Two things happened today that somehow caused me to think along these lines. First, on one of the prepping groups I’m in, the discussion came up about what happened in Texas this week and I mentioned that Vince had a generator specifically for our well and all he had to do was go out and flip the switch. But I said we still keep plenty of bottled water on hand because, like this week, there was ice and he didn’t want to be going out there if just a bottle of water would suffice. Another member stated that I could easily get water without buying bottled water or going outside. I was thinking . . that must be about like getting blood from a turnip but I didn’t say that. Someone else said something about water and the lady again said “You do NOT have to go out in the weather to get water.” At this point, I was thinking . . it’s either bottled water or water from the toilet and I’ll take the bottled water but I wasn’t going to argue with her. Later in the day, she said something that made me realize . . her pressure tank is in her basement! I asked her . . where is your pressure tank? She responded . . in my basement! OK! That explains it. In Texas, we don’t have basements so ours is in a separate building across the driveway from the house. When I was a kid, we had a well and since there are no basements in southwest Louisiana, our well, well house and tank were out in the yard. That’s all I’ve ever had but we’ve looked at houses in Arkansas and Missouri that had it all in the basement. She had never heard of it being away from the house so she was completely blown away that we have to go outside to get to our well and all it’s “working parts”. Because of her life experiences, or lack of of them insofar as seeing a well away from the house, her way of getting water was right and my way of going outside in the elements was wrong. So much of what we think, feel, believe is based on our life’s experiences. It’s hard to accept the way others believe when their ways are not what we’ve always known.
Today I also had a reader who lives in Texas tell me they’ve never had heavy coats. In southwest Louisiana, it rarely got cold but we attended college football games and some of those November or later playoff games got really cold. As kids, we played outside . . rain, shine, heat, cold . . so we always had heavy coats. Even in Texas, I put a couple of blankets and our old heavy jackets in the car and left them there all winter. We learn from our own life’s experiences. One day I was going to work on a cold day . . very cold for Louisiana. I had on a dress and a sweater because I had no plans to be out in the weather. There was a pretty good pileup on the interstate and I was stopped for almost two hours. I would have been very happy to have had a heavy coat or a blanket. I didn’t want to leave the car running the entire time so I kept turning it on and off but that’s when I learned to keep something in the car to stay warm. Almost every winter in Texas, we had a hard freeze for at least one night. Maybe it was because of having chickens, but I had hats, gloves, boots, several heavy coats.
Another life experience that made me think today . . I was chatting with a friend in southern Indiana . . one of my best friends when we lived in Kentucky. She asked me how long we had been gone . . 15 years in January. Sometimes I look at my friends in Louisiana . . people who were born there and never left and I think how nice that would be to still see the people from my childhood and high school years – to run into them in Walmart or the grocery store.
But I wouldn’t trade the experiences of the different places we’ve lived. I have friends from Kentucky that I talk to fairly often. We lived there a bit over 9 years. I have a few friends from when we lived in MO for four years – not many that I talk to often. Surprisingly, I have few friends that I keep in touch with from Texas and we were there almost 10 years.
Do you ever look back at life and think about all the things that have affected your life? I didn’t plan to do it . . it kinda resulted from the things that happened today but it was a fun trip down memory lane.
Donna M says
i was reminded of that very thing this week. We had a couple days of sleet and then about 3″ of snow on top this week. In the area of Nashville where I live we have had an influx of people moving in from other states. This week some people were asking when the snow plows were coming to clear the side streets. Uh, sorry, but they don’t do that in the south. Rarely have this kind of weather. Main roads only. Then, another person wanted to know where the snow was going to go. Weren’t we going to have flooding when it melted. Was pretty entertaining. I’m sure when I moved here from Memphis 50 years ago I asked some questions people thought were strange.
Edith says
When I lived in Texas it seemed to freeze every few years for a few days and the reactions were always the same shock and frozen pipes and no water for days. I’m sorry but it seems like it would make sense for the utilities and government to prepare at least as well as you seem to. It seems it would be more efficient. But that’s one of the reasons I moved. My husband does some limited prepping for us so we never ran out of toilet paper and such but we don’t go too wild. I’ve seen lots of events like hurricanes, flooding and snowstorms where and when you don’t expect them so it seems good to have some reasonable stock of necessities.
Judy Laquidara says
The pipes most often are freezing because people have them exposed or not insulated enough – not the fault of the utility companies. This last storm, the power was off and the houses got so cold that some pipes froze.
People have forgotten personal responsibility and expect the government to step in and do too much. We have always left water dripping to keep pipes from freezing. Even here in MO, though I’ve been assured this house is insulated enough to be safe to at least -20, I still leave water dripping if it’s going to get below about 15 degrees.
Having supplies, rotating the supplies so things don’t get bad . . it just makes sense to me. I never want to be the person who’s hungry because the power has been off for three days and there’s no food left on the shelves.
Edith says
Except that a major problem is utility pipes and pumps that freeze and make it take a week or so to get water to large swathes of people and businesses. I think they should be at least or more responsible than individuals. There are issues with the dripping because it lowers water pressure when everyone does it. But we did it too in the danger spots. But my sister did insulate hers when possible probably because we were northerners and it happened too much even in Texas.
I never owned so it was up to the owner to winterize at an apartment.
I hope you can figure out what is happening with Boots. He seems like a nice cat for the most part. Maybe you could just lock him in the sewing room overnight? Wish I had an idea for you about why. Good luck!
Judy Laquidara says
This is the first time in over 100 years this has happened in Texas. There are things it is feasible to prepare for and try to mitigate damages but there are things that happen so rarely, it just isn’t feasible or cost effective to prepare for. Last I heard, Lake Charles and Shreveport in Louisiana had no water. Businesses, municipalities, homeowners . . we all do it every day – weigh the cost and likelihood of an event to decide our coarse of action.
We’ve always made sure we had insulated pipes, used faucet covers.
Texas residents will be the first ones screaming when their water, electric and gas costs skyrocket for years and years because of the precautions taken and there’s not another event like this one.
Some cities were asking residents to leave water dripping because it was so cold that main water lines were breaking. The issue with low pressure wasn’t so much because of the dripping but because so many lines had broken. I think it was Lake Charles that said they had repaired over 300 broken pipes in a couple of days and normally they repair about 100 in a month. Those are lines the cities own – not lines past the meter. If people leave their faucets dripping, that’s a small amount of water compared to the amount of water lost if that pipe breaks.
He does stay in the sewing room overnight unless I try to leave him in our room, and then he ends up in the sewing room at some point anyway.
Susan Nixon says
I first ran up against that issue when I was mentoring first year teachers. They didn’t think about things the way I did, and it was surprising to me, since we were all teachers. LOL You sorted out that well issue pretty politely!
Judy Laquidara says
I can see how that would be the case with new teachers. Even student teaching doesn’t prepare you for everything you might encounter in your first classroom on your own. I’m sure there were some who thought they knew as much as you did and didn’t appreciate the help and some who, to this day probably remember fondly that you helped them.
cindy says
having grown up in and around Houston, we learned that when the weather got cold, you stayed home and stayed in and didn’t drive anywhere. As more people from other places came around, they thought things would be like they were where they had come from and didn’t understand until they found out that there weren’t snow plows and the roads weren’t treated. Bridges would be sanded to provide some traction, but that was it. Here in Indiana, it is, of course, completely different. The girls generally go to school no matter the temperature, although they did have a snow day on Tuesday due to the large amount of snowfall. I have long said that everybody would get along a lot better if we all understood that each of us reacts to things from our lived experiences and trying to understand why someone thinks or acts the way they do makes things go much smoother.
Rebecca says
I just ran across this again. First, I had to look up “pressure tank” as I’ve always had city water.
Then, I was thinking about my “old neighborhood” (where I grew up). Even if I lived there, I wouldn’t see the people I grew up with…most of us could’t afford it now! It surprised me to hear my neighborhood name on national news stories during the real estate bubble in ’08. There are people whose parents/grands paid off their mortgage years (even decades) ago, but can’t afford to stay because the neighboring properties go for so much, the originals’ property taxes go up above anything they could pay. Very distressing. Also, the business district is getting condos and apartment buildings, making canyons of the old streets we used to bike. We do have a Facebook group to talk about the old times and old names, though.
Judy Laquidara says
That is very distressing to have to leave your home because of property tax increases. Progress .. and I’m sure many love it but some are always hurt by it.