If you camp, you already own a good chunk of an emergency kit. A camp stove, a headlamp, a cooler, a water jug and a power station handle most of what goes wrong when the grid goes down for a week. What camping gear won't do is store enough water, run a fan all night in August, or tell you a tornado warning just dropped.
Here's what doubles, how to use it safely at home, and the gaps to fill.
Campers are already halfway prepared
Think about what a power outage actually is. No lights, no stove, no fridge, no AC, maybe no running water. That's a campsite. The difference is you're in a house, it's 90 degrees, and you don't know when it ends.
The gear that gets you through a weekend in the woods is built to work without an outlet. That's exactly the point of emergency gear. So before you buy a "hurricane kit" in a box, open your camping bins and see what's there.
What usually carries over well:
- Stove and fuel
- Headlamps and lanterns
- Cooler
- Water jugs and a filter
- Portable power station or battery bank
- Sleeping pads and a battery fan
- First aid kit
What usually doesn't: enough water for a household for a week, enough food, a weather radio, and anything to protect the house itself. We cover those in the gaps section below.
Stove: cooking through an outage safely
Yes, you can use a camping stove during a power outage. Outside only. Not in the kitchen, not in the garage with the door open, not on a screened porch. Camp stoves, grills and generators all make carbon monoxide, and CDC guidance is clear that fuel-burning appliances like these don't belong indoors. CO poisoning shows up after nearly every major storm, and it kills people who thought a cracked window was enough.
Set the stove up on a table in the driveway or the open yard, away from doors and windows. Keep a battery CO alarm in the house anyway.
Coleman Classic Propane Stove The two-burner green stove that's been at every campsite for decades. Runs on the small 1-lb propane bottles, boils water fast, and fits a real skillet. Downside: those little propane bottles go quick if you're cooking three meals a day, so stock more than you think, or get an adapter hose for a bulk tank. Check price on Amazon
Jetboil (Flash or MiniMo) Boils two cups of water in a couple of minutes. Perfect for coffee and freeze-dried meals, and it's small enough for an evacuation bag. Downside: it's a water boiler, not a frying pan. You won't cook a real dinner on it. Check price on Amazon
Water filter vs. water storage
Campers love their filters. A filter is great when you have a creek. In a hurricane you mostly don't, and floodwater is full of sewage, fuel and chemicals that a backpacking filter is not built for.
So here's the honest breakdown:
- Water storage is the main plan. Ready.gov says one gallon per person per day. Florida's emergency management office says keep seven days of supplies. For four people, that's 28 gallons.
- A filter is the backup. It's good for questionable tap water after a boil-water notice (along with boiling), a rain barrel, or a pool in a pinch. Not for floodwater.
If you already own a 7-gallon jug for camping, fill it before the storm. Then fill another.
Sawyer Squeeze Light, cheap, and filters a lot of water before it wears out. It's the one most backpackers carry, and it belongs in a bug out bag. Downside: it filters bacteria and protozoa, not viruses or chemicals. Boil or treat water too when the source is sketchy. Check price on Amazon
For the full water and food plan for a storm, see our Florida hurricane kit checklist.
Light
Headlamps are the single most useful piece of camping gear in an outage. Your hands are free for cooking, checking the breaker box, or carrying a kid down the stairs. Give everyone in the house one.
Skip candles. Fire departments see a spike in candle fires after storms, and the fire truck may not be able to get to you.
Black Diamond Headlamp (Spot 400 or Storm 500-R) Bright, tough, and simple to work in the dark. The rechargeable models charge off a power station or a USB bank. Downside: the battery-powered ones eat AAAs, so pair them with rechargeables. Check price on Amazon
Add a lantern or two for the main room. Any LED camp lantern works. Hang it from the ceiling fan and it lights the whole space.
Power station: camp and the fridge
A portable power station is worth it for hurricanes, as long as you know what it can and can't do. It's a big rechargeable battery with wall outlets and USB ports. It's quiet and has no exhaust, so unlike a generator it can sit inside the house.
What a mid-size unit can realistically handle:
- Phones, laptops, headlamps and radios for days
- A box fan or battery fan overnight
- A CPAP for several nights (check your machine's draw)
- A fridge for some hours at a time, run in shifts
What it won't handle: central AC, an electric oven, a water heater, or a well pump for very long.
Pair it with a folding solar panel and you can top it off each day. Expect less than the advertised solar number on a hazy, post-storm day.
EcoFlow Delta 3 Charges very fast from the wall, which matters when you get 24 hours of warning. Big enough to run a fridge in shifts and a fan at night, and it's just as good at the campsite running lights and a blender. Downside: it's heavy, around the weight of a full cooler, so this is a car-camping and house unit, not a backpacking one. Check price on Amazon
Charge it every couple of months even when nothing's happening. A dead battery in a closet is no use.
Cooler as fridge backup
When the power goes out, keep the fridge and freezer doors shut. Per FoodSafety.gov, a closed fridge keeps food safe for about 4 hours, and a full freezer holds about 48 hours (24 if half full). After that, the cooler takes over.
How long ice lasts in a cooler during an outage depends on the cooler, the heat, and how often you open it. A good rotomolded cooler packed right can hold ice for several days. A cheap thin-wall one in a hot garage might give you a day. Tips that actually help:
- Pre-chill the cooler before you load it
- Use block ice, not just cubes
- Freeze water jugs ahead of time; they're ice now and drinking water later
- Keep it in the shade and open it as little as possible
- Use two coolers: one for drinks (opened a lot), one for food (opened rarely)
YETI or RTIC Hard Cooler Thick walls and a gasket seal keep ice for days, which is exactly what you need when the power company says "restoration in 5 to 7 days." YETI is the name brand; RTIC does the same job for less. Downside: both are heavy when full, and you're paying for the insulation. Check price on Amazon
Throw out any food that's been above 40°F for more than 2 hours. When in doubt, toss it.
Sleeping when the AC is out
This is the one that wears people down. A Gulf Coast house with no AC in September is miserable at 2 a.m., and nobody makes good decisions on no sleep.
What helps:
- A battery fan aimed at your face, running off its own battery or the power station
- Sleep on the lowest floor; heat rises
- Open windows on opposite sides for cross breeze if it's safe after the storm
- A damp towel or bandana on the neck
- A camping cot gets you off a hot mattress and lets air move underneath
Battery Fan (Ryobi 18V or O2COOL) If you already own Ryobi 18V tools, their fan runs on the same batteries, so every battery in the garage becomes fan runtime. O2COOL makes cheap fans that run on D cells or USB. Downside: neither cools the air, they just move it, so they help a lot but won't make a hot house comfortable. Check price on Amazon
Watch for heat illness, especially in older folks and kids. If someone stops sweating, gets confused, or feels sick, get them somewhere cool.
The gaps camping gear won't cover
Camping gear is built for a weekend with a car nearby and a store down the road. A disaster is a week with no store. Here's what's usually missing:
- Enough water. A camping jug or two isn't a week for a family.
- Enough food. Plan seven days of no-cook food.
- A weather radio. Camping doesn't need tornado alerts. A hurricane does.
- Meds and documents. Prescriptions, IDs, insurance papers in a waterproof bag.
- House protection. Tarps, plywood, tie-downs.
- Fuel. Extra propane, gas for the car, and gas cans filled before landfall.
- A CO alarm. Battery-powered, inside the house.
Midland ER310 Emergency Crank Radio NOAA weather alerts, AM/FM, a flashlight and a crank to recharge it. The National Weather Service broadcasts warnings 24/7, and this is how you hear them with no power and no cell signal. Downside: the built-in solar panel is small, so plan to crank or USB-charge it. Check price on Amazon
If you have to leave, your camping gear also makes a solid start on an evacuation bag. Our bug out bag checklist and car emergency kit guides cover what to add.
A one-weekend gear audit
You can do this in a Saturday. Do it in May, before the season starts June 1.
- Pull everything out. Every camping bin, the stove, the cooler, the jugs. Lay it out in the garage.
- Test it. Light the stove (outside). Turn on every headlamp and lantern. Charge the power station to 100% and run a fan off it for an hour.
- Check fuel and batteries. Count propane bottles. Replace dead batteries and toss leaking ones.
- Fill water. Wash and fill your jugs, and write the date on tape.
- Fill the gaps. Weather radio, CO alarm, a week of food, first aid restock, tarps.
- Pack a go-bag. Split out headlamps, the filter, a Jetboil, meds and documents so you can leave in ten minutes.
- Put it all in one place. One closet or one shelf, labeled. In a storm you don't want to hunt through three bins.
Use our camping checklist as the starting inventory and mark what pulls double duty.