Perth residents turn to unique methods to keep food cool during extended power outage

From duct-taping freezer doors closed to living out of eskies, West Australians plunged into darkness by rolling blackouts have revealed their creative methods to survive power outages.

As 38,000 homes across the State were left without power over the weekend, when extreme weather conditions caused pole top fires, plenty of residents had their plans kick into gear.

Watermans Bay resident Gail Fuhrmann was spared the worst of the extended outage but said her household had faced six blackouts in a seven-day period.

She said they have a back-up eski plan for when they are without electricity for long periods of time.

“I don’t open anything, I just keep the fridges and everything closed,” she said.

“I love cooking, so I’ve got a great stash in the freezer.

“If I noticed if anything was starting to go soft in the freezer, I would start getting my eskies out, and my husband would go and get some ice.”

Ms Fuhrmann, who appeared at a press conference with WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam on Friday, said her and her husband had learnt from past experiences.

“It was only when I lost all my food last year with the chest freezer, that was just awful,” she said.

“We’ve got about three or four eskies and we load them up and just keep going down and getting ice.”

Others had similar strategies for keep their frozen goods cold.

One man affected by the blackouts said his go-to strategy involved an adhesive.

“The first thing I do if there is a power outage is duct tape the freezer closed,” he said on social media, responding to a Western Power update.

“That way I won’t be tempted to open it. Once you open it, warm air enters and that’s the end of your food.

“I’ve had food stay frozen for a couple of days. It’s not rocket science.”

For some, this week’s power outages acted as a lesson to be better prepared for next time.

Pyper Stancer, 24, was left without power for almost 48 hours in her Balga home.

Ms Stancer — who lives with the disability of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome — said she would be better prepared for next time to keep medication cool and batteries charged.

“I’ve definitely already started getting one (an emergency kit) together, I’ve got a mass pack of portable charges, I’ve got a whole box now of different things I’ll use during power outages,” she said.

Curtin University Associate Professor Liam Wagner said one way to tackle outages is to ensure an alternative cooking source is available to be used.

“One thing that I would recommend is making sure that your gas bottle for your barbecue is always topped up, because if you’ve got a gas bottle for your barbecue you can always cook food,” he said.

“It’s just a matter of making sure that you don’t open your fridge more than you need to and if you do have some items in there that particularly sensitive to changes in temperature, I would get an esky and fill it with ice from a petrol station.

“That’s probably the only thing you can do, particularly for milk and meat; keeping that cold is important.”

Thousands of people were still without power on Monday after the power outages on Friday night and Saturday.

As of Friday afternoon, three properties in Eganu remained without power after their electricity dropped out on Sunday afternoon.

Liberal leader Libby Mettam took aim at the State Government for extended power outages across the State this week but did not say how her party would improve pole maintenance.

“It is inexcusable in the wealthiest state in the country that we can seeing this level of uncertainty when it comes to an unreliable power supply,” she said.

“The Cook-Labor Government has failed Western Australians this summer already, and the fact that Roger Cook is stating this is somehow part and parcel of living in Western Australia is simply inexcusable.”

Ms Mettam laid the blame for the outages on the Government, pouncing on comments made by Mr Cook on January 21 that power outages were “part and parcel” of a large energy network.

Mr Cook defended the comments and said they had been misinterpreted.

“What I was actually commenting on is the energy transition, Western Australia’s move to clean energy and what I was trying to make clear is that this is going to be a process that we have to work through,” he said.

“From time to time there will be challenges in relation to Western Australia transitioning to (clean) energy.

“What the Liberals have now done is they’ve decided to apply that to the issue of supply, Western Australia has reliability supply rate of over 99.9 per cent, certainly one of the best in the country but on world standards it’s leading.”