Preparing for a storm isn’t easy. Grocery store shelves empty out, gas lines stretch around the block, and sometimes you even have to evacuate. When Hurricane Helene tore through Asheville, North Carolina, in September 2024, many people thought they had done all the things right to prepare their refrigerators. They set the thermostat to the coldest setting, minimized how often they opened the door, and even rearranged the food so the most perishable items were front and center. However, when they lost power for more than a week, everything in their refrigerators spoiled anyway. The worst part wasn’t the waste and the money that went down the drain — it was opening the refrigerator afterward and being hit with a wall of sour, lingering odors that seemed impossible to scrub away. There’s a way you can avoid that scenario, and it’s as simple as sticking a sponge in your refrigerator. Sponges, by nature, absorb moisture. Inside a closed refrigerator without power, condensation forms as the temperature fluctuates. That extra dampness provides odor molecules with more opportunities to spread and can encourage mold and bacteria growth. By soaking up some of that excess moisture, a sponge reduces the humidity that causes odors to travel freely and smells to linger. While this isn’t a foolproof solution, it can help. It's also an easy way to make cleanup less overwhelming once the power has been restored. To make it even more effective, sprinkle baking soda on the sponge, which acts as a natural odor neutralizer. You can also use more than one sponge to maximize coverage. A word of caution: You still need to follow the safety rules when figuring out how long your food is good once you’ve lost power.
