Sunday, February 21, 2021

FeBRRRRRuary 21

Remember that time one post ago when I was like "this is the best snow day ever!" and we had a cozy fire and cheese board and I snuggled with the cats and the husband while watching the snow fall outside? Yeah, the power went out like two hours later. And then came back on for an hour, and then flickered off again for an hour. We got a notification that there would be rolling blackouts for a while, breathed a sigh of relief when the power came back on, and then promptly realized the pipes on one side of our house were frozen. 

I'll spare you the play by play, but the short story is that we were without power for around 36 hours total, intermittently from late Sunday night to Wednesday around noon. The "rolling" blackouts were more like regular blackouts. Our house got down to 45 degrees at its coldest. We didn't regain running water in our main bathroom until Thursday.

But it could have been so, so much worse. We were already prepped with lots of non-perishables and water storage, as well as the means to convert non-potable water to potable. We are very fortunately not suffering from busted pipes like so many are. My husband bought a generator during early pandemic times, so we had that up and running - thus we didn't lose anything from our refrigerator or freezer, and an LED shop light was able to brighten our entire living area. The generator also powered a tiny electric space heater in our bedroom, so while it was uncomfortably cold it wasn't dangerously cold. Our kitchen has a gas stove so we were able to cook hot meals. And in the most selfish move possible, I ran an extension cord from the generator to the heat lamp over my vegetable seedlings and houseplants. I have spent this winter nurturing these tiny plants from seeds and they have helped my mental health so much. As stupid as it sounds that I devoted a precious resource to take care of plants, I would have been devastated to lose them.

As for our hospital, it fared much better than most. We never lost power and while there were some ruptured pipes it was nothing that shut down the overall hospital - we lost the OR for a day, and some other various units had flooding issues. But we weren't shitting into kitty litter like Dell Children's staff were in Austin due to a total loss of water. So honestly, it doesn't matter how bad it was at our place, I consider myself fortunate.

We knocked on a few of our neighbor's doors to make sure they were okay and didn't need anything. Blessedly they are all fine as well. Once our power came back on, we even went over to my sister in law's house and threw snowballs at their kids - it was the best of snow days. Things are back to normal for us, and the weather is supposed to be a balmy 65 degrees the early part of this week. We're going to be fine.

BUT - there are a lot of people who are not fine, so if you have a good thought to spare please send it our way. If you have the financial ability, you can consider that as well. There are a lot of people in need right now, and anything at all is appreciated - here is the link to a good compilation of places to donate to if you feel so inclined. Dallas-Fort Worth and Waco are the biggest metroplexes near us, but there are people in need all over Texas.

Stay safe, y'all. And if you live literally anywhere but Texas, thank your fucking lucky stars that you're not a part of ERCOT on our little isolated power grid island. Because in a shocking spoiler twist no one could have POSSIBLY seen coming...decades of lack of regulation and a "don't mess with us" attitude led to a very preventable crisis and I'm OVER IT.


*Let this be an unofficial ad boost for Champion generators, the real MVP of this past week.

1 comment:

Oldfoolrn said...

I've been thinking of you for the past week or so, hoping that you survived the big chill. The news from Texas was a real shocker to me as I always envisioned a tropical-like climate for you folks. We were fortunate in Western PA to have reliable power, but it did snow for 16 days straight. It's melting now so soon we will be in the clear.

You are blessed with a wonderful husband who prepares for all contingencies. I wish both of you the very best!