Ensuring you’re ready for a winter storm can be the difference between comfort and discomfort. If you’ve spent at least one winter in Canada, you already know it can come with surprises. Severe winter can occur at any time and disappear almost as fast.
Every winter, have your supplies ready. Prepare in the weeks before the first snow hits. Here is how to prepare for a snowstorm.
1. Trim Back Trees and Clear Your Yard
Trim back tree branches that might not last a storm on your property. Clear your yard from debris, ensuring there’s always some place to toss the snow.
2. Have a Medical Kit Ready
Have an equipped First Aid Kit for your home with all the supplies you need to handle minor injuries should they occur.
3. Purchase Batteries and Flashlights
If there is an electricity cut and a blackout, you can see your way around the house with flashlights and extra batteries. Have a flashlight for each member of the household. This way, everyone can move around freely.
4. Stock Up On Magnesium Chloride
Magnesium chloride will melt ice in your driveway, on your walkways, and around your property. It’s non-toxic, works quickly, and will help you navigate your way off your property without traversing ice. Melt ice. Improve traction. Do it safely with magnesium chloride bulk.
5. Have a Radio Ready
If you lose power and don’t have internet, all that you’ll have to listen to weather updates and snowstorm reports is a radio.
6. Wash and Have Big, Cozy Blankets Ready
Cozy blankets will help keep everyone comfy through the coldest nights. If the power goes, too, these blankets may be just what you need to keep you and anyone else safe while waiting for the electricity to return.
7. Stock Up on Warm Clothing
Thick socks. Winter jackets. Mittens and gloves. Proper winter footwear. When there is a snowstorm, you don’t want to be running around in clothing that is not protecting you or getting your feet wet because you’re wearing shoes when you should have boots.
8. Have Non-Perishables Accessible
Canned foods like soups and vegetables, dry cereals, protein bars, and stuff you don’t need a stove or oven to cook. You can rely on enough food for a few days if you need to. Keep food freshly stocked without having surpassed their best-before dates.
9. Consider a Portable Grill for Outdoors
If you do want to cook on a grill, take it outside. Never use a grill, gas-powered or otherwise, indoors. The same goes for any charcoal BBQs or camping heating equipment. You need proper ventilation, which means the outdoors is best for it during a snowstorm.
10. Long-Lasting Candles and Holders
To last you during the evening, instead of using up all the battery life on your flashlights, have candles and candle holders in safe spots around the house.
11. Check Your Smoke Alarms Every Six Months
You will want active smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to light candles or have a non-standard home heat source. Ensure you have tested the smoke alarms recently to confirm they work properly.
12. Have a Working Fire Extinguisher
Home fires are common in winter. People are trying to stay warm, and accidents happen. A fire extinguisher is a must.
13. Have Extra Pet Food and Shelter
If you have pets, a snowstorm without power and warmth can be particularly rough on them. Ensure they have extra pet food and warm blankets, and keep tabs on where they are in the house.
14. Have a Charged Power Bank
A charged power bank is what you can use to charge your phones and devices when your electricity outlets aren’t working.
15. Schedule a Furnace Inspection Before
A furnace check-up is needed to ensure your furnace is working properly and that you will have heat in an emergency. A furnace tune-up will catch potential problems long before they develop into something more, preventing breakdowns when you least need them.
16. Have Shovels Ready
Ensure you have high-quality shovels and snow removal equipment ready to be picked up and used. You may have to shovel your way out of a snowstorm in an emergency, and you don’t want to not have a shovel and to have your break. Carry an extra.
17. Prepare Your Vehicle
You may not be at home when a snowstorm arrives. Prepare your vehicle. Have an emergency medical kit, a tank full of gas, additional gloves, a flashlight, a scraper for ice and snow to get it off your vehicle, and a shovel. Anything else you can think of that may be helpful, toss it in with everything else.