked away in the garage, right next to the fishing rods. It cost me fifty bucks at a hardware store twenty years ago, and I have to say it has paid for itself a hundred times over. Darlene jokes that it is the most romantic appliance we own because nothing brings a family closer than huddling over a sputtering pot of beans by lantern light. Propane cylinders are cheap and they store well, but I rotate mine just like canned goods. Every fall I set aside a weekend, fire up the stove, boil some water, and make sure everything still runs right. You do not want the first time you strike a match to be the night you actually need it.

If you are more ambitious, you might look at a rocket stove. My neighbor Ed built one out of cinder blocks and some scrap pipe, and it works like a charm with just a handful of twigs. The first time he showed me, he tossed a small skillet on top and fried an egg with nothing more than a fistful of kindling. It is not fancy, but it is the sort of tool that makes you realize how little fuel it really takes to keep a meal going.

Keeping Food Cold
The fridge is always the first thing people panic about, but here is the truth. If you keep the doors closed, most modern refrigerators will hold temp for a solid day. Freezers can stretch to two if they are packed tight. I keep gallon jugs of water frozen in the chest freezer for this very reason. They take up space, yes, but they also act like big ice blocks. When the power goes out, those jugs buy you hours, even days, of breathing room. And when they finally thaw, well, then you just have cold drinking water ready to go.

Years back, I picked up a used generator at a farm auction. Nothing fancy, just a 3500 watt unit with a pull start that sounds like a lawnmower clearing its throat. I wired up a transfer switch to run the essentials, and it is peace of mind knowing that I can keep the fridge humming if the outage drags into days. The trick with generators is not just owning one, but keeping stabilized gas on hand and running it every couple months so the carburetor does not gum up. I learned that lesson the hard way one January when I yanked the cord and all I got was a sad sputter.

Light After Dark
Candles are charming until you remember you have grandkids running around. When Wendy and Steve visit with Luke and Charlotte, I do not trust an open flame anywhere near the coffee table. That is why I swear by LED lanterns. The newer ones run on AA batteries and will go for days. I have three stashed in different rooms, and every time I see them in action I marvel at how far we have come since kerosene lamps.

That said, I still keep a kerosene lantern in the shed. Partly nostalgia, partly backup, partly because there is something steadying about the warm glow of real flame on a dark night. Jasper the black lab tends to sprawl out right in front of it like he is some pioneer dog holding the homestead. The smell of kerosene might not be everyone’s favorite, but to me it smells like reliability.

The Family Factor
When the lights are out, I have noticed that the family draws in closer. Without screens glowing, the kids actually play board games. Darlene will pull out her worn deck of cards, and before long we are knee deep in a game of rummy by lantern light. One winter storm years back, we lost power for three full days. It was cold, it was inconvenient, but it was also one of the most memorable weekends we ever had. We cooked on the camp stove, drank cocoa warmed in a dented saucepan, and told stories until everyone nodded off.

I always say preparedness is not about being paranoid. It is about making sure when life throws its usual curveballs, you do not drop the bat. A power outage in the middle of dinner is just a reminder that convenience is fragile, but resilience is built one small habit at a time.

When the lights cut out halfway through cooking, you can still have a hot meal on the table if you plan ahead. This is the dish I keep in my back pocket for nights when the oven quits but the appetite does not.

Ingredients

Instructions

By the time you remove that lid, the roast will fall apart with a fork, and the vegetables will have soaked up every bit of that broth. I usually ladle it into mismatched bowls because when the power is out, presentation takes a back seat. Darlene insists on a side of bread to mop up the juices, and I will not argue with that.

This one has become something of a tradition in our family. Even Luke and Charlotte, picky as they can be, clean their bowls when I make it. Jasper usually hovers by my chair hoping for a carrot to drop, and most of the time he gets one.

I was not there in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina roared through in 2005, but like most of you I watched it unfold on the evening news with a knot in my stomach. Entire neighborhoods drowned under water, families stranded on rooftops waving sheets for rescue, thousands crammed into the Superdome with no power, no running water, and no idea when help was coming. It was heartbreaking, but it was also a wake-up call for anyone who thought the government alone could swoop in and fix everything fast.

The Breakdown of Basics
The first thing that struck me then, and still sticks with me now, was how quickly the basics unraveled. Clean drinking water became a crisis within hours. People who had stocked food but no water found themselves in trouble, because you can skip meals but you cannot skip hydration. The city’s water system was contaminated, bottled water ran out, and distribution was chaotic at best. It reminded me that storing water is not glamorous, but it is absolutely essential.

Power was gone for weeks in some places. Without electricity, refrigerators and freezers turned into boxes of spoiled food. Folks who had a couple cans of soup and a manual can opener did better than those with a freezer full of steak and no way to cook it. That is a lesson I keep hammering at with people who only think in terms of bulk food storage. You have to think about how you will actually prepare it when nothing works.

Mobility Matters
Something else Katrina taught us was the danger of being stuck in place. Evacuation orders went out, but not everyone could or would leave. Some did not have cars. Others thought they could ride it out. The Superdome became a last resort, and what was supposed to be a safe shelter turned into a nightmare of overcrowding, heat, and fear. Having a plan for where you would go, and how you would get there, is just as critical as having beans in the pantry. If you think staying put is your only option, you have already limited your choices.

Community and Chaos
Reports of looting and violence grabbed headlines, but what impressed me more were the stories of neighbors banding together. Churches opening their doors, strangers sharing meals, boat owners forming rescue flotillas to pull people off roofs. When systems collapse, human decency often shows up in stronger measure than we expect. The catch is, it shows up best when people have just enough margin to share. If you are barely scraping by yourself, it is harder to extend a hand to others.

What We Can Take Away
Katrina showed the limits of waiting for outside help. Even in the wealthiest country in the world, relief can be delayed, confused, or overwhelmed. Ordinary people with modest supplies, some know-how, and a network of neighbors often fared better than those who simply waited for FEMA trucks.

You do not need a bunker or a mountain of gold bars to learn from Katrina. You need water stored in plain old jugs, a plan for cooking without power, a way to get out if staying put becomes deadly, and a mindset that includes looking out for the folks next to you. Those lessons came at a terrible cost for the people who lived them, but the rest of us have no excuse not to pay attention.

Clean drinking water is the one thing you cannot fake your way through. You can stretch your food, bundle up against the cold, or light the room with a candle, but if you are stuck without safe water you will feel it in a hurry. I like projects that cost next to nothing but give you outsized peace of mind, and the five-gallon bucket filter is exactly that.

What You Need

How It Works
This setup is as simple as it gets. You stack one bucket on top of the other. The top bucket holds the dirty water. The ceramic filter element sits in a hole you drilled in the bottom of that bucket. Gravity does the work, pulling water through the ceramic element into the bottom bucket. You install a spigot in the lower bucket so you can pour off clean drinking water without lifting or spilling.

Step by Step

Tips From the Field
Ceramic filters can be cleaned with a scrub pad when they clog. Do not use soap, just rinse and scrub the surface gently to expose fresh ceramic. This one step can add months of life to the filter. I recommend keeping a backup element in your supplies. They are small, lightweight, and give you redundancy.

We tried ours on a camping trip with Wendy and Steve a few summers back. Luke and Charlotte loved watching the water drip into the lower bucket like a science project. Jasper the lab sat right next to it, wagging his tail, waiting for someone to give him a drink. It reminded me that sometimes the simplest gear is the best. Two buckets, one filter, and gravity can carry you through when everything else has failed.

Out here in Oregon, just east of the Cascades, we get a shorter growing season than Dad does back in Missouri. Our summers are hot and dry, and our nights cool down fast, which means I have to be a little more strategic with what we plant. Steve jokes that half my life is spent with a seed catalog in one hand and a soil thermometer in the other, and he is not wrong.

This year, I made it my mission to get Luke and Charlotte more involved in the garden. They are nine and seven now, and I figure if they can work an iPad, they can certainly work a trowel. We started simple. Each of them got their own four by four raised bed. Luke picked carrots and green beans because, in his words, those are foods that taste better when you pull them out of the dirt yourself. Charlotte wanted strawberries and sunflowers, mostly because she thought the sunflowers would be taller than Steve by the end of summer.

We made a little ritual out of planting. One Saturday morning in April, we hauled out the compost, mixed it into the beds, and I showed them how to space seeds with a piece of twine knotted at intervals. Charlotte stuck most of her strawberry plants in sideways, but we gently corrected her. Luke kept sneaking earthworms into his pockets like they were pets.

By June, both kids were racing out to check their plots first thing in the morning. Luke measured his beans with a ruler and announced progress like he was giving a weather report. Charlotte took to talking to her strawberries in a singsong voice, insisting it made them sweeter. Even Jasper, our black lab, started waiting by the garden gate, probably hoping someone would drop a berry or two.

The lesson for me has been patience. Gardening with kids means accepting that rows will be crooked, watering will sometimes flood the bed, and more dirt ends up on their clothes than in the soil. But it also means that when the first green shoots break through, their faces light up like Christmas morning.

We harvested the first batch of carrots in late July, and Luke declared them the best food he had ever eaten. Charlotte presented Steve with a strawberry that she called her masterpiece. I cannot say the garden produced enough to fill the pantry, but it filled their curiosity and gave them a taste of self-sufficiency.

Dad always says preparedness is about ordinary habits practiced daily, not big dramatic gestures. I think teaching kids to garden fits that perfectly. It is not just about the food, it is about showing them they can nurture something from seed to harvest with their own two hands. And if they learn that lesson now, they will carry it with them for the rest of their lives.

This week I want you to put together a bag that can carry you through three days without outside help. Think of it as your safety net when you have to leave the house in a hurry. Maybe it is a wildfire, maybe a chemical spill on the highway, maybe your neighborhood is without power for days and you need to head somewhere with family. The reason does not matter. What matters is that you can walk out the door with confidence instead of panic.

Start With the Bag Itself
You do not need to buy a fancy tactical pack unless you want to. A sturdy backpack or duffel works fine. Make sure it is comfortable on your shoulders and has enough compartments so you are not digging like a raccoon every time you need something.

The Water Question
Plan for at least one gallon of water per person per day. That is a lot to carry, so the trick is to pack one or two bottles plus a portable filter or purification tablets. A Sawyer Mini or LifeStraw weighs almost nothing and could save you when bottles run dry.

Food That Will Not Betray You
Think light and shelf stable. Granola bars, peanut butter, instant oatmeal packets, tuna pouches, jerky. The kind of food you can eat straight out of the package or with nothing more than a little hot water. Darlene swears by those vacuum-packed coffee singles, because in her words, the apocalypse is no excuse to skip caffeine.

Shelter and Warmth
Pack a lightweight tarp, a couple of emergency blankets, and a good fire starter. Matches in a waterproof container are fine, but I also toss in a ferro rod because it will work even if it gets wet. A compact sleeping bag or bivy sack is gold if you have the space.

First Aid Counts
Do not just throw in a box of band-aids and call it good. You want gauze, tape, antiseptic wipes, pain relievers, any prescription meds you rely on, and maybe a tourniquet if you know how to use it. Think of what you would need if urgent care was off the table for a few days.

Light and Power
LED headlamp, small flashlight, and extra batteries. A little hand-crank radio is worth its weight, too, because staying informed can change your choices.

Odds and Ends That Matter
A copy of important documents sealed in a plastic bag, some cash in small bills, a pocketknife or multitool, and a change of clothes. Toss in hygiene basics like a toothbrush, soap, and a roll of toilet paper in a ziplock bag. Trust me, you will thank yourself for that one.

The Challenge
By Sunday night, I want you to have a complete bag packed and staged somewhere easy to grab. Do not shove it in the attic where you will never see it again. Put it by the coat closet or under the bed. If you have a family, build one bag per adult and a smaller version for the kids. If your kids are like Luke and Charlotte, let them help pack it so they feel some ownership. Charlotte insists her bag include crayons and a deck of cards, and honestly, I think she is onto something. Morale is survival, too.

When you have it packed, carry it around the block once. If it feels like a sack of bricks, trim it down. Better to learn that lesson now than halfway down the road when your back is screaming at you. This is about readiness, not punishment.