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Say the first hard freeze comes through tonight. The wind picks up, the lights flicker, and you reach into the kitchen drawer for the flashlight. The batteries are dead, and now you're trying to remember where the candles ended up. For
Affordable Walmart items under $5 to help seniors prepare for winter power outages and cold weather safely.
Key Takeaways
- Seniors should prepare for winter outages with affordable, practical items from Walmart.
- Safety and accessibility are crucial for lighting and emergency tools to prevent falls and injuries.
- Battery-operated alternatives reduce fire hazards during power outages.
- Food safety depends on minimizing refrigerator door openings and using thermometers to check freezer status.
- Emergency preparedness includes having water, medications, and signaling devices within easy reach.
What the video covers
- Prepare for winter power outages by keeping refrigerator and freezer doors closed to preserve food safety.
- Use nightlights with sensors to safely light paths at night and reduce fall risks for seniors.
- Keep flashlights easily accessible on nightstands and kitchens, and have extra batteries ready.
- Replace real candles with battery-operated tea lights to reduce fire risks for older adults.
- Carry a whistle for emergency signaling if a fall or accident prevents movement.
- Store adequate water supply, about three gallons per day, for emergencies.
- Use a refrigerator/freezer thermometer to check food safety after power restoration.
- Choose easy-to-use can openers and keep emergency medication info handy on a card.
- Avoid indoor use of fuel-burning camping lanterns due to carbon monoxide risks.
- Follow official safety guidelines from CDC, FDA, and fire departments for winter preparedness.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Power Outage Food Safety Tips
- 02:34Nightlights and Lighting Safety for Seniors
- 03:42Flashlights and Batteries: Accessibility and Selection
- 04:49Fire Safety: Battery Candles and Candle Usage
- 07:20Emergency Signaling and Whistle Use
- 08:18Cold Weather Risks and Hypothermia Awareness
- 12:14Water Storage and Food Safety Thermometers
- 14:40Additional Tools: Can Openers and Medication Cards
- 19:39Carbon Monoxide Safety and Final Recommendations
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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most of the country, that first freeze is on its way. Some of you have already had yours. Others won't see it until Thanksgiving or later. Either way, this week on a calm afternoon with the lights on is a much better time to find those
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gaps than the evening the power goes out. And when it does go out, there's an instinct most of us have to fight. We walk into the kitchen and open the refrigerator just to check. Then again an hour later. Then once more before
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bed. I understand it. Your groceries are in there, and groceries aren't cheap. But every time that door opens, the cold air you're trying to save spills out onto your feet. The food safety guidance from the FDA and the CDC is clear on this.
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With the doors kept closed, a refrigerator keeps food safe for about 4 hours. A full freezer holds for about 48 hours. A freezer that's only half full, about 24. So, the first thing I'd tell you costs nothing but a little patience.
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When the power goes out, leave both doors shut. Stick a note on the handle with the time the power went off so you're not guessing later. If the outage passes 4 hours and you've got a cooler and ice, that's when the milk, the meat,
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and the leftovers go in. If lifting a loaded cooler is hard on your back, fill it where it sits and leave it there until the 4 hours are up, keep the door shut. That still leaves a question. Say
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the power comes back at 2 in the morning. Did the freezer stay cold enough? You can check every package one at a time for ice crystals, or you can know at a glance. The item that tells you at a glance costs about $15, which
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is a good deal more than most things on today's list. When we get there, I'll tell you why it's the one I'd buy first.
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Most of the rest should cost less than $5 a piece, though prices vary from store to store, and you can pick it up in one trip to Walmart. 12 items in all in four groups. The dark, the cold,
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water, and food, and looking after yourself. We'll start with the dark, not the blackout kind yet. The ordinary kind that shows up every night between your bed and the bathroom. According to the CDC, more than one in four Americans 65
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and older falls each year. The CDC also puts out a home safety checklist, and one of its questions is a simple one. Is the path from your bed to the bathroom dark? Its answer is the first item on
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this list, a nightlight. And the checklist mentions a detail worth paying attention to. Some nightlights turn on by themselves after dark. That's the kind I'd buy. It has a small sensor, so it comes on when the room gets dark and
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goes off in daylight. There's no switch to fumble for with sleepy hands. You plug it in once and forget about it.
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Walmart's own Great Value brand makes a light sensing one, and online, it's been listed starting around $2.60.
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I'd get two. One low in the bedroom, near the door, one in the hallway or the bathroom, so the path stays lit from end to end. If the only open outlet is behind the nightstand, don't wrestle the furniture on a bad knee. Use the easiest
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outlet along the way or save the job for when someone's visiting. The same checklist also suggests keeping a lamp close to the bed where you can reach it without getting up in the dark. There is a limit, though. A nightlight plugs into
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the wall. When the power goes out, so does the nightlight. That's the job of number two. It's a flashlight, and where you keep it matters more than which one you buy. Ready.gov. The federal government's emergency preparedness site
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lists a flashlight in its basic emergency kit. Most of us already own one. The trouble is where it lives. If it's in the hall closet, you have to walk to it in the dark. And that's the very walk we just talked about. So, I'd
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keep two. One on the nightstand standing up where your hand lands without looking rather than buried in the drawer with the reading glasses and the TV remote.
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And one in the kitchen in the same spot every time. When you pick one out, try the switch right there in the store.
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Some small flashlights have a tiny button you have to press hard or a twist cap that takes a strong grip. If your fingers are stiff in the morning, they'll be stiff at midnight, too. Look for a switch you can work easily with
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your thumb and a shape that stands up on its own so it doesn't roll off the nightstand. You might be thinking your phone has a flashlight. It does, and it's handy, but in an outage, that phone battery is how you call for help. And
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every bit you spend on light is battery you might want later. Save the phone for calls. Remember the dead batteries in the kitchen drawer? That's why extra batteries come third, and they're on the ready.gov list, too. Before you buy any,
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look at what your things actually take. The flashlight, a battery radio if you have one, and the smoke alarms. Write the sizes on a scrap of paper, double A, AAA, C, 9V, and take it with you. It saves coming home with a pack that fits
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nothing. While you're at it, put fresh batteries in the nightstand flashlight and click it on. Better to find a dead one now than during the next storm.
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Smoke alarms need a quick word. Some newer ones have a long-life battery sealed inside, and the battery isn't meant to be changed. Follow the instructions on the alarm, and when it's done, the whole alarm gets replaced.
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That's not a $5 job. And if an alarm is up on a ceiling you can't reach safely, please don't climb for it. That's a job for a neighbor or family member. Some fire departments will even put in battery smoke alarms for free. Call your
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fire department's non-emergency number and ask. Which brings us to those candles you were trying to find. When the lights go out, reaching for a candle is about the most natural thing there is. But fire is harder on older adults.
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The US Fire Administration found that in 2020, Americans 65 and older had about two and a half times the risk of dying in a fire as the population overall. So, the fourth item is a simple swap.
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Battery-operated tea lights, the little flameless ones with a flickering bulb. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends flashlights or battery candles over real ones during winter outages. And the Fire Administration's Guide for Older Adults recommends them, too. They give a soft glow on the
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bathroom counter or the hallway table. And if you nod off in your chair, nothing happens. If you do light a real candle, keep it in a sturdy holder away from curtains and paper, and blow it out when you leave the room and before you
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go to sleep. The Fire Administration's advice is to never use candles in the bedroom at all. While we're on things that give off light, one warning that matters, a camping lantern that burns fuel, like propane, does not belong in
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the house. The CDC says never to use one indoors. It gives off carbon monoxide, a gas you can't see or smell, and it can make you very sick or kill you in your sleep. Battery lanterns are fine.
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Anything with a flame and a fuel canister stays outside. The last thing in this group costs about the same as the nightlight. Walmart's Ozark Trail brand sells a plain plastic whistle online for about $2.60, and a whistle is on the ready.gov
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basic kit list for signaling for help. It belongs with the dark for a reason.
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Imagine you get up in the night, your foot catches the edge of a rug, and you end up on the hallway floor. You're not badly hurt, but you can't get up. Your emergency kit is in the closet. Your
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phone is charging on the kitchen counter. The things you'd need are exactly the things you can't walk to, so the whistle has to be on you. A robe pocket works. So does a breakaway lanyard, the kind that snaps apart if it
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catches on something, which makes it safer to wear to bed. A whistle only helps if someone is close enough to hear it. I
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neighbor is down the road, it probably won't be. So the most useful thing about that whistle is what it reminds you to do with your phone. Keep the charger by the bed at night, and when you get up,
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take the phone with you in that same robe pocket. A phone on the nightstand doesn't help you on the hallway floor either. The whistle is the backup.
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Seeing your way and calling out cover most of what goes wrong in the dark.
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What goes wrong in the cold is quieter, and it has more to do with a number on a thermometer than with how cold you feel.
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Most of us judge the temperature at home the same way. If we're not shivering, we're fine. For an older body, that's not a reliable test. The National Institute on Aging, part of the NIH, advises keeping your heat at 68° or
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higher. And it warns that even a mildly cool house, 60 to 65° can lead to hypothermia in older adults. That's when your body's core temperature drops below 95° and it's a medical emergency. 63° doesn't feel like an emergency. It feels
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like a good day for a sweater. And that's what makes it easy to miss. Older bodies lose heat faster, and aging can also make it harder to notice when your temperature is dropping. Some health conditions and some medicines, even
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over-the-counter cold remedies, can add to the risk. If you're not sure whether yours do, that's a good question for your doctor or pharmacist. So, item number six is a plain indoor thermometer. The simple kind that sits on a shelf, nothing that needs an app.
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Pick one with numbers big enough to read without your glasses and put it where you spend your evenings, away from the heat vent and the sunny window. Now you're not guessing. If it's creeping down into the low 60s, that's your cue
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to turn the heat up or in an outage to start warming yourself in the room you're in. It also helps to know what hypothermia can look like. The institute lists early signs like cold hands and feet, a puffy face, pale skin,
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shivering, slower speech, acting sleepy, or being confused or cranky. Confusion is the tricky one because it's hard to spot in yourself. If you think you or someone else has these signs, the institute says to call 911 right away.
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Don't wait to see if warming up on your own fixes it. The seventh item is for keeping warm when the heat is gone. A myar emergency blanket, the thin, crinkly silver sheet, the Ozark trail one at Walmart, has been listed online
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for about $2.80. It folds small and can live in the nightstand drawer beside that flashlight. I'd wrap it around you as one more layer under your regular blanket because layers are what the institute's advice for staying warm indoors comes down to. Long underwear
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under your clothes, a blanket over your legs and shoulders, warm socks, and if you're up and walking, something on your feet with a grippy sole, a cap at night, eat enough to keep your weight up, and skip the alcohol, which makes you lose
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body heat. Close the curtains and close off the rooms you're not using, so you're keeping one space warm instead of the whole house. If the house keeps getting colder anyway, the institute says that when an outage leaves you
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without heat, try to stay with a relative or friend. If the roads are bad, ask them to come get you. Asking for somebody's couch can feel like a lot. It's less than a trip to the hospital. When the house is cold, people
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reach for whatever throws heat. So, here's the rest of the CDC's list. Beyond that camping lantern, no charcoal grill indoors, no camp stove, no generator in the house. the basement or the garage, even with the door open. A
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generator stays outside more than 20 feet from any window, door, or vent. Don't heat the house with a gas oven.
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And the CDC says not to use portable flameless chemical heaters indoors either. The danger with all of these is the same carbon monoxide. Back to the kitchen then, and that refrigerator door you've been keeping shut, before we get
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to that door, there's something that should already be in the kitchen. Water. If your home is on a well with an electric pump, the water can stop when the power does. And even on city water, a bad storm can leave you with a notice
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not to drink from the tap for a while. Ready.gov's guideline is one gallon per person per day for several days, and that covers drinking and washing up.
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Living alone, 3 days means three gallons. That's number eight. And store brand gallons are one of the cheaper things on this list, though, it's worth checking the shelf price at your store.
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A gallon of water weighs a little over 8 lbs. So, think about where it goes before you carry it home. Low on the floor of the pantry or under the kitchen table near where you'll use it. Not on a
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high shelf you'd have to reach up to with a heavy jug. If lifting a full gallon is hard on your wrists, buy the smaller bottles instead. Same water, easier to pour. And if carrying it all is too much, ask for a hand at the
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register or use pickup or delivery if it's offered where you live. Water and the freezer also work together.
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Remember, a full freezer holds safe for about 2 days and a half full one for about one. If yours has empty space, the FDA suggests freezing containers of water to help keep things cold. A couple of clean plastic bottles filled most of
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the way, leaving room for the ice to expand fill the gaps for free. And when they thaw, that's more drinking water.
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So, back to 2:00 in the morning. The power's back on. Did the freezer stay cold enough? That's where the ninth item comes in. A refrigerator and freezer thermometer. The Taylor model at Walmart has been listed online at about $15, and
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some models are listed for a little less. It hangs or stands on a shelf inside, and on an ordinary day, you can glance at it whenever you're getting the milk. Here's why it's the one I'd buy first. The FDA says your freezer should
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sit at 0° or below, and your refrigerator at 40 or below. During an outage, you leave the door shut and don't check it. When the power comes back, you open the freezer once and look. If the thermometer reads 40° or
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below, the FDA says the food is safe and can be refrozen. One look and you're done. Without it, you're down to checking each package one at a time. The CDC says frozen food that still has ice crystals in it, or is it 40° or below
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can be refrozen or cooked. That's doable, but it's a lot of standing in front of an open freezer at 2:00 in the morning feeling bags of vegetables and trying to decide about a pork roast. The refrigerator side has a harder rule. If
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meat poultry fish milk eggs or leftovers sat above 40° for 4 hours or more, they go in the trash. I know that stings when money's tight. A thermometer in the fridge tells you whether it ever got that warm, so you're not throwing
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out food you didn't need to or keeping food you shouldn't. And one rule that has no exceptions, never taste something to decide if it's safe. Food that's gone bad can look fine and smell fine. When in doubt, throw it out. The FDA
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recommends a thermometer in both the fridge and the freezer. If you can only get one right now, I'd start with the freezer because that's usually where the most money is sitting. Without one in the fridge, just go by the clock and
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that note on the door handle. Pick a thermometer with a big dial or big digital numbers and put it near the front of the shelf so you can read it without moving anything. 10th on the list is the simplest thing in the
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kitchen drawer, a manual can opener. It's on the same ready.gov list. If your can opener plugs into the wall, then during an outage, every can in your pantry is locked and canned food is exactly what you'll be eating since most
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of it is ready to eat without cooking. That list also suggests keeping at least a several day supply of food that doesn't need the refrigerator. For one person, that's a short row of cans in the pantry. Pick things you'd actually
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eat on an ordinary Tuesday. Soup, beans, tuna, fruit. A can of something you don't like is a can you'll still have in 5 years. Check the dates once a year and eat the old ones first. A basic hand
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crank opener doesn't cost much, but turn it in the store before you buy it. A standard opener takes a steady grip and a lot of twisting at the wrist. And if arthritis has been bothering your hands, you want to find that out in the aisle,
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not over a can of soup in the dark. Look for fat cushioned handles and a big turning knob. If no opener feels comfortable, there's another way around it. Buy some of your canned goods with pull tab lids. They need a little finger
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strength, too, so try one at home first. Between a comfortable opener and a few pull tab cans, dinner doesn't depend on the outlet. Food and water can wait out a few days. Your medicines usually can't, and the last two items are about
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them. Did I take my morning pills or am I thinking of yesterday? Most of us have stood in the kitchen asking that. During an outage, with your routine thrown off and a flashlight in one hand, it gets harder to answer. That's what the 11th
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item is for, a weekly pill organizer. With the pills already sorted, one glance at Tuesday tells you. Look for large letters and lids that open easily because some snap shut so tightly they take a fingernail in a fight. Before you
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fill it, ask your pharmacist one thing. A few medicines are meant to stay in their original bottle or blister pack, so check whether any of yours are among them. The organizer also shows you when you're running low, and that matters
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more in winter. Ready.gov gov points out that about half of all Americans take a prescription medicine every day and that an emergency can make it hard to get a refill or find a pharmacy that's open.
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So ask your pharmacist whether they can line up your refill dates so everything comes due together instead of one bottle running out while another is full. When a refill is due, pick it up as soon as your plan allows rather than waiting for
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the last pill. A storm has a way of arriving the week you're down to two.
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What I wouldn't do is start saving up extra doses on your own. Refill rules, insurance limits, and the rules for certain medicines all vary. If you're worried about running short during a storm, that's a conversation for your pharmacist or doctor. The same goes for
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any medicine that has to stay cold, like some insulins. Ask now what to do if the power goes out while there's time to plan. And to finish the list, a pack of index cards and a dark marker. It's one
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of the cheapest things here on an ambulance. One of the first things we ask people is what medicines they take.
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It's a hard question to answer when you're hurting or scared or a little confused. A card answers it for you. On one card, write your medications and the doses, any allergies, your medical conditions, your doctor, your pharmacy, and two people to call. Print in big,
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clear letters. Then make three copies. One goes on the refrigerator, one goes by the bed next to the flashlight, and one goes in your wallet. That copy travels with you, so write only what you're comfortable having in your purse
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or pocket. You may have heard of programs where emergency crews know to check the refrigerator for a medical form. Those are run locally, so they aren't everywhere, and you can't count on anyone knowing to look. Think of the
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card as something you can hand over or point to, or that a neighbor can find and read out loud to the 911 dispatcher.
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And when a medicine changes, change the card the same day. An old card gives the people treating you the wrong information. There's one more thing, and it isn't one of the 12 because it isn't a $5 item. A carbon monoxide alarm that
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runs on batteries or has a battery backup. The CDC recommends one if you ever use a generator. And when the power's out, a plug-in alarm with no battery goes quiet right when you'd need it. If that alarm ever sounds, get
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outside and call 911. and carbon monoxide can feel like the flu. Headache, dizziness, weakness, and upset stomach, confusion. If you feel that way while the furnace, a gas stove, or a generator is running, don't wait for an alarm. Get outside and call for help the
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same way. So, that's the list. Light and a whistle for the dark. A thermometer and a blanket for the cold. Water. A can opener and that $15 thermometer for the kitchen. A pill organizer and a card with your medicines on it. One calm
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afternoon this week with the lights still on is enough to get it done. If someone you know lives alone, pass this along. Better yet, go through the list together. Take care of yourself this winter.
Topics:winter preparednessseniors safetypower outageWalmart itemsemergency kitnightlightflashlightbattery candlesfood safetycold weather
