Recently I had a power outage due to a storm, and the first thing I did the next morning was go to the store and get several bags of ice, which I put into the fridge and freezer. The fridge was still cold enough several days later when power was finally restored.

This could still have been useful if we weren't home, but as you said these things happen so rarely here that I cannot see myself getting something like this, especially for the fridge since ice just works.

To be fair though, it did mean we could not open the fridge willy-nilly, maybe that helped me lose some weight...