Guide
Buy It Before the Storm, Not During It
Outage gear sells out the day a storm is forecast, and the panic purchase is the one that kills people when a generator runs in a garage. A calm October checklist, with the one rule for each item that the box does not say loudly enough.
Storm prep follows a familiar curve. Nothing happens for months. Then a forecast names a date, and within a day the shelves are empty of generators, batteries and radios. Anything still in stock is the expensive model, the cheap no-name one, or something that does not fit the problem.
The worse cost is not the price. A generator bought the night before, with no plan for where it goes, ends up in the garage with the door open. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission puts the toll at an average of about 100 people a year dying in the US from carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators.
October is the time to fix all of it, while it is calm. The list has four parts: light, power, information and CO protection. Each comes with a rule the packaging tends to bury.
1. Light
Buy: a flashlight per adult and a headlamp for whoever does the work.
The flashlights we compared divide by how they are powered. The ThruNite Archer 2A Pro runs on two AA cells, so there is no proprietary battery to die and you can stock spares in a drawer. The Fenix PD36R Pro uses a removable 21700 cell with USB-C charging, which gives more sustained output, as long as you charge it before the storm or keep a spare cell. Skip the no-name “tactical” light claiming a physically impossible lumen count. Its real output is a small fraction of the claim and it dims quickly.
A headlamp keeps both hands free for a fuse box, a pan or a child. The Petzl Actik Core takes its rechargeable pack or three AAA batteries, which suits an outage better than a lamp with a sealed battery.
The rule: use flashlights, not candles. The CPSC’s winter guidance recommends flashlights or battery-operated candles over real ones, and says never to leave a burning candle unattended.
2. Power
Buy: a power station for quiet indoor loads, a generator only if you need to run heavy ones for days.
A power station is a large battery with sockets. The Anker SOLIX C1000 stores about 1,056Wh and outputs 1,800W continuously. The Bluetti Elite 200 V2 holds about 2,073Wh, enough by our comparison’s estimate to carry a fridge through an outage. Both run indoors with no exhaust. Their limit is that once empty they need power back, from the wall or from solar inputs like those on the EcoFlow Delta 3 Plus.
A generator is the answer when the furnace blower, a well pump or the whole kitchen has to run. The Westinghouse WGen9500DFc lists 9,500 running watts on gasoline, enough for a fridge, furnace, well pump and lights at once, and runs on propane too, which our review notes is the cleaner fuel to store long term. The smaller iGen4000DFc covers a fridge and a few circuits, not a whole house. Every generator in our comparison has a CO sensor that shuts the engine down when carbon monoxide builds up.
The rule for power stations: charge it now and check it monthly. A power station bought on storm day will arrive after the outage, and one that has sat half empty in a cupboard since spring is not ready either.
The rule for generators: decide where it will sit before you buy it. The CPSC says outside only, at least 20 feet from the house, and never inside a home, garage, basement, crawlspace or shed. Our generator review adds porches and any partially enclosed space, even with the doors and windows open, and says to point the exhaust away from doors, windows and vents. If you cannot name a spot 20 feet from the house that you can reach in the dark and the snow, buy a power station instead.
3. Information
Buy: a weather radio, ideally two kinds.
When the power and the mobile network are both down, a NOAA weather radio still gets National Weather Service alerts. The radios we compared split into two jobs.
A portable crank radio is what you use during an outage. The Midland ER310PRO lists a 10,000 mAh battery, 200+ hours of radio use, and three ways to charge: USB-C, solar and hand crank. The FosPower Model D8 matches the 10,000 mAh battery and is the only portable model that states an IP rating, IPX3. The cheap Kaito KA336 has a 1,200 mAh battery, which will not do much for a modern phone.
A plug-in alert radio is what wakes you. The Midland WR120B is the only one in our comparison that states SAME, so it can be set to sound for your county rather than the whole broadcast area. It falls back to three AA batteries during an outage, and they are not included.
The rule: put the batteries in now. A backup slot that has never held batteries is not a backup.
4. Carbon monoxide
Buy: a CO alarm that keeps working with the power off, on each floor where people sleep.
This is the item that matters most and is easiest to forget, because it does nothing until the day it saves you. The Kidde KN-COP-DP-10YL plugs in and has a sealed 10-year lithium backup, so an outage does not silence it. The First Alert CO710 runs on a sealed 10-year battery with nothing to wire. Both are listed to UL 2034 and show a ppm reading. The cheap First Alert CO400 is listed to the same standard and sounds the same 85 dB horn, but runs on a replaceable 9V battery, and a low-battery chirp at 3am is the most common reason an alarm comes down and never goes back up.
Two details from our CO alarm comparison are worth knowing in advance. The display stays blank below 30 ppm, a UL 2034 rule, so a blank screen does not mean clean air. And the Kidde display switches off on battery power unless it detects more than 100 ppm or is alarming, so a dark screen during an outage is expected.
The rule: never ignore it. The CPSC’s instruction is direct: if a CO alarm sounds, get outside immediately, then call 911. It also recommends interconnected alarms, so that when one sounds they all do, and testing them monthly.
The October list
- One flashlight per adult, plus spare batteries of the type it takes.
- One headlamp, ideally one that accepts AAA cells.
- A power station, charged, or a generator with a chosen spot 20 feet from the house and a CO shutoff.
- A crank weather radio, and a plug-in SAME alert radio with its AA backup installed.
- A CO alarm with sealed or backup battery power on every sleeping floor, tested.
None of this is exciting to buy. All of it is easier to find, and more likely to be used correctly, before the forecast names a date.
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