After Hurricane Irma, This Teen Cooked Grilled Cheese On His Home's Shutters

We typically imagine that the foods most useful in the wake of a natural disaster are non-perishable canned goods or staples like peanut butter. But, in the aftermath of Irma, at least one Florida teen got creative — by making a grilled cheese sandwich on hot metal shutters.

NPR reports that when Tara Gatscher and her family returned to their home in Tampa Bay, they found their house mostly untouched by the storm, but the power was out. Her son Evan was hungry and refused cold food. The 14-year-old joked to his mother about cooking food using the protective metal shutters they'd just removed from the home's windows.

"So he took some bread and some cheese before it got bad, he wrapped it in foil and he stuck it on the metal shutter that was laying on the ground and waited like five minutes and he had himself a grilled cheese sandwich," Gatscher told NPR. "We were living off cereal in like an office room. We were living off crap ... from the vending machines for a few days. He just had to find something to eat that was real food."

Evan even offered to make grilled cheese sandwiches for the rest of his family if they couldn't get their grill up and running, but they did. To avoid the typical hurricane diet of processed junk, stock up on these 17 healthy foods in case of an emergency.