I think shock, depression, anger, disbelief, the mechanics of where to put the rotting fish... like there was a tree down in our front yard, every store was closed in a 40 mile radius, power was out to most of Houston... but yea hindsight being 20/20 i would have relocated the fish to a house with a generator. it was a really dark time man.

I'm familiar with the first 4 factors and how they can make the obvious difficult to do. Well at least you made it through, even if you lost the refrigerator.

I had a similar loss of fridge when we went on vacation one time and the power went off some time while we were gone and I had not emptied the freezer all the way as it seemed idiotic to garbage all that perfectly good food when we were only gone for 2 weeks.

If you had a shovel would it not have been the more hygienic disposal option, at about day 7/8 once you were sure the power was not coming back soon, to dig a 3.5 foot deep hole, put the fish in it and cover it over?

I think he described why he didn't get rid of the fish, some times the world is structured in such a way that you really can't handle the obvious things.

Also, whole burying fish may be logically obvious in this case, it is almost never the correct move in any other situation. Actions that defy common sense can be really difficult to commit, particularly in times when the stakes seem high. What if they buried it, the world was ending, and they somehow needed all that food? It's an easier call to make here than it was there.

Can you imagine that conversation with your neighbors?

"Tom, why are you burying fish in your yard? Don't you have better things to be doing like evacuating or collecting fire wood right now?"

"Nah, if I don't do this, my fridge might smell terrible in a week."

There's really not much you can do. If you take it out and throw it away, the stench will just waft back into the house because the windows are open because there's no A/C. You'll also get curious critters at night and if they knock it over and drag it across the yard, well, now you have bigger problems.

Trash doesn't run because trees and lines are down, btw.

If the power infrastructure hasn't been restored yet, what are the odds of trash being collected?

The freezer at least contains the smell a bit. That fish outdoors in the heat could start smelling even worse.

If you have even the smallest patch of ground, dig a small hole, drop the dead animals/spoiled meat in there, and the smell is gone within minutes.

My experience comes from living countryside with two cats dragging in rabbits, rats, pheasants and two/three daily mice and birds in. My cats prefer cat-food, so they drag in the dead animals, tuck it under the couch or behind the fridge, and then eat their favorite chunks, the assholes.

Throwing it on the compost heap smells way worse and attracts flies. than digging a ~3cm deep hole and covering it. A mouse under the ground, is gone in less than a week (I guess its eaten by worms and insects mostly). My garden is doing very well.

Exactly. Ground biome is really good at recycling, especially once living matter.

'Teach a man to eat fish and he will be cold for one day...' no, wait...

But seriously, why not eat BBQ fish every day?

Opening the freezer would have substantially decreased the frozen time, with each opening. Specifically as OP seemed to specify an upright freezer.

Chest freezer would have had less of an impact, but still noticeable.

I guess having a good stock of malt vinegar and plenty of jars around would be helpful so you can make a lot of pickled fish.

You want to be very careful about pickling food of unknown freshness - if the meat had turned pickling will do nothing except provide a wonderful breeding ground for a lot of really fun bacteria.