With the City of Swift Current suffering a power outage from the extreme wind on Tuesday, the Cypress Health Region is reminding people about food safety during a power outage.

Brad Giesbrecht, the senior public health inspector for the Cypress Health Region, says that they want to make sure that people are aware that when the power is out, there is potential that their food in their refrigerator or freezers will eventually spoil.

Giesbrecht gave some general guidelines to make sure that food remains safe to eat.

"A good general guideline is that anything in your freezer will stay frozen for about 48 hours as long as your freezer is kept closed," he said. "You still have to check the quality of the food, if it still has some ice crystals in it, then it's good to be refrozen, but if it has thawed completely you have to make sure that it is still below four degree Celsius, and if it's still below that level it can be consumed. With a refrigerator, if it's been kept closed a general rule of thumb is that the food in there will be cold for about four hours."

Giesbrecht added what the best way to check the temperature is to use a thermometer in the food. Anytime that is warmer than four degrees Celsius if it has been above that for two hours, he recommends that the food gets discarded.

He said that the biggest risk associated with the power going out and your food warming up is getting a foodborne illness.

"If you get an overgrowth of bacteria and other organisms like that in food, it can result in food poisoning, such as E. coli, salmonella. All thrive when food warms up."