I use a food subscription service, and I collected enough of their ice packs to fill a large cooler. I was planning to use them to help keep the refrigerator cooler longer during blackouts and emergencies. When Hurricane Sally approached, I proudly opened the cooler to put the ice packs in the freezer.

I was greeted with a cooler of gooey gel spilling out from the ice packs. Six months in storage and the pressure from being stacked on top of one another broke most of the ice packs. The plastic is just not strong enough. The only usable ice pack was the one I left out because the cooler ran out of space. I definitely felt like a dummy!

So now I'm thinking of either finding robust commercial ice packs or putting the food subscription ice packs in airtight bags. You'd think it wouldn't be hard finding such bags, but the ones I could find seem to be too small. The ice packs are around 12" x 9" x 3".

Can you point to airtight bags that can be used to contain the ice packs? Or is there another way to seal the ice packs? Or, even better, do you have a different solution to the refrigeration problem (other than installing a big generator)?