The kitchen staff at Armidale Uralla Meals on Wheels did just that on Friday, October 15, during the blackout that lasted 14 hours following the tornado that ripped through the area the night before.

Not only did they manage the mammoth task of cooking the meals with no power, they also delivered the meals to their clients on time.

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Rachel, the Meals on Wheels chef, lost sleep the night of the storm wondering how she was going to operate the kitchen if the power didn't come back on. At 6am she rang manager, Kerryn Williams, and the two met at Meals on Wheels to begin work two hours earlier than usual.

Normally, they would utilise their big commercial combi oven, which holds 17 trays of food. Without power they were down to six burners on the gas cooktop, and a small oven that was hardly used except to keep food warm occasionally.

"We cranked up the gas oven," Kerryn said. "We had a bit of a production line happening with with the the gas oven, which was about to blow a gasket because it's never worked so hard."

All six burners on the cooktop were flat out boiling big pots of water for the bain marie, and also to cook the vegetables "old style", and provide hot water for washing up, as, of course, the dishwasher was also unusable.

"There was lots of juggling taking place. Thank god for our gas," Kerryn said. "The cook production was very interesting and I have to give my chef kudos."

Production was made more difficult as with no fans it was hot in the kitchen, and with no lights it was dark in the walk-in cool room and freezer.

There was also the fear of about $15,000 worth of food going to waste in the cool room and walk-in freezer, plus the extra fridges and freezers.

"The focus of the morning was getting Friday's food out the door. But in the back of my head the whole time we were trying to work out a contingency strategy for where the hell to put all of our frozen product because not only do we have a freezer full of stock to make food from, we also have the premade meals," Kerryn said.

So Kerryn came up with a plan with the help of Armidale Ex Services Club CEO Scott Sullivan, as the club had an empty freezer and cool room up in the auditorium.

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Kerryn rang Scott to explain her dilemma and got a return call from him only 15 minutes later.

"He said, 'I've lined up the Ex Services' bus. We're going to crank up the air conditioning and the crew of people here, we're going to come down. I've got the ute and the bus, and we're going to load everything up out of your freezer, ferry it back here and store it in our freezer until you need it back'."

Thankfully, that didn't eventuate as the power came back on just before noon, half an hour after the meals went out.

And all the while the production line was happening in the kitchen, in the office admin staff were on their mobile phones checking on clients and their volunteer delivery drivers to see if they were safe.

"We faced every challenge that popped up and we dealt with it," Kerryn said.

"I had the utmost trust that we could do it."

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