I know y'all seen the news, I've gotten texts from errbody asking if we're good and such. Well let me tell you how things went for us. I wish I could sort things by day but to be honest there were a few days there that ran together.
I've lived in the mountains, I've got a lifted Jeep with lockers and it's fine for snow, I've crossed the Rubicon in snow and ice in the Jeep. I know how to navigate this stuff, but the reality is nothing is fine for ice. Being the knucklehead that I am I've got plenty of stuff for snow camping. Also we've got a nice place, some acreage, pool, etc.
We knew it was going to get ugly for a couple days. Ice storms are no joke, and we did have time to prepare for hunkering down a few days. We had no idea it was going to get as bad as it did. I went to HEB the day before and stocked up early. Good thing.
Weather happens, and when it came in it was pretty fun. Wow, look at those icicles and such! Wow the snow is like glitter. Whoa can you believe it's 10 degrees?!
For the record, it doesn't really snow here. We got a few inches a while back and it was pretty cool, but it went away after a couple days. It does that every few years, no big deal. Kind of what we were expecting here.
After a couple days it was getting cold. Really cold. It got 1 degree here, the "feels like" was minus 12. Now that's something we're not used to. We've got wells and rainwater. We don't have sewer, we have septic and get propane delivered. Only service available here is power.
Shit got real once the power went out.
I've got a rainwater system we put in last year, we've got a well too thankfully. It's all in a well house and I've got a heating system that turns on once it hits freezing so the pipes don't freeze over. Everything was fine (albeit cold as shit) until the power stuff kicked in.
Power goes out a couple days in, okay now what? It's dark outside, 1 degree, what the hell do I do now?
Went and shut off the breakers for the pool, that's going to freeze.
Went and got the generator (keep your generator maintained folks!).
I left the well house, it is inside but it's not insulated all that well. I don't want to lose water, but I don't have pressure pumps without power. Okay let's see what it does tomorrow when the power comes back on.
Power would come on for an hour sometimes, we could heat the house for a bit. But the water's out.
Go to the well house, realize I'm not going to be able to maintain this without power. I have to shut the valves or it's going to freeze and burst, then I've got a real problem on my hands.
Generator was a nice supplement. I could make coffee and such.
This is all in the first two days. It was raining but it was so cold as soon as it'd hit it would freeze, 1/4" ice had accumulated on everything.
Day 3, it snowed overnight. Cool I can get some traction! Power's still out. We made a bunch of coffee and put it in a thermos and went to go visit some neighbors, making sure they had a nice hot cup of coffee. I know how I felt waking up day 3 without power and needing some coffee, so I thought it would be a good idea to do something nice and take the opportunity to make sure my neighbors were doing okay.
They were thankful, and people were all in different stages of being. Nobody had power, which means nobody had running water. We had some neighbors that were sitting in their bathroom because they ran out of propane. Apparently with a couple people and a couple candles you can get a bathroom up to 70 degrees! We brought the wife to our house, her husband wanted to stay because of the animals. Honestly, I'd do the same thing.
Day 4, power is still fucked. Pipes are frozen solid now. We're using the pool to fill buckets so we can flush the toilets. I'm the only one with a pool, so my neighbors are filling buckets with snow and waiting till it melts so they can flush. I've got 5 neighbors I'm keeping close contact with, people are starting to get low on necessities but we're all good still.
Day 5-6, these are all the same to me. I can't differentiate really. Just fucking cold as fuck. Power is doing this 30 minute on, 30 minute off thing for a while... then it's finally getting to 3 hours on and 90 minutes off. I'm thankful we had SOME power, but it sure would have been nice to know what the schedule was.
I'm low on fuel for the generator, I've got a couple gallons left so it's only on when it gets cold. I'm low on fuel for the Jeep, I've made a few runs back into the hills to check in on people. One neighbor has a downed power line. Another ran completely out of water and propane. Another had some gasoline. I was able to keep the Jeep going and dropping off water here, propane bottles there, get gas for the Jeep over there. I'm only making a trip a day, still tons of ice but I've got a winch if I need it.
Okay now the power went off for good. After a day I'm able to figure out it's just me and my next door neighbor, we share a transformer. Shit. They've got show ponies. I was able to get them some warm water for the horses, we took it over there and polished off the rest of their whiskey. Because we're adults.
I'm using the generator for an hour at a time to watch some news, heat the house, charge the phones, make some coffee. We're still flushing with pool water, the pool froze over so I'm out there breaking up the ice every couple hours. I'm over here playing whack-a-mole trying to keep things together.
Day 7, last day... it's gone freeze tonight but tomorrow we're getting 35 degree weather! The power got fixed overnight, thank you line workers! I went to work on the water, the dang ol' 30,000 gallon water tank froze! The pump is submersed and was throwing a code that it couldn't prime. I was able to get the well primed, pipes thawed enough to get some well water in the house. Not good for drinking really but it's something to work with. Still worried about the septic so using toilets sparingly, I'm peeing outside and pooping once a day. We're somehwat comfortable now with power and heat. Neighbors with downed lines are still out but they went to another neighbors house.
Day 8, 20 degrees this morning... It felt like summer. The sun came out, hadn't seen that in a week! Things are melting, broken tree branches everywhere. Found a couple of the septic sprinklers somehow (gone mark these with flags) and I think we're good here. Go into town, not really expecting much but I'm going stir crazy. Cars are littered along the highway, in ditches and abandoned. It's like a warzone over here. HEB shelves are empty. Like communism empty. PVC isle at Home Depot had a line that was around the store. Have you ever seen an isle with a line?!?! Lots of broken water systems everywhere. My rainwater is turning on but I've got a leak, I can fix this but I have other things to tend so since the well is working.
Anyway, I went and got some supplies that I needed and then hit the pub. Had a few beers. I fucking needed that.
It's been a long week. We made it. We looked out for each other. We provided when others needed. We did all we could and it turned out okay. And we're stronger because of it.
I live in an area with little damage to our electrical system because it's all been rebuilt recently after numerous Hurricanes.
I had just had maintenance done to my Generator because after working for Laura, it stopped for the next one ( I can't even keep up with the names anymore).
Anyway, I found out that being old and having wet ice between you and the generator made the calculus of not falling and breaking my bones trying to get to the generator a higher priority than being cold. We got down to 16 in an area that only got below 20 once in recorded history.
Anyway, I usually go to the car to warm up and listen to my radio when power goes out, but this time the sidewalk was too dangerous.
Fortunately, we were only without power for about 14 hours while they diverted power from here to other parts of the grid.
Right now, the only remaining problem is a boil water notice because too many people let their faucets drip to keep their pipes from freezing. The store shelves are bare of all water and drinks, so my sister got into a wreck going out looking for water from any recent delivery.
She's in the Hospital, but they won't let me in with her because of COVID scamdemic rules. They promised to keep me informed and I've had one phone call on Friday and nothing since.
I'm more afraid for her safety at the Hospital than I am from the dangers from the Ice Storm.
I'm glad things went relatively well for y'all. This ice is something else, eh?
There's some irony here in that all of us that provide our own water are the ones that actually have water now, Austin is a mess over there. Little bit of PVC and we're back online. The public utilities have so many broken pipes they can't keep pressure and are low on reserves.
I'm imagining all the notices about how the water lines from the meter to your house are YOUR responsibility. I've been inundated with service line insurance sales pitches lately. Most want about 6 or 7 dollars a month. It doesn't sound like much, but it's still too much after deductibles make it essentially worthless.
Those underground should be fine I would think. I trenched my own and none of them seem to be having issues, just the above ground stuff.
I've lived in this house off and on 62 Years and we've never had a problem with anything underground outside the sewer. It's a waste like my Gerber's Grow up Plan that pay for the death of a child under 18. Since my youngest is now 30, it's not really insuring anything. But I'm having a difficult time getting them to cancel it.
If I was a child with a life insurance policy I don't know if I'd feel blessed or offended.
Unfortunately, I had to use it once when my 10 year old died. It was my "Valley of the Shadow of Death" moment.
That's when I came up with the idea of an amputation to describe the loss. The wound heals, but the loss is permanent.
There are some advantages to having exposed PVC plumbing. You could spend 10s to 100s of dollars to buy a complete spare set of pipes.
Up here in Minnesota, we bury our pipes below the depth that we expect the ground will freeze. If it gets colder than that, which sometimes happens, we need excavators.
Great post friends, good to see an unbiased report from the boots on the ground. Many prayers to you from West Virginia! Sounds like ya’ll got this, no easy feat, but to be expected from Texans!
Thank you fren, we're back to wearing shorts so things are about as normal as can be.
Did you get any utility bills yet?
I feel for all the Griddy electric company customers. They are the ones that are screwed! The subscribe to their electrical service with the illusion that wholesale price are better than a fixed price per KWH.
Now, we all know wholesale prices skyrocketed during this ice storm.
I imagine there will be a lot of negotiated bills and bankruptcy coming out of that.
Harrowing story. I'm in suburban Dallas here, and thought we had it rough. I cant imagine the looming uncertainty you've endured. We never lost city gas or water, but we do have some burst pipes. We're fortunate that I hunt, and kids were scouts, so we had a lot more gear than our neighbors. We delivered some extra firewood to folks with nothing (also thankful for my Jeep). I think this event will do two things - wake people up that ERCOT and the independent Texas grid is still subject to the whims of the Feds, and no one will make fun of preppers again. Glad to hear you're safe and warm, fren. God bless you!
I'm down closer to Johnson City in the country. I'm definitely on the prepper side of things and I'm real happy that was the case. We were prepared for the cold, we weren't prepared for losing power for so long during the cold.
We filled our propane tank about a week before the storm hit and it's showing 30% now, so that means we burned through close to 200 gallons.
Wasn't really worried about my family, we've got some elderly in the neighborhood that we kept checking in on though. The Jeep was the only vehicle in the neighborhood able to get anywhere so it was nice to be able to get people what they needed.
In what way ?
Regulations such as regarding emissions.
But the Feds approved their plan to bring non-compliant power generators online temporarily. Everybody was claiming the opposite, but even the document that was linked from the DoE said it was approved.
They approved to a limit as past that limit they’d be polluting too much. That limit was far too low.
Part of the issue is that it's harder to bring power up to too much demand, compared to adding additional power to a slightly overrun grid. This is the reverse of what happened in the NE back in 2003 -- enough power dropped that almost everything in the area was taken down. Once you hit a certain critical low point, it's just going to degenerate really quickly, and make it harder to come back up. The delay asking for that "mother may I" was probably enough to do the same in TX.
Remotely located gas pipeline compressors were converted to run on electricity instead of the gas in the pipelines to reduce emissions. When the power went out, the compressors stopped pumping gas and the gas fired electrical generators were fuel starved. Probably caused cascading failures.
We don’t live in a full on rural part of Texas (I wish!) but we’re as far out of town/in the country as we can get with my husband’s job. We were fortunate enough not to lose power for long, or water since we have our own well. We may have lost some fruit trees and man I am pissed about that. I think some people in my rodeo committee lost livestock though; I’m very worried about our FFA kids. A lot of them come from families that don’t have the resources for heated barns etc.
Home Depot was a nightmare like this starting on Wednesday. It took us multiple trips to fix every wrong with our pipes that busted; every time we thought we’d gotten every leak, we found a new one. Damn pipe busted in like four places.
My area weathered this thing pretty well. Neighbors all enjoyed the snow, kids were out playing, and when shit really started to suck, everyone was checking in on each other. And our local area was completely back to normal yesterday. Like, shockingly normal.
In town, though... our major urban center is a bit of a nightmare. Another day of sun-freezing temperatures could have caused some serious problems. Certainly illustrates what a difference location can make when SHTF. I just hope that if something really terrible, like sustained terrible, happens, my family will be able to get out to our house before things go completely tits up.
Austin is a mess right now, I don't think half the city has water yet. And those that do are under boil notice. Yesterday I still had frozen valves so today I'm going to try and get fully operational. The filter for the pool cracked in half but I think all the rainwater stuff made it through fine.
I have a laundry list of things I wish I had done.
Keep us up to date (please). I’m a pepper and it’s always helpful to learn from real situations.
It's over now. I will say a couple of great things I had on hand was a small EDC flashlight (Nebo SWYVEL), a MAPP Torch so I could melt ice to get into fuse boxes and open gates, and my EDC knife (Buck CSAR-T) has a glass breaker that was great for chipping ice away from things.
I'm considering replacing inside PVC with PEX, that might help with the bursting. And water filter tubes, when I shut the water off I'm just going to unscrew them. That's been a popular issue here, and you're dead in the water unless you bypass the entire filtration system.
I live in a far north climate and can vouch for PEX. I have well lines on 1” inch PEX going to buildings on 2’ piers and it’s been great down to 0 without heat. Added some foam insulation and what little ground warmth has kept it from freezing. Copper would have burst 100x over.
The torch is a great call for the locks. We don’t have the sun light like you do, I wonder if that’s what made the difference with all the light. We just get feet and feet of snow that never leaves!
I wonder how it compares to PVC when it comes to UV, when we get sun we really get sun. That Texas sun will weather most things in a season. PVC holds up pretty okay but it gets brittle after several years.
I found this article: Pick Your Plastic Plumbing Pipe: PEX Vs PVC
Unfortunately it seems PEX does NOT work nicely with UV radiation.
https://www.networx.com/article/plumbing-pipe--pex-vs-pvc
I wonder if doing the aforementioned wrap would help with that -- I'd guess having some sort of uv stable foam insulation would help save the PEX, and help with freezing a little bit.
PEX is not UV stable. I would not use it in Texas.
Some manufacturers add a UV stabilizer to it but that only lasts so long... Maybe a few months. Probably less in Texas.
If using either PVC or PEX exposed to the elements I would suggest using a UV sleeve to protect it. You could go a little further and build a wooden box around it which would double as insulation and protection from the pipe being damaged by being stepped on, etc.
why would you install pex in a way that sunlight could even hit it?
I can vouch for PEX staying flexible, even after a few years of sun. I had a piece laying behind the shop for three years at least. I needed a section for redoing the well house and it felt the same as new. I'm in SC so the sun gets pretty strong
No idea, we have the opposite problem. No facts to back it up but I’d be very skeptical.
I’d also be worried about the random wear and tear. Again no experience with that but it certainly doesn’t feel as durable as pvc.
I am a firm believer in PEX. You have to make sure you leave faucets open to allow gas and water to expand if there’s any there during a freeze.
I built my home in 2005 and we chose PEX over PVC along with a tankless water heater. It got down to 9° where I live. I closed the main line at the meter before the freeze as well as the mainline in the home.
I recall at least two times where We were out of town and it was a hard freeze and had to get my parents to come up to our home to check the water. Luckily everything was fine and they shut off the lines.
In Athens myself- Had no problems with freezing, just limbs down and lost my canopy.
For you and other preppers:
I am also in TX and I started prepping seriously in mid January for electrical outages. Our hurricane supplies from when we lived in NC finally came in handy... battery LED lanterns, 100 hour oil candles, collapsible water 5 gallon canteens finally used. Pantry stocked with rice, canned meats, ramens, Campbell soups, flour, yeast, salt, sugar, cereals, powdered milk, eggs, and freeze dried fruit and fruit cups. Plus everything in the fridge we rushed to eat up. If I though we would have lost meat, I would have put it in a cooler outside. Foil over the windows for insulation would be another to do in future Biden Blizzards.
Only thing I needed was the generator I never pulled the trigger on last month. Of course. I got ammo instead lol... guess I should listen to some Qspiracies.
One thing I would highly recommend is getting a camp stove or a table top gas burner that runs on butane and propane. If our gas stove had been compromised for some reason, we have a backup that travels. I bought a backpack sized cannister sitting burner from Cabelas (Basspro) and a tabletop kit from HMart. If you have Asian groceries in your area, they're a goldmine for prepping supplies.
God blessed us by allowing us this brief communism trial run, bc we learned how to live between electricity bursts. Conservation of generator fuel is a good skill to have. We also learned how to reconnect with people, which is what really matters.
Big Buddy heaters are great. A 40 pound propane tank will heat a moderately insulated 1000+ sqft area for a few days.
Modern ventless designed to burn clean and shutoff in a low oxygen situation. (Battery powered CO2 alarm is a nice addition)
They’ll produce a TON of water vapor as a byproduct of the heat generation. I’ve used a dehumidifier to capture the water for flushing toilets (main goal was to manage the moisture).
Obviously that requires electricity but someone hear is probably smart enough to figure out how do do that with cold outside air and some form of condensation.
Only other suggestion would be to block of parts of your house so your heating a small an area as possibly while managing the Co2/O2
Edit: if your dumb like me and have the propane indoors - be very aware it will pool on the floor if there’s a leak. Everyone will say to keep it outside but you have to do what you have to do. Now we have a wall mounted backup propane heater with a very large outside tank.
This probably is my level of naivete when it comes to camping, but I actually got the idea for a camp stove on top of a propane tank from watching Fauda. I figured if people lived like that on the daily elsewhere, couldn't hurt to try it as backup.
I'm learning fast that you gotta shed that first world industrialized mindset in a hurry to survive. Bitching about stuff isn't a solution.
They make them for the small one pound tanks.
Honestly, camping or living in a rural area is the best practice. The prepping community tries to sell you on all the gear but 99% of it isn’t needed.
Think water, food, shelter (clothing, building, warmth etc), sanitation and protection.
Learn how to handle those in any situation and you’ll be ok.
I grew up in the sticks outside a one stoplight town. Guess it was useful for something. 😅
Consider the Coleman stoves and lanterns that burn white gas. You can use gasoline in them. I used to buy them on closeout at the end of camping season and resell them in Summer when everyone figured out those little green propane bottles were a joke.
In an emergency you can always find some gasoline.
I was worried about electricity being shut off on the pumps. Does anyone know how to deal with that?
But all great tips! Also, what is white gas? Never heard referenced like that before
He's probably talking about kerosene.
You can always siphon a little gas out of something. These stove and lanterns don't use much. Probably a good idea to keep some silicone tubing handy since it stays flexible below freezing. I've noticed that hardware stores don't sell it anymore. I had to order it off Amazon because I could only find poly vinyl or latex tubing locally.
White gas can mean many things. In the Coleman world, it's naphtha that they sell for $14 a gallon. They warn you off using gasoline in them because of benzene and other additives in gasoline and because gasoline used to contain lead. I've never noticed any odd smells or flavors when using gasoline though.
A beat up old BBQ and a couple bags of lump charcoal are good too. We had that, and a camping stove, in our earthquake kit growing up in CA. Just store it in a dry place, it's good forever. Not the briquette stuff, that goes bad.
Lump charcoal burns so much better imo. We had that on hand too, but def thanks for the addition! We had some nice steaks on Thursday when it got up to the warm and breezy 20s 😄
I’m a pepper too! We’re talking about our mutual lust for Dr Pepper right?!
You know... some days I’m just retarded. But yes... Dr. Pepper incites an erection for me.
Sounds like that list is shorter than most people's.
Yikes. I’m near Houston. The water is supposed to be back on for most of the city, but a lot of people I know have been flushing their toilets with pool water. Everyone’s cranky about the boil water notice.
Coastal US before a hurricane hit.
I'm a plumber in the dfw. 16 hour days for a week. Devastating destruction to homes from burst pipes. Still have 200+ customers in our queue without water. Most were without power 4+days. We run six vehicles and we're doing all we can. Some companies are booked out until March 20th. It's forging us into steel.
You guys are our super heroes right now!!! We had to call a plumber out yesterday due to a sudden sewage backup (luckily not weather related), and you guys were able to get us back up and running in hours. God bless you guys, too!! I’d still be using the 7/11 bathroom, or my backyard if not for you all.
Thank you but I'm no hero. I am just a fellow citizen that is looking out for my brothers and sisters out there
It's good that you don't get an inflated ego over it, unlike those psychotic nurses.
Thank you for being there for all of us!!
Yeah we will. It's bittersweet though to see so many people's lives turned upside down.
We're in a new house north of McKinney. PEX pipes running through the attic then down uninsulated walls seems like a good idea to accountants, but needs to be rethought. Every pipe in an exterior wall froze but thawed without bursting.
I knew this was coming for 2 weeks because I was watching the computer models. When the TV mets were saying wintery mix and nights in the 20s (thu) we were stocking up. Lucky for us we had a gas fireplace that I always thought was for show but it put out enough heat when - 6 that we could function.
The rolling blackouts I don't understand. In the time the power is on we would scramble to cook, heat pipes, charge things, etc. Probably 3x my normal current draw. How does half the people using 3x the energy help the system?
This whole ERCOT situation is going to be rethought, I can guarantee you that. The issue wasn't the cold, it was the lack of power that screwed us all.
Federal Air pollution fines for running certain plants and creating more CO2 than allowed. The plants didn't run, shitshow follows
That didn’t happen. Texas (ERCOT) submitted a plan that would violate clean air rules during the crisis, and the Feds said fine, as long as it was temporary.
I swear nobody read the actual document, they only read what uninformed people were saying about it.
ERCOT wasn't given permission to exceed emissions until 8:51 PM EST on the 14th. By that time things were already falling apart.
Also, remotely located gas pipeline compressors were converted to run on electricity instead of the gas in the pipelines to reduce emissions. When the power went out, the compressors stopped pumping gas and the gas fired electrical generators were fuel starved. Probably caused cascading failures.
DOE denied Texas’ request to increase output from fossil fuel plants and were denied due to pollution. Doesn’t matter to dims if Texans literally freeze to death.
No they didn’t. InfoWars was wrong and didn’t even read the damn document that they claimed proved it, because the document said EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE.
Nice lack of accountability. As an accountant in a hurricane heavy area, I’m always prepped
PEX is the new standard because it allows for ice expansion. PVC or copper will burst.
Which computer models are those? If they predicted this, I have to know more.
GFS was predicting this every run for a week in early February. The Euro model didn't show this, so the mets sided with the Euro until it was too late.
GFS. Fascinating. I didn't know about that. I betcha that ignoring that data and showing the Euro data was deliberate. Gotta punish Texas.
Thanks for posting this. God bless you for caring for your neighbors and helping them out.
Thank you, lots of community support this past week everywhere. The local Jeep club has been helping a lot of folks in town and restaurants that have suppliers were giving away free milk and eggs. I think I did my part but I'm certainly not the only one, everybody stepped up when and where they could.
Good to hear it, friend. Take note of all the things that went wrong and prepare for the next time. Cheers from Alaska, my good man. Couple things I learned from my pops:
Keeps a 55 oil drum filled with gas stored.
Wire up your boiler to accept a generator on a switch. Just have a standard 3-prong plug spliced into the line with a switch to swap it from "city" to "generator", can just run the boiler that way without power to anything else.
Propane always works even when the power is out. We have to keep heating pads on our tanks here, but that's probably never needed even in the temps you experienced there. Besides, electric sucks for cooking.
All our shit up here is built for the ice and stuff, but what we use on our roads is gravel. Maybe consider having some in a sack somewhere to throw out when it gets icy. I have a front wheel drive vehicle that gets around fine on the ice because the state trucks dump gravel every time it gets fucky. I read something about Texans using salt, forgot to use the salt, and a pileup killed a bunch of people, that's a no-go. Fuck salt, even without the forgetting.
You might consider installing a Toyotomi stove where your pump is. Those little stoves are famous up here for cabins and garages. It's almost March and we've heated a garage with one for the whole winter, only burned 100-200 gallons of fuel. Shit, yours probably wouldn't even kick on in a regular year, but you'd be the savior of the mountainside if you had a pump working.
I don't mean to sound preachy, but I genuinely want to help. Hopefully this comment gives you a little to think about. Best of luck, and God bless you.
We had a taste of your weather and no sir, I don't care for it. LOL
We didn't have equipment to put down gravel or salt, so that added to the situation. Over here they were using sand I think, once we got some trucks over here that is.
Great call on the Toyotomi stove, I might do exactly that. Do you know if they kick on with an internal thermostat or something? I'd want it to kick on automatically somehow. I wouldn't have any problem keeping a 5 gallon can of kerosene in the shed.
The boiler, I think you mean hot water heater? That's propane and it worked the entire time. I just didn't have any pressure because of the power outages, and then because of the frozen pipes. I might review the circuit panel to see what it'll take to wire in a generator on a switch, even if it's manual, then I could keep stuff running.
Yeah. The one we've got kicks on when the temp gets below the 55 degree mark (the lowest setting, kinda wish it went lower, lol). They're smart machines, if you look into them you'll see why they're popular as fuck up here. We have a Greer tank with #2 heating fuel hooked up to ours.
It depends on what you use to heat your house. Generally up here, people have #2 or #1 heating fuel burning in their boilers to either 1. Heat water to the baseboards, or 2. Force hot air. Some people only have wood stoves. Anyway, any option has the same function, keeping your house above freezing so your pipes don't burst and fuck everything up. People with boilers that heat water have a twofer when it comes to heating their house and their water at the same time, so I guess you could call it that. Me personally, my boiler doesn't heat water, so I have a separate system for heating water. I don't know much about propane, but it sounds like your power going out cut the pressure and made your system fail. It seems like if you wired in a generator in there somewhere it might save you next time. Just flip the switch, hook it up, and pull the cord on the generator, it'll keep it going. You won't be able to run your microwave or lights, but your house will be saved from damage.
Whatever main function keeps your pipes from bursting (heating your house), I'd want to have that on a switch for a generator just in case the power goes out when it gets cold. That way, you can conserve your fuel and keep your heat running at a temperature to prevent your pipes from bursting and fucking up the whole system. In an emergency, you can keep the heat right above the point where it'll freeze your pipes to conserve your fuel. I guess in your case, it'd be whatever provides pressure to your propane water heater. I, admittedly, don't know much about those because I've never owned or used one before.
Hope this helps. I'm no expert, but these are all things we've talked about up here & prepared for. We'll freeze to death a lot quicker if something goes wrong here. Ha. Best of luck to you, and hopefully with this knowledge you'll be saving your neighbors. Hell, spread it around if you want.
Okay, I understand what you were talking about better now.
I think my indoor pipes are safe, they're inside the frame and foundation. We generally just keep a light on in the well house to keep it warm enough, I've got a heater in there too because why not? I think I'm going to look into one of those kerosene heaters though, might not keep it in the well house full time but if it does get cold enough I can take it out there.
My propane didn't freeze, the stove worked the entire time. The furnace requires power though, so we didn't have heat from that. Definitely something to look at wiring up to a generator, great idea.
Yeah, I don't know what you'd get for something like that. Maybe this?
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DuraHeat-Portable-Radiant-Kerosene-Heater-Provides-10-000-BTU-s-of-Warmth-DH1100/302785282
This is what we'd put in.
http://www.susitnaenergy.com/0044-toyotomi-laser-30.php
You really can't move them around once you put them in, though.
https://www.interlockkit.com/
The cheap and easy way to get a generator wired into a breaker panel. I used one for my setup at my house, works great.
Greetings from Indiana, we get ice storms from time to time.
We did the same thing because we live in California where they turn out our power when the wine blows. Just kill me now lol!
It’s a great setup, even this old lady pede can get it up and running. Nice little Honda generator. 3 steps and I have power for the house. Can’t run the washing machine but my food stays safe and we have lights.
We keep 20 gallons of gas on hand just in case.
Your first sentence has a typo, but interestingly enough it’s still accurate, lol.
Omg lol! Well we do live in wine country! Actually what’s left of it after the last fire. Arizona here we come!
Natural gas works too... if you have a thermostat that doesnt require electricity. Thing is, most people put in these highend digit wifi thermostats, kinda Fd themselves.... no?
I read that natural gas had outages too. I'm on propane so I didn't experience it.
Yeah. Natural gas I don't know much about when it comes to power outages and whatnot. I assume you can hook a generator up to those things and keep them going.
Natural gas heating still requires electric fans to blow air around the house.
I have a gas wall heater.... it works w/o electricity.... maybe there isn't a blower....
Salt is stupid, use sand. We keep a couple bins of sand on hand and some in the back of the truck too. New England life:)
I think gravel is superior but what do I know. All I know is it sucks to eat shit in it on a bike in the summer. Works great in the winter, though.
The main problem with gravel or sand is once the ice is gone you now have slippery materials on the roadway, which is kinda bad if it’s on a hill or curve. Salt degrades so there’s nothing left once the ice melts.
believe me, once the ice is gone you just sweep it away and haul it off in a truck. Salt erodes the metal on vehicles and does a worse job at solving the problem. gravel is the best option in my opinion.
We are outside Austin in a new subdivision and the houses and services here fared much better than the average. I got stuck twice but managed to get moving again each time. Power was on and off like you described, I kept the one at-risk pipe thawed with a blow torch each day. The thing is though that we also read the weather report, despite being from California originally I knew this was going to create a mess. We stocked up at HEB and Costco, topped off both cars tanks, bought lots of water, etc. I didn't have a generator but I had a deep cycle car battery and an inverter, which kept the critical stuff running.
Driving was another story entirely though. I've been racing for the better part of 15 years, done rally, hillclimbs, etc so I'm no stranger to car control. That kept me on the pavement at least, albeit with some Initial D worthy drifting. But the tollways were littered with pieces of cars and derelicts. I saw a Honda Pilot sitting on its roof, obviously having been there for quite a while, and a few other cars that had been crashed and abandoned. Pickup trucks didn't fare well, lots of the people here think their brodozers have magic tires and the ice proved them wrong. Saw several on their sides or stuck in ditches.
Just like everything else in life you have to prepare for the possibility things won't go well. I saw footage of thousands of people in Austin lined up for fast food, people who clearly didn't think through what was going to happen. I couldn't help but think "well, there are all the Californians and democrats in a food line." In a slightly perverse way it seemed to make sense to me.
I'm outside Austin as well, out in Henly.
I didn't even try driving until it snowed, that ice will murder you. My truck wouldn't start after it hit 5 degrees, but the Jeep did just fine. I'd rather be driving the Jeep at that point anyway. I wasn't driving anywhere outside the neighborhood anyway.
When I went out a couple days ago the highway was littered with abandoned vehicles, such a weird sight. Zombie apocalypse looking.
I see that "Toxic masculinity" once again, saved the day. Can you imagine what a Fucking SoyBoi in man bun would have done? besides sit down and cry himself to death?
Well done Pede. well done.Ohhra
Hank Jr said it best. A country boy can survive.
We all definitely have our own unique stories following this trying week. God bless you, b/c your story puts mine to shame. I’m glad to hear you guys pulled through stronger than an ever. We have all learned new life lessons from this, and I know for a fact, us Texans, will emerge stronger because of this.
Yes sir, we've all got some things to think about this week.
Texas is strong people!
The spirit of Texas is definitely all about self-sustaining, helping your neighbors, and being strong when required.
There was a lot of that this past week.
Most city folks don't help each other... even in Texas, imo.
Another reason not to live there.
"1/4" ice had accumulated on everything."
Fuck. That. Shit. This is the real killer for power lines and trees, especially if there is snow before or after you get the ice.
Oh it got better. After we had everything covered in ice it snowed... then it iced over again on top of all the snow! We had snow sandwich going on over here.
All that weight on power lines and stuff, not a good situation.
We made it though. And if it happens again we'll be better prepared.
People don't realize the snow kept a lot of underground pipes (sprinkler systems especially) from freezing when it got below zero. I had a neighbor try to shovel the snow off his roof. Snow is good insulation.
My IR thermometer had minus 26 on the bare spots of the roof when it was calm and clear, even though the air temperature was minus 4.
So long as the weight of it does not exceed what the roof can support. No clue if the building codes down there account for snow weight.
4 inches with drifts to a foot
And FEMA wasn't activated until it was over. Glad this will help but jesus people suffered while Biden sat around drooling.
He wasn’t just “sitting around around drooling”....He was playing Mario Kart🙄😂
I thought he was back to learning colors again, "This color is red, this one blue, this one is white, this one is poor..."
😂😂😂
Greater DFW fren checking in.
I was blessed to not have lost power the whole time, and our landlord had installed Pex pipes (flexible pipes that expand if water freezes in them) so nothing burst. My water heater flooded, due to boiling over or some shit I don’t understand, and the overflow drip pipe froze so that made a giant fucking mess, but after a phone call, some swearing and siphoning the drip tray with a pot and an old t-shirt, we got it under control.
The house was 55 degrees for about two days with the central heat on full blast and two space heaters running. I replaced the air filter and was able to get it up to about 62. We didn’t hit 70 degrees until two days ago. I work from home and my lady hid out in the bedroom with one of the space heaters (with curtains blocking the window draft it was nice and cozy in there) while I froze my ass off in the living room, even with a space heater right by my feet. I was wearing two or three layers on every part of my body. Indoors. Fuck.
Driving was a fantastic mess. We ventured out to grab some extra supplies on day 3 and we discovered that the extent of city inclement weather management was “throw some sand on the bridges and let’s get the fuck out of here”. The shelves were nearly bare, I took a picture of the meat/dairy aisle and everything was completely cleaned out. Luckily we got some stuff we needed (I saw this coming so I stocked up on Friday). I almost didn’t make it up a hill coming back over the last bridge, I had to float over into the fresh powder that nobody had driven through to get traction. Luckily I’ve driven in this crap before because I used to live in Minnesota.
Getting up the driveway was probably the hardest part. I usually back in but the ice was so bad I had to get a running start from the opposite curb. We have covered parking and a garage, and I went out there to clear the snow off the cars the first day.
The dogs decided that the entire back yard was grass and would just piss and shit right by the door then go running back inside. Now there’s piles of dog poo littered all around the back door that I’m going to have to pick up tomorrow. My poor rescue boxer was so cold even inside that we had to put a sweater on her. She was snuggled up to my older boxer and trembling, so I admitted them to the bedroom to snuggle with mama.
All in all it was an utter shit show. I’m happy I never lost power or water but God was that ever a hot mess.
I didn't even try to work, I told my boss I didn't have water or power and we were basically in survival mode.
We stocked up I think on Thursday, I had smoked a brisket the week before so I had a ton of that left. Thankfully food wasn't an issue too.
Well we made it fren, let's hope we don't have to try that again!
Fuck it, do it again so the infrastructure gets pushed harder to update for this shit.
Definitely take the lessons learned and do what you can to put them in place just in case it does happen again next winter. Might be worse next time.
Beto = Cancer
The blue clouds are coming to get out of the shit they created in yankee (not baseball) land. Don't understand why the yankees want to turn Texas into a shit hole like they came from. As in Austin New York.
parasites typically move on after killing the host.
I heard this may be an immune response from TX -- trying to deal with all the lefties moving in.
I’m also in Texas and yes, it went pretty much like this for us also. Including checking on neighbors and helping out where we could. The UTV wouldn’t work in the extreme cold so had to put on the heavy snow gear and haul supplies to neighbors. Plus getting water out to livestock. We didn’t have all our pipes freeze so had water and septic ok.
We also had solar lights. The kind u hang outside. I’d charge them during the day when there was sun and they helped at night when we had no electricity.
Neighbors helped neighbors. Btw, the ring app on my phone helped me connect with nearby neighbors that needed help. I don’t do Facebook so that app helped a lot.
My truck wouldn't start once it hit single digits, killed the batteries. The UTV did start but it's not no windshield, so I just stuck with the Jeep. It's better suited for all that anyway, I built it as a rock crawler and put the tires at 5psi.
We have some solar lights too but I don't know if they were charging. I guess I should have looked. Wasn't a lot of sun out there.
Septic was fine here, thankfully. I had 3 ladies in the house, could you imagine?!?!
Curious, was your truck garaged and it got that cold in the garage? Or parked outside?
Parked outside, dual batteries that are 2 years old. I ordered some glass mat batteries to replace them.
I think we will be drilling a well sometime soon and putting a well house over it. I want to be more self sufficient. Plus a catchment system for capturing water off the metal barn and workshop. And a bigger generator system Since power loss was the real problem. Wish I had fireplaces on each end of the house but thanking God we had a big one in the living room. Kept that fed 24/7. Ran out of our usual amount by day 3 so went out into the pastures and started cutting down the dead wood so at least it wasn’t green. We have such crappy water here that we normally have about 25 gallons of RO water stored normally so that was good. Definitely more prepping in our future.
Natural gas generator if you have natural gas.
Love solar lights outside, we have them on our fence for the dogs so we can see them at night and they always come in handy. Have also lasted forever. Ours are motion activated so that helps. Was also nice when we didn't have power Monday. We have chickens two ages. 16 weeks and 3 weeks...Had to bring youngest inside and others into the garage. As their water froze, so garage was easier choice. We also had pipes bust, but we could weld them as they were copper. Also went around helping people in our area where we could. Mostly copper as pvc was all gone anyways. We had some pvc just because my husband's dads rentals. He also does ac so he had it for that too.
What town are you in? I am in Longview. we never lost power or had any problems except the iced up streets. Could not travel. I have a generator that runs my whole house but did not have to use it. Wife always has plenty of food and paper stocked up. Pier & beam houses that were not prepared had some frozen pipes. Power grid disaster need to be fixed, NOW. Roll some heads.
I'm in Henly. I'd sure like to have a nice chat with these ERCOT folks right about now, what happened here was avoidable.
Would not do any good they are deaf. Need a governor that will take control and get power grid fixed.
My sister lives in Quitman and they never lost power. My brother-in-law said he thought no one in Wood county lost power. He came down today and we went to the store, had to go get some prescriptions and bought some groceries, we were both surprised at what they did have, figured it would be much more scarce. Bread aisle, eggs, butter were thin but they did have some. Plenty of meat, just not much in the way of prepared meats, like sausage, bacon, sandwich meat. Produced looked to be in good shape. Employees were stocking shelves all through the store so I assume they are getting shipments in.
My Bro-in-law bought a few things because he said the store in Quitman was empty. He said the store manager in Quitman is a buddy of his and told him their problem was they couldn't get trucks in to resupply because of the road conditions.
So, the worst for me was we were without power for about two days, it would come on occasionally but would go off again after 15-30 minutes. I had food, my deep freeze stayed solid even with out electricity, had ice cream that was still hard as a rock two days later.
Had food, though things were starting to run low. Had heat since I have natural gas so use space heaters, gas cook stove to. Couldn't use the oven because the electric pilot light wouldn't allow gas on.
So basically it was all just an inconvenience, sucked sitting around with no power, but I have several battery powered lanterns, a battery powered radio, oil lamps for light. Most of the snow/ice has melted now, roads are pretty good. I'm just hoping I don't find out I have some busted water pipes now that everything is thawing out.
The power never quit in Quitman!
Is quitman on Upshur county co op?. From what I hear E TX isn't forced on to the main TX grid.
It was a joke, I have no idea.
From one Texan to another, well done. This weather definitely put all of us to the test. But the worst is over, we've survived, and now we have stories to take to our friends and families. Say it with me Texas pedes: I survived the Biden Blizzard!
Great work looking our for your neighbors during that cold week, I'm sure they appreciated it more than they let on.
When we brought everybody coffee they were really happy about it, small things like that make a community strong. We're all relatively close, not that we all like each other but it's not a large community so we all know what each other is up to. I think everybody made it okay.
Meanwhile in the city.
"GIMME THAT LAST TWINKY!"
I feel ya, man. I’m near Austin and we had no power or water for just under 100 hours. I also didn’t have a generator, and my freakin jeep refused to start (I made a long post about this earlier last week). What I DID have was a) lots of bottled water (about 60 gallons), b) a functional gas stove, and c) an insulated hot tub that was a great source for toilet water. But, yeah, last week sucked. On the other hand, I’d like to bet that most Texans will be better-prepared the next time (in spite of this weather theoretically being a "once every 8 decades " kind of thing).
I helped my neighbors as best I could with what water I could spare. It seemed like the families with lots of kids were (unsurprisingly) impacted more. We all survived - except for the mother of one of my wife’s friends. She was on a constant oxygen supply from an electrically-powered O2 generator. They had no backup and hospitals were overwhelmed and not able to respond (they’re more rurally-remote than we are). She died about 12 hours after their power dropped. The coroner couldn’t even pick up the body for another 2 days. Heartbreaking.
Really sorry to hear of your friend’s loss. 😔
I expect to hear more of these stories, lots of people in manufactured homes and RV parks. My condolences.
That’s fucking America right there!!
Trump would've sent you aid.
Never stop being angry.
Starting with an emergency executive order lifting all restrictions on power companies burning "fossil fuels".
I live in the Texas panhandle. We got down to -12 but beyond a few outages here and there, our power stayed on and for that we were all grateful.
We checked on friends and family, made sure everyone had plenty of stuff on hand to hole up at home for the week in the days leading up to it. Did a grocery run for the inlaws and some elderly friends so they wouldn't be out in the cold. Got the spare bedrooms ready, the folding cot and air mattress cleaned off and set to the side, and pulled out all the extra blankets and pillows. Our house isn't big but because we have a generator, the plan was to put up as many people as we could if the power failed. They'd have been sleeping on couches and recliners and the floor even, but they'd have been warm at least.
We didn't GAF about what the politicians were up to, because Texans take care of their own. We have to, especially in my solid red region, because politicians only rush to the weak link cities when disaster strikes.
Panhandle isn't on ERCOT right?
No, it's on the eastern grid. I wasn't aware of it until all this started happening, actually. We also got hit a little different than y'all down south. No ice, and the snow was dry powder, so the wind farms kept turning and the power lines stayed intact throughout the area. We did get some warnings of possible rolling blackouts but it never happened.
I put a genetator in each of my rooms. My family has been real warm. They are still sleeping. Buncha lazy asses.
/s
Power went out here, Wed. Came back, water didn't. Couldnt work due to no internet. Wore jackets, played in snow with kids. Went grocery shopping, thursday. Grilled a lot. I like the cold, though. My in laws acted like the fucking universe was crumbling.
I have a feeling they're going to be sleeping for a little while longer! LOL
Side note, HEB pulled all MyPillow products from their shelves... forever. Sure ppl could have used those pillows and sheets and stuff during the storm....
Huh, I didn't even know HEB sold pillows.
I think people should avoid jumping to conclusions about stores that unstock MyPillow. If they make an accompanying public statement disparaging Lindell, then boycott the hell out of them, but I think some stores are just quietly removing the products from the shelves because they reasonably expect that a lot more would be vandalized than sold. Those stores will quietly bring them back later on.
So Mike lied....
?
HEB sucks. I am glad there are none in my area. Would not buy from the yankee bastards anyway.
We're all preppers now.
My part of Texas got down to single digits for almost a day and was below freezing for the high for over 6 days. Had my pool pump running for almost week straight, and I don’t know how but it never froze and is fine.
HVAC the same, ran almost continuously for like 5-6 days but still ok. Never lost power, water out for 2 days but back (boil), internet out for 4 days but back, too. I’ve probably used most of our data for the month.
All in all, we were incredibly lucky. All thawed out now.
And for all the snarky bros from places like Michigan, MN, VA, PA and the like posting memes mocking Texans for not being able to drive on ice...Our ice is thawed, we’re back in flip flops and you still have communists running your states. I know which one I’ll choose. 🖕
ZOW. God bless you guys for thinking of your neighbors and their critters in your own time of need and tribulation; that is true Christianity in action, and a decidedly Texan thing to do! You're an absolute Ameripede---those are some impressively nimble navigation skills, bruh! Texipedes gotta learn a lesson from all this mess---never rely on government, only God, family, and one another.
Northern suburbs of San Antonio here. We got lucky in that we were on the same electrical grid with a Sprouts grocery store so we never lost power. Apparently Hospitals and grocery stores are considered essential locations and are excluded from rolling blackouts.
We lost water on Tuesday night and didn’t get it back until Friday morning. We had filled up bathtubs when we noticed the water pressure was lowering and gathered snow to supplement our needs.
A neighbor across the street has a swimming pool and made it available for the rest of us on the street.
On Wednesday a group of 6 of us were taking buckets of water to elderly people who live on our street. It was a really strong sense of community helping out people that needed it and it brought together people who normally never interact.
We’re in a small town north of DFW, and our Walmart lost power along with everyone else. I was surprised. Now, our Walmart is closed until further notice. I’m wondering if they had pipe bursts.
I have a rental house up in your area (Bulverde Village). A property management company runs it for us. I've been worried our tenant may have had cracked pipes, etc. but haven't heard from the property mgmnt company yet. Hoping the house did okay for them and that no news is good news. The house is only 10 years old. No idea if it has PEX or PVC piping. Anyway, glad y'all made it and were looking our for your neighbors.
Very close by. I’m in Terraces at Encino Park. I have not heard much about burst pipes on the Nextdoor App in the surrounding communities. Nobody in my immediate neighborhood had burst pipes.
Now please, help secede your great state from this unholy chinese Federal union of ours, start a new America because you sir are what Americans and Texans should be. These globo homo Communist fags whining about equality and shit.
Thanks for the account. This was really informative
You’re the man, friend.
You're my fren, man.
😊👍👍❤️
While we don't loose power to freezing temps, here in Northern California, we loose power due to PG and E turning it off due to wildfires and potential wildfire danger. I only have a little honda 2000 and am able to run the fridge, the tv and internet. The water is well and I have a hand pump on the well. We get notice of power shut off, so we will all available jugs, etc. Toilet is filled from buckets. Old fashioned 5 gallon toliet. Poop is flushed, pee is kept. Use just one toilet.
When we need water, just go down to the well house and pump water into accumulator tank (that is a job) and we get a few flushes or water in the sink. Longest was six days without power. A real pita but liveable in the heat. (temps over 100 usually) Would rather deal with warming than cooling, thats for sure.
Thanks for sharing. This really puts it into perspective. Glad you guys made it through pretty much unscathed. I sincerely hope you're able to fix your water problem soon. Having no power sucks. No access to good water can be just as bad. I went through something similar decades ago. Our fiasco lasted 2 weeks. The first week was brutal. Once the power comes back, things get better rapidly (for the most part). Good luck and God Bless!
Michigan checking in, I’m glad you’re doing ok. I have a traction tip to add for future use. Carry some cat litter or fireplace ash in your jeep for traction on the ice and snow if you’re stuck. We have the infrastructure for extreme cold lasting for months, shit still freezes. Winter life is no joke and something everyone should have knowledge on. Very informative post and it looks like you’ve adapted well. Good luck!
We don’t live in a full on rural part of Texas (I wish!) but we’re as far out of town/in the country as we can get with my husband’s job. We were fortunate enough not to lose power for long, or water since we have our own well. We may have lost some fruit trees and man I am pissed about that. I think some people in my rodeo committee lost livestock though; I’m very worried about our FFA kids. A lot of them come from families that don’t have the resources for heated barns etc.
Home Depot was a nightmare like this starting on Wednesday. It took us multiple trips to fix every wrong with our pipes that busted; every time we thought we’d gotten every leak, we found a new one. Damn pipe busted in like four places.
My area weathered this thing pretty well. Neighbors all enjoyed the snow, kids were out playing, and when shit really started to suck, everyone was checking in on each other. And our local area was completely back to normal yesterday. Like, shockingly normal.
In town, though... our major urban center is a bit of a nightmare. Another day of sun-freezing temperatures could have caused some serious problems. Certainly illustrates what a difference location can make when SHTF. I just hope that if something really terrible, like sustained terrible, happens, my family will be able to get out to our house before things go completely tits up.
I’m a little curious as to what the plan for the future is for both Texas citizens and its gov’t. Everyone keeps saying “it’s Texas it never happens there”, but Texas does sit at the southern end of the plains meaning there’s absolutely no geographical barrier between it and the arctic air up north. It should at least be in the plan for a freak winter storm to happen. The northern states have to do the same thing. Sure we get winters all the time, but some years you get something insane that drops a foot of snow and then plummets the temperature to -20 across the entire Midwest.
Every few years Quebec and Ontario, which are both used to winter conditions yearly, have an ice storm. It usually results in power out for a few days as lines are down all over the place, people die, people go without power, etc, etc. But, that's pretty normal for an ice storm.
Except for '98, that was fucked.
That was the big one?
Yep. About 1000 transmission towers collapsed, 4+ million people lost power and 3 weeks after the storm there was still about 150000 people in Quebec without power.
I heard from someone else, that was the same year Quebec was on the verge of secession.
I live in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Winter is not a joke. It can be deadly. Heat in the form of natural gas and electrical power to run the furnaces are in some cases all that stands between death and life during winter months. It amazes me how even people that have lived here their entire lives can so quickly forget this. Because they get used to having to not worry so much about these things they don't prepare.
I was in Saskatoon during the great blizzard about 12-15 years ago. People were stuck in vehicles on overpasses and streets, unable to get out for help and many with no winter gear because 'they live in the city. What could go wrong?'. Many of them were rescued by sled dogs and snowmobiles.
I had a cousin, who should know better, hop in her car with only half a tank of gas and decide to drive to Calgary. Got stranded in a ditch on the TransCanada highway outside Bassano and soon ran out of gas after that. She nearly froze to death because she didn't have anything like blankets or snow gear in her car. All her husband could do is listen to her crying and comfort her on the phone as best he could to keep her going. It took about 5 hours for emergency vehicles to get to her and all the other stranded people just as the night was coming in. By that point she was already delirious from hypothermia. With the temperatures dipping further that night it probably would have killed her. Funny thing was only about 200 feet away on the other side of the ditch was a warm van and lots of winter clothes and blankets. She couldn't even see them in the blizzard and the family were sitting around watching movies on their DVD player.
Anyway. I've known close friends, farmers, and neighbors that just completely forget how bad winters can be. Many have been lucky. Some have died. It infuriates me all the time that people even here can forget this, which is probably why I took the time to rant on this. Sorry about that.
That caused me to know what it was like. Thank you so much. Hope you are all fine now.
You did good, pede
God bless Texas! You sir are one very fine pede! This is the Texas way.
Have great friends in Plano who did the same with their pool. Got some great photos of her hubby taking an axe to the pool for water. They unfortunately had their pipes burst. They are city folk after all. But still resilient Texans.
The people of Texas are so lovely, I enjoy visiting there.
Thanks for sharing patriot. Glad to hear sturdy souls like you taking care of your neighbors
Thank you for the report, fren! It's very inspiring learning how pedes are faring in difficult situations like this. Hearing that your neighbor and community have learned the critical importance of taking care of each other makes me smile, bigly. 🙂👍👍
Just a suggestion. For situations like this, have this backup: pee in a jug, and for poop have a folding camping toilet (seat and aluminum tube frame, $20). It takes plastic trash bags. Have some sawdust, dump a handful in the bag. If you can't flush toilets, this is a viable longterm alternative. Remember, the pioneers didn't even have this. Survivalist mindset will survive when the city folks are reeeing for government help.
I am shocked to say my state has had better weather than Texas, around the high 20's mostly but with consistent sunshine during the day.
I applaud you for tending to your family friends and neighbors, you have really done something special and in times like that, people will always remember you for it. Be safe, and we should all be prepared for whatever life may throw at us, forget about the "Prepper" stereotypes!
Glad you made it through fren