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June 28, 2008, 3:24 pm
Flag as Inappropriate skatss  

I don't know about your section of the US, but where I live our main power company just revealed that their workers have declared that they might all walk off the job come Sunday! Just as the heat is getting to be in the killer category we might have to deal with brown outs and loss of electricity!

I won't go into how unfair this all is to everyone, or how dangerous it is to people, but I will give some ideas on food safety and what to do to keep from poisoning yourself and your family if the power goes out.

Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed at all times. They say the foods inside should be safe for about four hours if you do this. After that, the temperatures will start to go up. Remember to be fast when you do take anything out. Decide what you want and where it is before you open the fridge door.

If the temperature inside the refrigerator rises to 40 degrees or higher for two or more hours discard all milk, eggs, dairy products and leftovers. You might want to hard boil your eggs right away when the power goes. They will be safe to eat for more hours if the shells aren't cracked.

If your freezer isn't full, move all of the items together to keep them as cold as possible.

Frozen foods that have partially or completely defrosted may be safely refrozen ONLY if there are still ice crystals or if the temperature of the food is 40 degrees or lower.

If possible, cook the defrosted foods and then freeze to be served later on just as you would normally handle leftovers.

Don't taste food that has an odd color or smell. Come on, we all know that when we don't want to throw out all the food that cost good money we tend to ask people "Does this taste bad to you?" Don't do it. It's not safe.

When in doubt, throw it out!

Not that this will help that much, but NOW before the lights go out, write down all of the things you have inside your refrigerator. Not that I really think the power company will reimburse you for your lost food, but if they say they will, you'll already be prepared with a list and a price.

Let's all be safe.

I suggest your government arrest these people for domestic terrorism for putting critical infrastructure in danger if they walk off the job and cause this huge problem. You have an obligation to do your best when you would in a critical industry that does not allow you the freedom to leave just because your boss refused to wipe your butt for you.

Now it may be a little more serious than that but these folk have to realize that we as a culture can't allow our critical infrastructures to just go to pot because of a disagreement between owners and workers. The problem must be worked out or you know what ... people need to go to jail.

They should get punish as a killer gets.

If this occurred in AZ I imagine things would get really ugly. We are already over 100* mark and with all the elderly, children and disabled they would find quite quickly that such a move may be far more costly to them then their jobs.