The power outages in Texas had serious affects in NM. A hospital system here has both their primary and backup computer mainframes (if that’s the right terminology) in Texas and healthcare providers didn’t have access to medical information (small amounts were somehow avail). H got home around 1am, after hours of trying to recreate histories to and treat people until it came back online. A complete mess. As a non-tech person, I wonder if a backup computer system ought to be located in another state.
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My parents’ house in Austin. I don’t recall ever seeing more than three inches of snow there my entire life. They have been fortunate and not lost power.
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Thank you for sharing this. I’m sorry to hear about all the issues people in TX are having right now. It must be scary and frustrating. Hopefully, TX can figure out a solution quickly (e.g. buying power from another state).
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It is up to 19 degrees now and sunny. The kids walked to my parents, a little less than a mile away and have been outside since they came back. They have been walking our Great Pyrenees and he is loving it. He is harder to walk when it is cold though because he is more energetic, once it hits about 70 he barely makes it to the end of the street and back.
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I came home from lunch and an NU student was digging out her car with a frisbee. Yes, a frisbee. Her friend joined her with a wastepaper basket. Needless to say I went out to help with my shovel. ; )
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its been harsh here in the midwest regarding energy (electric). there’s been rolling outages all over our states – not just texas – to forcefully conserve energy so the entire midwest grid doesnt go down during this freeze spell. In the coldest of days, there is no wind so the wind turbines are not running. it has been NUTS 24/7 the last 4 days for my husband who’s in the energy industry.
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I’m in the great city of San Antonio. We had almost a foot of snow and 2 straight days of temperatures in the teens. We’re expecting freezing rain later today. Yeah, it’s been an unmitigated disaster. Who the heck plans plans for a blizzard in south Texas? I’m writing this forum because our house happens to be the other half that actually has power. Others haven’t fared so well. My parents lost power, then had their pipes burst. The car battery got used up trying to power a space heater. For a while they had no power or running water, and no car to drive to the hardware store. I couldn’t get to them because of the road closures. Fortunately, they found someone to jumpstart the car.
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@coolguy40 that sounds terrible! I’m glad your parents got a jump for their car.
@bgbg4us, they are admitting that the wind turbines aren’t the problem. It’s a combination of lots of things but natural gas supply is a big one. Also most of Texas has it’s own power grid and apparently can’t buy power from other states, it’s the only state in the union that has this set up.
But my husband who works in renewable energy says that if wind turbines are covered in ice, they will shut them down. As ice flying off the blades is dangerous. But yes, this cold weather is difficult on all power grids.
We are going to see a warm up from this bitter cold here in Michigan. Hoping for the same in the rest of the country.
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After hearing all the Texas people here on CC and your terrible weather woes I decided to text my sister In Corpus Christi. I’m thinking they are south enough and fine - nope! She texts back that they hav been without power for 2 days and the house was 44 degrees this morning! And they had a water pipe (outside) burst yesterday.
Hoping you all get power snd relief.
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Our snowstorm did indeed turn into all rain, ended about 1am. But that still didn’t stop the school from cancelling, at 6pm the night before. We’ll see how they deal with the Thursday storm, which is already decreasing in forecast intensity and forecast to start later and later. I smell another nothingburger.
All of the talk about outages in Texas reminds me of my work with ERCOT many years ago - sounds like they’re in no better shape today. I guess that happens when you have your “own” power grid and don’t integrate with the rest of the country.
By not crossing state lines, Texas utilities avoided being subjected to federal rules. "Freedom from federal regulation was a cherished goal
Congrats!
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My parents’ condo is in the Corpus Christi City limits. It used to be in Port Aransas but the line moved at some point. I love Corpus. Many happy memories there.
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Thank you! I see people, including elsewhere on this site, so ready to jump on the knee-jerk wind-bashing, without looking at the actual picture. Climate change is , of course, real, and almost certainly playing into this situation, just like all the other extreme weather the globe has been experiencing. And, not curbing that leads to more energy emergencies.
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It’s been REALLY bad in Texas. There will be a lot of finger pointing and disagreements about why this happened and how to prevent it in the future. It’s too political, so I’ll leave it at that.
I don’t know why, but we have been so very lucky to have not lost power in all of the days of this debacle. Almost everyone else I know here has experienced at least some power loss-some for days and days. My Dad’s senior living place in San Antonio has been out of power for a couple of days. He swears he is okay, a little chilly in his small high rise apartment, but says he is snug as a bug when he gets under his blankets. Same for DH’s Dad-he grew up in Minnesota and says he knows how to deal. MIL’s power has been on and off, on and off, but she also declined our offer to come stay with us. D2 lives in an apartment downtown and has also inexplicably been unaffected by rolling power outages or problems with downed lines or transformers.
There is a perception that the “rich neighborhoods” have not had power outages and people are outraged. From what I have read, it’s absolutely not true that none of these neighborhoods have lost power. However, I’m sure in the coming weeks we will learn more about any inequities that may have occurred.
We live in one of the lesser known “affluent neighborhoods.” Just two streets over, they have been completely dark ever since Sunday or Monday night. I have no idea why we have been so lucky thus far.
Our major issue is trying very hard to keep our pipes from freezing. Our house is pier and beam, so I’ve been worried about it. Our master bathroom lost cold water in the tub. Our builder said to turn on the hot water on low for 20 minutes to see if it might warm up the adjacent cold water pipe and it worked. Of course, all faucets are dripping, and DH and I have been taking turns getting up in the middle of the night to flush the toilets. Don’t know if that was necessary, but I wasn’t going to argue.
I read on NextDoor yesterday that there are actually vent covers for pier and beam houses (this is our first ever). We looked and couldn’t find any in the attic or under the the house. DH improvised last night and covered all of the vents with cardboard from our moving boxes (we moved in right before Christmas). It seems to have helped a bit - the floors don’t seem near as cold.
I don’t remember in my lifetime the entire state of Texas experiencing cold of this magnitude all at the same time. I was stunned when I saw that extreme south Texas was actually freezing too-how often that has ever happened I don’t know. But such a grand scale cold spell has no doubt contributed to the grid failure.
I’m really hoping that this issue gets addressed and not quickly forgotten by the powers that be, some of whom have actually already started deflecting blame, and in some cases, blatantly lying about the underlying causes of this disaster. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge, and in the interest of the future, these failures must be faced and dealt with in a bipartisan manner.
Hoping we make it through the next few days unscathed and that the suffering brought on by this event is over soon.
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My parents in Austin had power until 5:30 this morning. Their caregiver had been out for a couple of days, so yesterday she and her family came to stay at my folks’ house. Dad said they are staying warm under blankets. I’m thankful their caregiver is there! My sister said the roads are too icy to take my folks anyplace else, even if there was somewhere to go.
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We finally have internet and power so I can join in. North DFW area. We lost power about 2AM Monday.
First thing Monday morning everyone in the neighborhood was scrambling to drain pool filters and pumps before they froze solid. We will see if we got to it in time.
We stuck it out until Tuesday afternoon when it was 38 in the kitchen even with a big pot of water simmering on the stove, so we went to a friend’s house. They had rolling Blackouts. one hour with and then one without power. It worked fine even if it was a bit chilly. By 4 PM we came back home to pack a bag to stay at their place overnight. (No hotels had any vacancies by then). As we packed the power came back on. By this point we were under a boil water order and pressure was dropping quickly. (The metropolitan water system that supplies our town lost pressure due to failures in the system). We decided to gamble that the heat would stay on and that the pipes were a bigger worry than power.
Water went totally off a few hours later. Fortunately we can flush with buckets from the pool, after breaking up the ice with a broom handle. It’s now been a day with no water. We had some air and sputtering a while ago but it quit. I sure hope we don’t have frozen pipes in the attic! We left every tap dribbling, so there wasn’t much else we could do.
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Some advice from USA Today about freezing pipes
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All of the people in Texas, be careful. I’m thinking of you.
I personally would turn off the main water valve if you no longer have water. And try to warm up the pipes with a hair dryer. The USA Today article is informative.
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How are they going to run a hair dryer if they don’t have power 
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I thought that dragonmom said that her power had come back on. I was trying to be helpful.
Also if your pipes are frozen, turn off the water. When your electricity comes back on, try and warm up the pipes with a hairdryer before you turn on the water to the house.
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