Hurricane Irene hit most of the east coast  of the U.S. and Canada with high winds and rain Saturday and Sunday. Despite the Internet clamor of over-hyping the storm, hundreds of thousands of of folks lost power or experienced flooding. There have been multiple boil water advisories issued and reports of waste water system breaches. After speaking with a few North Carolina Extension Agents over the past couple of days it looks as though some of the state’s Eastern counties will be without electricity for at least a few days, maybe more.

Last week I put out a pre-hurricane preparation infosheet; here’s a follow-up of three others for post-storm food safety issues. The first two, adapted from USDA files, detail in-home decision making for discarding and keeping food that might have been temperature abused while the power was out. The final infosheet focuses on the risks associated with eating fresh produce from flooded gardens (adapted from Barb Ingham and Steven Ingham from U Wisconsin.
 

Click here to download the frozen foods/power outage food safety infosheet.

Click here to download the refrigerated foods/power outage food safety infosheet.

Click here to download the garden flooding food safety infosheet.