Also discard home canned foods, spices and seasonings, flour, sugar, grains, pasta, coffee and other stapled stored in canisters. If your refrigerator was without power for less than two or three ours, the food in it should be safe unless it was under water. Food in a full, free-standing freezer should be safe for about two days. Half-a freezer full should be okay for up to a day without power. It is safe to refreeze thawed foods that still contain ice crystals.
Bacteria can multiply rapidly.
Fresh fruits, vegetables, fruit juices, hard or processed cheeses, and opened jelly, relish, taco sauce, barbecue sauce and oil-based salad dressings are usually fine after a few days without refrigeration. After a flood, everything in the kitchen that was in contact with the flood waters needs to be sanitized. First wash with warm soapy water, then rinse and wipe with a solution of two teaspoons of chlorine bleach to one quart of water. You can sanitize dishes and glassware the same way, and disinfect metal pans and utensils by boiling them in water for 10 minutes. Be sure to discard wooden spoons and cutting boards, plastic utensils and baby bottle nipples and pacifiers.