Most likely a misdiagnosis on my part - there’s another guy with a diesel jeep in my area that can’t start because the fuel lines have gelled. That’s most likely my problem. You are 100% correct that an engine block doesn’t freeze in the 10s-20s.
Good question. I didn’t have my jeep winterized because, hey, how bad can it get in Texas? I was an idiot for not cycling the engine when all this started. The situation with my jeep was 100% my fault.
We’re slightly better now because we’ve had power for the past 5 hours, but now apparently our natural gas lines are rapidly dwindling. I have a couple camper cooktops with propane bottles, but as I said in my post, we continue seeing cascading breakdowns. We are also still without water and that might last until Friday. But at least our lights (and microwave) are working.
Rule of thumb is people use 5 gallons of water per person per day. Obviously that includes things like bathing and toilet water, and also doesn’t assume conservation. We started with 60 gallons reserve water and now we’re down to about 25. We’re fine though, because we’re just melting outside snow for the toilets. People consume much more water than they think, especially non-adults who aren’t as wise about consumption.
Im more concerned about the stupid DEF tank being frozen. The irony is that all my radio comm gear is in my jeep, so if I need to reach someone in an emergency, I’m screwed.
Just gotta adapt, improvise, and overcome.
Video version of what you said here: https://patriots.win/p/12hRGznbbc/take-over-the-gop--this-is-the-w/
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.