Hope Y'All Are Doing Okay with the Cold

[RABid]

Got 4 inches of snow last night. The TV weatherman said that was the third snow/ice storm within one week and it had never happened before in his long career. But, it is up to 34 now and the ice is melting out of the trees. ... Good times ahead.

[GovernorSilver]

My cousin and his family struggled with the power outage in Austin but reportedly got their power back later in the day.

[Michael Wright]

Hope you are still doing okay Joe. Hope all our Texan formites are good as well. Be safe

[Joe Muscara]

Hope you are still doing okay Joe. Hope all our Texan formites are good as well. Be safe

Thanks. Yeah, we haven't had a power interruption since it came on⦠well, I've lost track. Early yesterday? Oh, no, it was Wednesday night. Boy, I'm tired of dealing with disasters that make you not know what day it is.

 

Last night I "had" to shut off the water supply. I couldn't do it at the meter out in the yard because the in-ground meter box was full of water, so I did it at the valve at the house. We have never gone so far as to shut off water in the house because of a freeze. I guess the reasons were two. One, the City still doesn't have the water pressure up to where it usually is, and two, they didn't want people dripping their faucets because of that. I find it frustrating and dumb that every time there's a threat of a freeze, we have to "protect" our pipes. I don't remember doing anything special when I lived on Long Island. We took in the garden hoses when summer was over, but that was all I remember. Did we shut off the water to those spigots somewhere inside the basement? I guess it's possible.

 

Last night was supposed to be the last really cold night, tonight might not get so cold. I hope I don't have to turn the water off and on again.

[Nowarezman]

We're almost out of the woods. We've got power, and the internet came back on today. Still no water - Austin Water is restoring service section by section as the reserve of treated water grows. Hopefully in a day or two we'll be able to wash clothes and take showers and stop driving to the relatives to fill up jugs and bottles and coolers, etc, with water.

 

About "finger-pointing". Certainly the people and procedures that failed need to be identified so corrective action can be taken. So sure, point 'em out for that purpose. In the context of my earlier comment, I'm thinking of "finger-pointing" as all the voices that get media space, working their political advantage out of getting to tie someone to the whipping post.

 

The blame game always results in skewed information getting spread into the mix with good information, while various talking heads point their fingers at different things, making different claims as to who or what is to blame. This is what I mean by finger-pointing. Using a bad situation to hammer at people or policies you already disliked or didn't agree with prior to the current issue at hand. In this case, the "intermittent" energy sources immediately became a target for pro-oil business politicians and pundits to blame (absurdly.) It's perfectly clear that the hit to energy production via natural gas was the biggest problem. I can't help but think blaming the "intermittent" energy sources was a distraction to deflect public outcry over someone's pet energy source.

 

This is all old hat to me. My dad's entire career that started right after WWII was with Schlumberger. It was oil business discussed at the dinner table while growing up. We moved around - in on the boom, out on the bust, Houston, Midland, Tulsa, OK City, even Indiana had a bit of an oil and gas boom in the early 60s. It's totally true that fossil fuels can meet energy needs economically and efficiently. All you have to do is kick the can of environmental damage and finite supply down the road to the next generation. There's a short-sighted solution for everything and always people fighting for such solutions - they always have current economics and convenience on their side. Hence our current Texas problems, right?

 

nat

[Chip McDonald]

Deregulation made it so bad. The utility had no reason to spend money on hardening the system against a catastrophe like what happened, and the politicians that enabled that to happen are to blame.

 

.... meanwhile, people will solar and Tesla power walls lived life normally.

[RABid]

It is 61 degrees at my house today. Wonderful. But 6 percent of my county is without power. They have gotten the bigger areas back online and now are tackling the slow process of fixing lines going to isolated houses.

[RABid]

Two weeks ago it was ice storms and 60 percent power outages. Now it is major flooding in my area of southeast Kentucky, washed out roads, collapsed bridges and flooded homes. I had such high hopes for 2021.

[Anderton]

We had severe rain here in Tennessee yesterday, but nowhere near the sustained pounding you had. Hope all is at least okay for you...no flooded houses or lost family members.