Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - power outage due to storm

my father checked all the things that you told us to do. this past thursday we had a storm and lost our power and it was off for sometime during the afternoon. do you think that the storm we had maybe of had something to do with the air condition unit outside not coming on.

Its hard to say. Sometimes the fan motor on the outdoor unit will get drowned and then when power is applied to it, the motor smokes. Go to the outdoor unit and take off the covers to gain access to the electrical controls box. Do you see any burnt off wires? See a round or oval can with some wires on top? Is this device [the capacitor] bulged, blown or leaking oil? Look for a big relay which is called the compressor contactor. See a buildup of ants/bugs on the contacts? Do the contact points look burnt off? Is it pulled in? Feel the compressor body- hot or cold? How about the fan motor body- hot or cold? If the contactor is not pulled in, try pushing it in and see what happens. if nothing happens, then you don't have power to the unit. Look inside the switch box near the unit. Any burnt wires? Are the switch knife blades engaged? If there are fuses in the box, are they good? Are they DUAL ELEMENT/TIME DELAY fuses or ONE TIME fuses? For a/c units, you have to use the time delay types. Check these items and let us know what you find. BTW- please add your next post to this thread instead of a new post. It makes it easier ti find you. Thanks.