This morning Chad called. I was still in the bathroom getting dressed. He wanted to make sure my electricity was on . . not sure what he was going to do if it was off. I guess he was really just checking on me because their power was out for about half the night. He said as soon as it went off, he got up and built a fire in the fireplace, though the bedrooms still got cold. They have plenty of sleeping bags, some that are super warm, and they could sleep in the family room if they had to but the power came back on around 6. Anyway, I told him that my power never went off but when I went into the kitchen, I noticed the clocks were blinking so, at some point, it did go off but I have no idea for how long.
Poor Rita. I had told Vince that if the power went off here, I didn’t know what I’d do because when her heating pad goes off, she gets very vocal. Last night, when the power went off, it went off and it doesn’t come back on automatically so when I went into the kitchen, she started barking to let me know she was not happy about being cold. Vince said “I can’t believe she didn’t bark when it went off.” I’m sure she did . . I just don’t hear things like that when I’m sleeping.
As far as the electricity in Texas . . not doing well there. Since Vince had Covid and then got the vaccine, and now dealing with snow and ice and moving generators around, I worry about him so he texts me every morning when he gets up.
His power came back on last night but I wasn’t optimistic that it would stay on and it didn’t. It went off again during the night. The Oncor outage map last night showed about 450 customers in Brown County without power. This morning it’s showing about 1800 without power. What I’m reading is a “systemwide grid failure” and that people should not expect power to be restored today. What a disaster! Over 2 million households without power and an ice storm headed to Vince’s area tonight or in the morning. At least he doesn’t have to worry about the power going out since it’s already out.
I woke up this morning and there was no text from Vince. I knew he was tired last night so thought maybe he was sleeping late. By 8 a.m., I started trying to call. The phone went right to voice mail. I tried calling via FB and he didn’t answer. I was starting to get concerned. One of his friends is in Florida for two weeks and the other has Covid so I didn’t even know who I would call to check on him if I couldn’t get in touch with him.
It was after 9 before he called me. Cell service is out. The power was back off and the backup battery power for the internet has died so he had to hook the router/modem . . I don’t even know . . to the generator to be able to call me.
He had me call the closest convenience store to see if they had gas and the guy said “for now” so Vince ran to town and got gas for the generators. We have a propane generator that he can fill from the tanks but that’s here already. He said he figured I’d need it before he would. He talked to a guy while getting gas and he said he had driven in from Brady because there’s no gas to be found there. The guy at the convenience store said he was only able to get 1,000 gallons of gasoline and when that’s gone, he has no idea when he’ll be able to get more.
We always felt confident that Texas would be the last place to have a grid failure since, for the most part, Texas has its own grid. Now we know that was a false sense of security.
My weather is better. It was -13 when I got up. Last night was the last of our horribly cold nights. It’s up to -3 now but the sun is shining. Our low tonight and tomorrow night is 10, then on Thursday night it dips back down to 4 and by Friday, we should get up to 34 . . the first time we’ve been above freezing in two weeks.
I am ready for normal winter weather and I know there are many more who are feeling the same way.
Sibyl says
Judy I’m in Houston, and people here are acting horribly–they have no idea how to cope. Some have been without electricity since Monday morning. We lost ours about 1:30 this morning. I turned my water off Sunday night because I knew it would freeze. Still have plenty of water as I filled up a lot of containers. Then decided to fill up a couple big outdoor trash cans for the toilet. But so many people are ill prepared for this. One reason we are without power–is the green wind powered turbines—they all froze when it got cold, and no way to get that started. They said it was any where from 25-40% of the grid. Hoping for above freezing temps tomorrow, but will be short lived as it is supposed to freeze again on Friday. In all the years I’ve been here–we have never had this kind of weather. Will be fine though.
vivoaks says
Your weather is moving in here today. We got snow then freezing rain last night and the temperatures have been going down all day. I’m glad I can stay in the house and let hubby do all the outdoor stuff…. My clothes dryer is in the garage, but the washer is in the hallway next to our bedroom…I wash, he carries them to the garage and puts them in the dryer! At least I’m warm!! 🙂 Poor Vince! I couldn’t imagine all that’s going on in Texas right now. I know another storm in coming in a day or two, and that can’t be good news to anyone going through black-outs and ice storms right now. Our maple sap isn’t running at all, but the house is warm, so the important things are good!! Hang in there!!!
Judy Laquidara says
There are so many things that Vince usually does that I’m missing and don’t tell him, but I think I’ll appreciate him more when he gets here. I’m glad your husband is doing the heavy lifting for you too.
Yes, more cold weather with ice and snow tonight predicted for Vince. It’s a mess for sure and I’m thankful he has the things he has there to help make life safer and easier.
Joyce says
I think the weather is telling Vince it’s time to get himself to Missouri. If the weather is going to be extra cold he may as well be in an area where those temps, etc. are at least somewhat expected. 🙂
Judy Laquidara says
His wife is telling him the same thing! Maybe he’ll listen to the weather more than he listens to me. 🙂
Cindy F says
I’ve been catching up on your posts and my heart just goes out to you and Vince and all other affected by this cold snap. I think of you two as being so prepared and so far your plans have been working but the hardship is real. I think how Vince rides it out in your Texas house will be a real selling point when the house hits the market. There are going to be a lot of homes with damaged pipes, etc. Spring can’t get here fast enough!
Judy Laquidara says
You’re right about Spring coming quickly. It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to be prepared (or I wouldn’t be able to do it!) but it takes forethought and learning from every experience we’ve had in the past and from those we’ve heard about. I’m hoping many will learn from this experience and be better prepared for the next incident.
I knew that Vince wasn’t thrilled about spending money to add a propane line to the kitchen (in the middle of the house) and spending what it takes to buy a gas stove these days . . not to mention we’ll buy stainless and eventually the white kitchen appliances will all need to be replaced, but now that he has experienced this, he’s onboard for getting a gas stove put in, as well as adding a propane line to the downstairs garage so we can have a ventless propane heater in there. That, along with two propane fireplaces will get us through cold times without electricity.
Linda in NE says
The Texas power problem is somewhat caused by their trying to go too green and depending on wind turbines that froze up and solar panels that don’t work when covered by snow or if it’s cloudy. Even the natural gas distribution froze up. I’ve read they are having the same issues in Germany where they also have come to depend too much on wind & solar. There has to be robust backup for both. I hate to think of all the people whose water is probably frozen up as well. Too much stuff above ground. It’s been much colder here in Nebr. but it isn’t unusual in the winter so utilities like water & gas are buried well underground.
If you call Vince & he doesn’t answer for too long you can always call the county sheriff to do a wellness check. It can be worrisome with him there alone.
Sibyl says
Linda our waterlines are in our attic. Yes they come into the house from underground–but inside the house–everything is in the attic–and if a line breaks—oh heaven help you. I have bucket loads of water for this and turned my water off and drained the pipes on Sunday. Supposed to rain tomorrow. Already have buckets lined up to catch water as it comes off the roof for the bathroom, and if necessary the pets.
Judy Laquidara says
The Sheriff’s Office has their hands full and we live almost at the very end of a very large county so my guess is it would be days before they would get there with everything else going on. There are others I would have called – just not his two best friends.
Nelle Coursey says
I worked at Texas Utilities for 16 years. The people who are running the grid must be stupid! They turned all those people off, saying rolling blackouts. Then when they turned them ALL back on it went down again! DUH do they not know the meaning of “power surge”. It happened during the night and people were sleeping. Then when it came back on all those units for heat, etc. were still going! They created this by their “rolling” blackouts! I hope they learned their lessons! If they had turned some off, turned them back on, turned others off, turned them back on then they would not have had this massive over use! I am not an electrician but I do understand “power surge” and what it does to the generators and everything else! They will be lucky to get out of this one. It is not the power companies or anything they did. It was the people in charge of the grid and them not waiting until one was back on completely before they shut the others down!
Judy Laquidara says
Yes, and I read tonight that they knew way last week this was probably going to happen and didn’t tell us til Sunday when it was too late for most who weren’t prepared to do anything about it.
JustGail says
How is it that wind and solar power is the problem, when most of the power is generated by natural gas and coal? The issue is that those in charge couldn’t be arsed to winterize the natural gas supplies to power stations, or the windmills (which work fine in colder areas as long as they are properly winterized). And solar works better in cooler temperatures. Please put the blame toward the proper place – short sighted executives and managers.
Judy Laquidara says
Up to 25% of the power comes from wind and not sure how much comes from solar. I just listened to a news conference from Lake Charles, LA where water has been out. They said that for some disasters, there’s just no way of preventing them. As far as winterizing in Texas, this hasn’t happened in decades – maybe centuries. At some point, the cost of winterizing for something that happens every 100 years and would be a cost borne by the consumer . . may or may not be feasible. I do feel the blackouts should have been handled better but I don’t believe we can blame people when a totally uprecedented event occurs. This is so abnormal for Texas and Louisiana.
As far as solar panels, the inverters being losing efficiency at higher temps but our solar panels have done an amazing job in central Texas.
I don’t see that anyone or anything has to be blamed. When deficiencies are found, they need to be remedied. The consumers of power in Texas will be screaming when power prices double in order to winterize windmills where winterizing may never be needed again . . at least not in most of our lifetimes.
Natural gas has never failed in the past. This is just a rare event and I can assure you that no matter where anyone lives, no matter how prepared we are, there are going to be instances that happen that are unforeseen so pretending any place, or anyone, is 100% ready for anything and everything that comes their way . . is false sense of security.