How long is food good in a fridge without power? Safety tips to get you through an outage

Severe weather including thunderstorms and a few tornados swept through the state Monday evening leaving some Iowans without power.

At least one tornado pushed through the Des Moines metro during rush hour. Meanwhile, the eastern part of the state was battered with high winds and severe storms.

More than 1,400 MidAmerican customers in the Des Moines metro were still without power on Tuesday morning and 17,000 customers were still without power in the Quad Cities.

Updates:NWS confirms tornado touched down in Urbandale; outages could last until Tuesday evening

If you are one of the Iowans who lost power, here are some tips to get by until it comes back on.

How long is food good in the fridge without power?

The Food and Drug Administration says that even with the refrigerator door shut, you should "discard refrigerated perishable food such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs and leftovers after four hours without power.”

Be sure to write down when the power went off so you can keep track of how long your fridge has been off. Keep both the refrigerator and freezer doors closed for as long as you can to maintain the temperature.

How long is food good in the freezer without power?

A full freezer will keep food safe for almost 48 hours if the door remains closed. If the freezer is half full, reduce that time to 24 hours. If thawed food doesn't exceed 41 degrees for more than an hour, it can be refrozen, according to the Iowa Department of Inspection, Appeals and Licensing.

What else should you do during a power outage?

• Make sure all heat-producing appliances are off to prevent fires during outages.
• This includes irons, hair straighteners and coffee pots, according to MidAmerican. Unplugging electrical devices can help avoid any damage when electricity comes back on.
• MidAmerican suggests unplugging computers, TVs and other sensitives appliances.

Kate Kealey is a general assignment reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach her at kkealey@registermedia.com or follow her on Twitter at @Kkealey17.