Brits React to The INFAMOUS Texas Deep Freeze 2021
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Brits React to The INFAMOUS Texas Deep Freeze 2021
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The fact that Texas isn't linked to the rest of the U.S.power grid is a major Achilles Heel..
No it's not. Texas is about to pass California in the amount of stored energy we have and then we'll be leading the country. Some only want Texas on the national grid so other states can consume our energy. This deep freeze failure happened ONE time and people act like its an ongoing occurence.
But it is also what makes Texas better in a way due to not being forced to be under thumb. Yes the grid needs updated and is being updated so it doesn't have to wait for the rest of the country. So it's a take the good with the bad kinda thing.
I live in the Panhandle and we are actually connected to the US Grid and not the one south Texas is connected to.
@@JWW60 Texas ia about to surpass CA in stored energy. And the only reason some want us connected to a national grid is so they can use our energy.
@LoriL010 That's one of the reasons they won't let Texas break off an become it's own country.
My mom lives in Brownsville TX. She was one of the few lucky ones she went three days without power. She lives in like a four bedroom house so she had plenty of blankets to help keep warm. My brother was battling cancer so he was in the hospital. My mom spent her days at the hospital or warming centers. Senator Ted Cruz fled to Mexico, returned after the intense backlash.
I hope your mom is voting against that SOB! And I hope she is pushing others she knows to do the same!
Ted Cruz was on a preplanned school trip with his daughter. What could he have done to improve the situation anyway - wave his magic senator wand? Gov Abbot was at the top of the blame ladder - not Ted Cruz. By the way, if you did not know, Ted Cruz is a senator representing Texas in Washington DC., not a state senator in the state legislature in Austin.
That part of Texas gets freezing weather all the time. But, this was a unique event.
Not SW Texas. I'm 37 and have only seen snow in my area twice.
Not that cold, not without heat and not that long. We are in Magnolia, just N of Houston, and our power was out a week. We had a generator that kept the house around 60 degrees, and we took our food from the powerless fridge to our patio.
@@JudithBurney Yes, that’s what made this such a unique event.
Rolling blackouts, my azz. We did not have power for 7 out of 9 days.
The rule of thumb in Central Texas is 'it snows every 7 years' but that's a rule. But it's Texas, rules were made to be broken. Union General Phillip Sheriand after visiting Galveston before Air Conditioning said " If I owned Texas and hell, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell."
And that's why the greater Houston area has the most air-conditioning per capita in the world.
I'm in Austin Texas and we made it through the Snowpocalypse (Deep Freeze) and yes it was terrible. We didn't have power for about 3 days and the first day it was out we found a hotel and got a room in Cedar Park and made it there and took hot showers. Glad we did because the water was turned off a few hours later and the hotel lost power about 9 hours later. We went home and camped out for the rest of the time and just camped out and took care of our dog. We used melted snow to flush the toilets and our gas grill to cook food. Luckily we have a 4 wheel drive truck so we could get anywhere we needed to on the roads. It was certainly an adventure.
About 20 years ago Texas implemented a system where people could buy their electricity from their choice of providers, some of these providers offered "dynamic" pricing which made prices cheaper when generating capacity was in excess, the down side is sky high electricity pricing when there was a major power shortage. A lot of people opted for these dynamic pricing plans as they were seen as a way to save money on electricity.
yep when it gets below freezing you have to drip all your faucets or shut the water down to your home and bleed the lines
Was living in north Dallas in 2021. I am a healthcare worker and had to drive an hour to work in normal conditions. Fortunately I grew up further north and have a lot of snow/ice driving experience. Also I had a 4 by 4 with aggressive snow/mudd tires. It was a mess because they don’t treat the streets. Most gas stations were closed due to no power. After about 30 minutes of driving I got a call from my boss, the clinic was closed due to no electricity. I turned around and when home. Power was on and off at home, luckily we had a fireplace. In the defense of Texas, they just don’t have weather like that very often. Those highways are extremely busy with many lanes, people didn’t know how to drive on ice or even realize they needed to.
My wife and I live in north Dallas. We were fortunate. She made it home from downtown where she works, and we locked the front door and huddled. We had gas fireplaces. We slept on the floor in the living room with our cats. Over a week of 5 degree high temperatures.
I’m in Austin. I had moved there to take care of my elderly father. He was in a hospital over 20 miles away recovering from a bone marrow transplant when the first power outage hit, and called to say “pipes froze, family with working utility services are being asked to bring food, gallons of water, and sanitary products for patients to use.”
I slid off of the road many times but managed to bring supplies.
I was very unimpressed with how little emergency preparation hospitals do.
They ended up sending him home (too early) the next day along with all on-critical patients because they underestimated the amount of water used in keeping a hospital sanitary for immuno-compromised people.
Luckily I grew up around Mormons who taught me to always keep water and other stuff stockpiled in a closet. We were able to take good care of him at home until the water was drinkable again.
I live in central Texas. We have a fireplace and had plenty of wood. Our power company had rolling blackouts. Maybe 3 to 4 hours no electricity and then the same time frame when the electricity was on. I buy groceries by the week. I would cook on low heat some of the food enough for a couple of days. Neighbors checked on neighbors and we made it through ok
I worked at 911 for 9 years. That call that said they fainted on the phone would have created a Mandatory forced entry for the call I put up. That was total negligence on the side of Houston 911 and fire dept.
I've never been so cold in my life as during the Texas freeze. I almost thought we weren't going to make it
Many Texas children and adults don’t have heavy winter jackets, because it is rarely needed here. We were lucky that our kids did and could wear them when the temperature in our house dropped below freezing. People had to use comforters/blankets and layer clothes. You can see it in many of the pictures of people in this video, people waiting in lines in below freezing temperatures with only thin jackets and blankets wrapped around them.
I'm an expat living in Germany, but I have a home in Texas. I had been down for 1 1/2 months while my home got a new roof and was replummed. I left the day before power went out in my area. Out of my entire family, my home was the only one that had power. 32 family members crashed my house for nearly a week. I lucked out. Not only did I install a new roof, but I installed expandable plumbing, which caused no issues. I also have a gas-powered central air/heating unit. My electricity bill was only $204. I remember it because we had a family group chat, and everyone was discussing sharing the costs. However, when it came in, it was nothing but laughter. I wasn't physically present for the event, but I enjoyed watching all the fun via video chat and my outdoor security system. Seeing my male cousins slip and slide on the sidewalk and making dangerous treks to the roof for clean snow was thrilling. I'm glad I wasn't there, but I kind've wished I was.
I live in Texas. It brings back bad memories. It was a horrible experience. Thank God my family and I survived.
My sister in law lives in Austin. She said that the homes don’t have insulation around the pipes. Since she was from Colorado, she knew to insulate all her exposed pipes before it got real bad, so she didn’t have any broken pipes in her home. Also, icy roads are hard to drive on even if you are prepared. Most Texans don’t know how to drive on ice. The deicer doesn’t work in single digit temperatures either.
Exactly, years ago the people in charge or preparing the grid for cold decided not to spend the money
I'm in Houston and survived the Deep Freeze. It was about 36 hours without electricity, living in a poorly-insulated mobile home. Thankfully I have a gas stove, not electric, so I was able to simmer water in giant stock pots for a wee bit of heat, but mostly I had on 3 or 4 layers of outdoor winter clothing, huddled under several layers of blankets here on the couch. It was horrible and ERCOT took a lot of heat for their insane lack of preparation in spite of several previous warnings. And most of Texas is "energy independent", that is, we are not connected to either the Western states power grid or the Eastern states power grid, so even other states could not redirect energy to us. I think it is an insane "plan" to have our electricity disconnected from the rest of the country.
I live in northeast Texas and 2022 was just as bad. This little town can't keep up with all the pipes breaking underground around the city street by the water tower, because the pipes to the water tower froze and by the time they got generators to defrost them the pipes had frozen which cause many houses to have frozen broken pipes too. We have TNMX in town and outside the city limits they have Oncor and those with Oncor were without electricity for about 5 days and in town the max for me was 52 hours.
Interesting choice of words to say that ERCOT "took a lot of heat" given that they provided so little. 😉
In colder weather climates in the US insulation is mandatory so pipes don't freeze and there are no options concerning insulation because it's needed. Getting rid of snow in an art form most northeastern cities in the US have mastered like Buffalo.
I live in GA, we had that big ice storm a couple years ago, before Irma hit in 2017 and I remember reading some posts online and a there were folks up north who were laughing at our misery. We get snow sometimes...it rarely sticks, heck we get ice...but this storm was a doozy, school buses were trapped on the interstate and kids had to shelter in gas stations that had power to keep warm. My house lost power for 3 days and my grandmother was on oxygen at the time so thankfully because I'm a paranoid little bastard we had enough of the spare tanks big and small to last...it was close though and we almost had to brave going out to find some place. We may get the odd bits of ice and snow every so often but this was way outside the norm and no place was really ready for it, especially the places not in the mountains where it snows more regularly in the winter due to elevation.
Where I live is on a hill and if it ices over it's very dangerous to get down because across the road there's a big ditch and no guardrail since it's not exactly a priority area to have that kind of thing. It was this storm and later Hurricane Irma that blew through and caused massive wind damage that finally let me convince her to let me try and get a generator since with Irma we lost power for a good 4-5 days and her oxygen supplier was being run ragged by how many people needed tanks. I had been trying ever since that ice storm but she wouldn't hear of it until after Irma hit us with heavy wind damage...she controlled the pocketbook on big purchases like that.
I live south of Fort Worth and was so fortunate to not lose power. I still couldn’t get the house warmer than 50F with blankets on windows and doors. Kept the fireplace going constantly. It was like pioneer days gathering firewood and taking water from the house in bottles to the barn for horses - who were heavily blanketed. It was insane.
This was one of the rarer winter storms in Texas that the temperatures went into -F degrees🥶
I live in Texas.
It was truly freezing.
Unlike the northern U.S. we don't get a lot of snow, so ice on the roads is a thing during our winter storms, which can cause cancelations for schools and closures for businesses for that day.
My family and I live in the county North of Houston in an area with lots of tall trees. I'm 65, lifelong Texas resident, and this was the second scariest storm I've been through. Hurricane Ike was the worst. In the ice storm, power was off for days while temps were 15 to 20°F below freezing. Trees snapped, fell on houses, people ran out of food, the elderly and poor suffered or died because no one could get to them. Thank God for cell phones, emergency battery stations, firewood, and an old fashioned wood burning stove in the living room. We and our extended family were lucky, not even broken water pipes. We had plenty of food, could cook on the wood burning stove, and we put all our cold groceries in boxes on the back porch where they wouldn't spoil. We even shared with a neighbor. It was horrible!
You're describing you're describing november-march where I live. It stays between 5 degrees F and 15 degrees F for like 4 months. Whats really fun is when the wind picks up.
I live in San Antonio. The big thing about it was that it was statewide. Usually, if one part of the state has a shortage, the rest of the state can make it up. But because it was statewide, there was no area able to provide additional electricity. We also learned that wind turbines and solar energy sources do not work efficiently in that deep of a freeze. Further, some of the power plants were off line for annual maintenance which meant that a lot of the excess capacity was not available.
I was lucky. I live near a hospital so I was on an emergency power grid and so my power never went off. However, my siblings (who also live in San Antonio) were not so lucky. they were without power for days and days.
One of the problems was that to "be fair", the local energy provider tried to do rolling backlouts. The original plan was to rotate and homes would lose power for 20 minutes and then have power for hours. But the demand was so high that the rolling blackouts started coming very quickly and if the power came on, it would only be on for less than a minute. But that caused heating systems to restart and override the power circuits across the service area (greater San Antonio area). The energy provider had to eventually make the decision to cease power except to emergency circuits (hospitals, fire stations etc).
My siblings survived but they did have an outdoor water spigot leak from when the water came back on (water requires power too). My brother broke a bone in his foot when he stepped in a depression in the hard and couldn't catch his balance due to the ice. Anyway, they all survived. The great freeze is something we will all remember forever.
I live in San Marcos, in a drafty 100+ year old house. Decided to turn the water off and stay with my son and fam during this. Best decision I could have made. Like you, he lived near a hospital, so we never lost power.
I remember the big storm in chicago in the late 60's, deep snow drifts everywhere, cold temps and the city shut down for days. Buses left in the middle of the streets, cars totally lost in snow drifts etc. I was a small child and mom said no excuse youre going to school - until she tried to open the front door -
Electricity has at least double, closer to tripled since. I was in Ft Worth area. We didn’t have electricity for a week-10 days. And the bill we got was $700! Prior to it was $200. 8:10
I'm in oklahoma and remember this storm. coldest weather I've ever experienced in my life.
I took myself off the road just before Christmas last year. I was an Over the Road truck driver for over 25 years. I remember this. I had a load that I dropped down from UT thru NM towards Texas to escape the bad roads in Wyoming. I listened to other sources to weather and the NOAA didn't at first pick up that system. I actually got to Amarillo when it was first starting to sleet. It was cold. I knew it was coming and filled up my tanks and headed towards Oklahoma. I had a load to deliver around the Russellville AR area. I just wanted to complete my 670 miles altogether and my log book made me stop just past Oklahoma city. No snow yet and got into a safe Loves parking lot. Spent 2 days of pounding snow and ice. I had an APU, however had to idle the truck when temps dropped too low and put a cover on my radiator to try to stay warm. Those areas don't have much for deicing and snow removal. Took a few days to be able to get on the road. Thankfully, the reefer didn't jell up and my produce was fine. Memories.
We knew we were going to get some snow a few days earlier. No one expected this level. In Austin, we would normally get about an inch of snow every 10 years. This was insane.
I live in southwest Arkansas and just to show how unusual this was, the cold killed 150 year old trees on our property. Those trees had survived that long before facing such a cold powerful storm!
Dallas here. Lost power at 1:30am that Monday and it was out for 9 hours, on for 2, then out again for 8, etc. it never stayed on long enough to maintain heat in the home, so it got colder and colder. we ran water the whole time, but still had two pipes freeze, one burst. On Tuesday morning, the 2nd story of our home, it was 42 degrees Fahrenheit inside,even colder on the bottom floor. It traumatized me. Not so much that I was too cold. We have a gas fireplace and had enough heavy blankets, clothes to stay warm. But the stress related to the water was too much. Now when we expect extended weather in the 20s or below, I shut the water off entirely and drain the pipes. Not going to chance it again.
Not in TX, but WI. We had a bluxxard come through last winter. This storm was wet heavy snow so it kept kocking out piwer all over the area. Those crews were out there in the middle of the storm trying their best to restore power, but it was a losing battle. My heat is electric so i had no heat or water. It took several days to restore power. I really feel for those people in TX. We're much more prepared for the cold up here.
I live in Dallas and having natural gas in my home saved my bacon. My stove still worked and I had a gas fireplace in my bedroom. I pitched my tent in the bedroom facing the fireplace and put blankets over the top of the tent. It was downright scary. Before I put up the tent I was worried about freezing to death in my sleep.
As a native texan, we dont get snow, so for me when it started snowing it was like i was in a great dream. Then not that much later it became a huge nightmare. Every year since then, whenever it stars getting colder than usual, i get scared and hope and pray it wont become into a blizzard like this one 14:06
I was driving a semi at the time. (Great power source when you have 200+ gallons) I was able to run cables to my parents house and 2 other neighbors so they could run heaters and take in other neighbors. Honestly an interesting experience.
We were without power for 3 days but that dam freight shaker kept 3 homes warm and the news on
I’ve been through 3 ice storms in NW Arkansas. The first, I lived in an all electric apartment. I was without power for a week and water for a week. Incredibly difficult conditions when the homes in the south are built to keep you cool in the hot summers. Second storm, I had a gas fireplace. Kept us warm. Now, I pay more for the gas stove and fireplace. I may not use the fireplace, but if it happens again, I’ll at least have that heat source, God willing.
Worst part (other than what you saw) I heard about this storm were the few people in the Northern states who thought they understood the situation (there’s always someone like that) and couldn’t fathom why Texas or its residents didn’t do certain things the way they would have. Why the infrastructure wasn’t built differently. It’s always sad when tragedy brings out the worst in some people. There were things in this video that I hadn’t even heard about. Truly awful and during a global pandemic to boot, where things were already scarce.
True. But they didn't really let the people know it was going to be as bad as it was. Most people that has gas didn't get as cold like myself. It's the people that had all electric had it the worse due to know way to get any heat also it depend on where in Texas you lived on how bad one had it.
I remember watching this from New england and thinking "yall got 2 inches of snow, that's a normal amount in new england " but it's texas and they were not trained nor prepared for that. If I remember correctly they had to get salt from other states because they had never had to salt the roads like that before. It was funny for most Northerns that deal with much worse every winter but then the deaths started getting reported and you had to remember a lot of us grew up in these conditions and knew how to handle them unlike a lot of texans.
States that experience this type of weather on a regular basis are so much more prepared. Water pipes are buried much deeper in the ground to prevent them from freezing. Homes have insulated water pipes and much thicker insulation. This was a rare event for these people thus the many tragedies.
I lived in North Fort Worth at the time this happened, and this stretch of highway is (was) my exact route to work that I took daily, at the exact time of the pileup.. On this day, I was working from home (partially due to Covid at the hospital I work at, and partially because we anticipated the weather)... But the weather that morning hadn't rolled in quite as bad, or quickly as had been anticipated.. My house was approximately 5 miles north of this, and that morning the roads at my house were relatively fine... but 5 miles to the south, the roads had begun to ice over.. Travelers going southbound that morning really weren't quite expecting the roads to go from fine to frozen like they did, so they were going too fast for what they were getting ready to hit... These lanes are on a slight downhill decline, and since they are toll roads, there are concrete barriers on each side... once the first cars began to lose control, it was a tragedy in the making... the semi trucks had no chance at all to get stopped... tragic and scary morning on I-35 South that day... and this was just the beginning of the weather that week and a half... the roads were the first surprises, the power and water grids were the next...
Lived the Feb 2002 Oklahoma freeze. We lost electric power over much of the state. Lost water pressure. We did have a gas stove. My family came within 5 mins of evacuating South to Texas ... when the power and water pressure came back on. Some farms took weeks to reconnect.
I live in NE Texas. That storm was worse than 2021 for us. 13 days without power.
Oh, I remember this one. I grew up in the Texas panhandle and they get snow every year, I've seen over 2-3 ft at a time up there, up to about 5 ft in bad years. I now live between Houston and Galveston. And this was BRUTAL down here. Up in the panhandle, they are insulated so very well against both the 5-20 degree cold and the 100 degree heat in summer. In this part, we seldom see snow, maybe every 8-10 years. We have barely any insulation in our houses here, pipes aren't run through the ground but up in the attics, where if it gets cold, the pipes freeze and break. Luckily we didn't have that one happen.
We get ice more often, but really, we get 35-45 degrees in normal winters. So many people don't know how to drive on ice or snow here and with the influx of new residents in Texas (many from California), they are totally unprepared for all the different weather conditions we have. From my home in Friendswood to my mom's old house in Amarillo, it's a 12 hour drive in good weather, about 750 miles or so. The difference in weather is amazing. Amarillo is on a line with the Straits of Gibraltar. Houston is on the same line with Cairo Egypt, if that give you a reference. The panhandle is 3500 ft high, on a mesa, and the winds are normally 15-20 mph on normal days with very little humidity, but they can and do get blizzards up there. Mom said that the March that I was born (1957), they had snow drifts to the eaves of the house.
We lost power here for 3 days. We piled every blanket we had on the bed, dressed in sweats and socks (2 pair) and pulled our Shelties and cat into the bed with us. No power meant no TV or anything so bed was okay. We had cold food, and opened cans of stuff. But mostly we slept. The radio and TV, when this was coming in, told everyone to NOT sit in their cars to heat up, especially in their garages. That's what happened with that family in Houston. But driving around isn't like that and you have the exhaust going into the air rather than staying in the garage or going into the house. When it got too cold, we got into our van with the animals and drove around a bit to warm up, and to look for anywhere that had food. We got our power back sooner than most, our stuff was less frozen that people north of us. Of course, our area is used to hurricanes (we have fence down from Hurricane Beryl ) and we keep food stocked in case of. As I write this, we're under preliminary watch for what could turn out to be Hurricane Francine, which they say will be here on Wednesday.
It was also like this in Oklahoma. But Oklahoma is on a connected power grid. I think i lost power for a couple of hours. It still got extremely cold in my house. I'm fortunate I have a gas stove, so I had a slight bit of warmth, but I still had layers of clothes and under quilts. I couldn't have driven anywhere to get to someplace warm if i had to because the roads were too icy.
After this storm, I stocked up on really large candles.
Also, all my pipes are in a walk-in basement that never freezes. If my power didn't come back on, I could have gone down there.
Hi, I am in North Richland Hills, Texas and I was out of power at least four days with the warmest room in the house being 26°F. During this freeze I lost one of my animals which were actually inside the house. I had multiple reptiles, dogs, cats, and chickens and I was able to keep the reptiles and myself the dogs and the cats alive through electric pocket warmers, combined with silver emergency blankets and we ended up surviving the freeze, but then I lost two more of my animals as the water was poisoned, and nobody knew about it , I filed a case with the Texas Attorney General not long after the freeze happened, and I still have not heard anything back
I'm aTruck driver from the east coast, I in tx and Louisiana during this, I couldn't deliver for 4 days because power outages and had to sit in Houston, I was absolutely shocked at the poor choices this state as a whole made during this time. As a state that regularly gets tornados, hurricanes, flooding and extreme heat you would expect way more power generators or situational preparedness. These storms have become more frequent lately, 3 years later these same people still don't have generators or plans to deal with this stuff. To quote every Texan I've talked to about this "these storms obit happen once every 10years."...
The priority of Texas’ government is often to do things differently than the rest of the country. They are in the news too often telling others they know how to do things better.
Texas’ power infrastructure can’t handle the weather swings. It was also made intentionally incompatible with the larger grids which interconnect other states. People are dying there both in summer heat and winter cold.
All the forecasted money savings turned out to be a scam. The residents are feeling the pain. It’s sad that this remains a problem. They should hold those local government officials and electrical utility executives accountable for this mess.
People are trying to use solar to offset their grid’s issues. Electricity is unreliable when needed most. It’s like a third world country.
They have a messed up power grid. Last year I had to put up with no power for 2 hours 3 different times so missouri could let texas have some power
And our state government (looking at you, Abbott...and sit your ass down, "Fled" Cruz) is useless. Hopefully, we can start voting them out this November.
The wind turbine confusion is that only a small percentage of power comes from them in Texas, but a drastically higher percentage of wind turbines failed. So technically they didn't cause the problem, but the problem would have been worse if they were more prominent.
This is the week I moved from Southern California to Harker Heights, Texas . . . I had flown my father out the week before and drove out from CA with Mom, 2 small dogs and a cat . . . (My parents live with me) . . . The hotel where my father and sister were staying had to evacuate everyone due to burst pipes . . . fortunately, I had a reservation at another hotel for Mom and me, but the hotel wouldn't let us stay with the dogs (though they had noted on their website when I made the reservation that pets were allowed - when I got there, they said they allowed service animals, but not pets), so I had Dad and my sister take our reservation . . .our realtor let Mom and me stay with him and his family while we waited for the thaw and for offices to open up so that we could close escrow and move into our house (owner wouldn't do a lease back even though she already moved to Arizona and had all but $60k of the home sale price in escrow) . . . couch surfing with 80 year olds is not fun . . . would not recommend . . . so . . . we were basically homeless for about a week during the Icepocalypse of 2021 . . . struck down by Snowvid . . . Nothing like moving from the desert of California into the icebox of Texas . . . I am originally from New England, so I have experienced cold before, but this was nuts . . . Fortunately, we all made it . . .
San marcos texas here (between austin and san Antonio). I'm a transplant from north east Pennsylvania so i know snow. My texas student roommates looked at me for guidance. I told them, towels at base of doors and windows, get canned goods we could eat cooked off a candle (i had many), boots with good tred, water stored in containers for drinking and toilet, warm clothes, and keeping their phone and back up batteries charged (4 of them myself). I had completely forgotten that my apartment is on a grid with a hospital so we only lost power for a few minutes. Never lost water. Went to the store and had to help an old lady fight for a gallon of milk along with mine. We both got them. One restaurant was open. Line 4 blocks deep. Dollar tree (pound land in uk) was still stocked (got my iced tea and snacks). We survived and got through it with only a twisted ankle and a bruise from a Karen who tried to steal the old lady's milk
Also a couple neighbors built a good sized snow man outside. I'll have to find the pic and send it to you guys
The reason the wind turbines failed was the state was to cheap to buy the option for the winter, so they iced and stopped. Our great Governor Abbott had declared a state emergency. As a result when they imported fuel from other states the price went thru the roof. Because it was a emergency it was illegal. He had several days to legally challenge it. He never did and Texans were left holding the bill. For our family I installed a emergency generator despite my wife being opposed to it several months before. I just cranked it up and was warm as I could be while my neighborhood was blacked out. The bad part was Covid was still in place so that limited who I could invite over.
I live in North East Texas, I never lost power, but it got so cold, so fast that my water well was frozen for 7 days (we never expected such cold temps, it was below zero for 2 nights). We usually get a few inches of snow each year, but then we got 2 feet in 4 days. We had to melt snow and boil the water. Thankfully, I had just had my 500 gallon propane tank refilled 3 days before which we use for heat, but my heater never stopped running for 5 days. The only time I left home was for water, it was so dangerous to drive. In weather like that, all 4 wheel drive means is that you have 4 wheels spinning an the ice.
I live in Dallas and am thinking of buying an arctic-rated sleeping bag, just in case it happens again -
I was blessed to have moved from Houston Texas to Idaho a month prior to the freeze event. Ironically, prior to my relocation, people were trolling me for deciding to move to such a cold state as Idaho. Now, I consider myself very lucky to have avoided that disaster just in the nick of time.
We were definitely affected by this. I live an hour south of Houston (southern Texas) and we were without power in freezing temperatures for several days. Luckily we didn't have any busted pipes in our house, but many people in our area did.
The first call, they didn’t mention what they were running the car in the car with the garage door shut. And when they speak of every using solar and windmills, in the north, it is not feasible.
10:45 it’s more about not hearing or smelling or seeing anything indicating an emergency on the site and in this day and age you can’t take someone’s word for it a state away from the issue and not notifying them of the potential danger of gas at the onset really held they hands. The firemen could be prosecuted if it was a prank call etc if there’s not an emergency and they break in they aren’t covered from criminal liability. Sad situation. Also live in Texas wasn’t as badly affected by the storm as others. And the Energy rates where due to people going into variable rate costs to get cheaper prices when energy isn’t needed, just luck ran out and a big storm hit.
I live in Houston, we were days without power. I prefer hurricanes and tropical storms to having to deal with another deep freeze again
I had just moved to Houston. We lost power for 3 days. Thankfully my roommate family was in town and their Airbnb had power but no water at times. Unfortunately, we dealt with worse here with Hurricane Beryl in July.
I lived in Austin Texas during the storm. I was really lucky in that my house was on the same power grid as a major hospital so I barely lost power. Really just an hour at a time. We followed all the recommendations about not overusing power and water, so it was definitely still cold in our home but nowhere near the devastating misery that most of the others in the state suffered. We were able to just bundle up underneath lots of covers and cold winter gear. It stayed around 32 degrees F (0c) in my house. Even that cold, my heater ran nearly continuously and my house was only 4 years old.
One of the major problems is that Texas isn’t prepared for this type of weather. The houses aren’t built to keep cold out, and the pipes aren’t protected from the cold and the cities don’t have the equipment or materials necessary for clearing roads or deicing the power grid (which is separated from the rest of the United States) isn’t protected from cold. It’s protected from heat. There were just a lot of failings by the government as well. Plus, Texans didn’t take it seriously enough before the storm hit because they were listening to officials saying that they were prepared. And most homes don’t have a second source of heat, like fireplaces.
Ìn the north they use heating oil. A power outage would not keep without heat. In the southern US, we don’t have an oil backup. The Texas deaths were heartbreaking.
I live in one of the only parts of Texas that never lost power, but we still couldn't go anywhere and had to just watch through the windows and on TV.
I'm in San Antonio. I refer to it as Snowvid. It was horrible. My apartment never lost power but pipes burst all over the complex. I didn't have water for two weeks. I collected and melted snow to flush the toilet.I ended up staying with a friend but then we didn't have power. We were freezing. Thankfully, the power would come on just long enough to circulate some heat every now and then. I fell on ice. The roads were frozen over. I hope we never have to deal with that again. It was terrible.
I’m live in Centex and most of us stand firm that if you suffered that’s on you.
We are Texas. We survive and if you dont then you are to blame.
We dont rely on anyone but our own labor and those that disagree are the weak ones.
Louisiana was also affected by this cold weather. my cousin was here in Baton Rouge with her mom ,and when she return back to her house . the pipes burst while she was away, and flooding her house. we all lost power .
Many of us Texans called it snowmageddon!
it’s insane but weather changes can cause dire conditions that most people don’t even consider
This was terrible. I worked at a grocery store and we had no power and were on backup generator power. My boss would spend the whole day picking up and dropping off employees. He had a big pickup truck. We had to use axes to break up the ice on the sidewalks just to be able to get into the store and for safety of customers. It was a huge mess. I had 22 inches of snow in my yard, I measured it. I actually have a cool timelapse video courtesy of my security camera. We made it through but it wasn't fun.
Was this in the panhandle. I know they got snow up there that storm, I just hadn't heard how much. My mom had passed away by that time so I haven't kept up with much up that direction since.
The video mentioned new guidelines in place. Like before, they are guidelines and not requirements so I’m not holding my breath
The problem with the electrical grid in Texas is it's independent from the rest of the country. There are 3 power grids and Texas has one of them
I live in the Dallas area. My house was without power for 50 1/2 hours. Killed two pet snakes 😢
I was living between Houston and San Antonio in the early 90s. We had an inch of snow one winter in Houston and many dozens of crashes. Closed the interstates. People have no idea how to drive on ice or snow.
45 mins from houston texas here it was bad way worse then you see here we was with out power for 2 weeks before we got power
texas has oil and refines it, they could not pump oil or refine it so there was a shortage which drove prices up
No, no, no. The ability to refine had nothing to do with this.
Completely unrelated.
My at-the-time girlfriend and I had to evacuate two towns over to her parents house because my house's power and gas went out, turning it into an oversized freezer.
The drive would normally have taken 20-ish minutes at most, but took us three hours driving at a snail's pace.
Our water pipes froze and we were without water as well as power. Thank goodness we had natural gas fireplace to keep warm. Here in Austin TX 🏜
Customers can choose to pay standard fixed rate or market rate. Fixed rates don't change. But if they decided to pay market rate which is usually cheaper, went to the legal maximum 9000%increase.
There was a similar deep freeze in Texas many years earlier and none of the recommendations were put in place after that disaster.
Where I am in Nebraska during this same time we had wind chill to 40F below zero
They can kick in anyone’s door. that was laziness 10:59
Not in this state. Kicking in someone's door, law enforcement or not, is a potential death sentence.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Yeah okay there Scooter. You go ahead and kick in someone's door, just as long as you're the first person through it. Might want to make sure your buddies are out of the way, you'll be the first person back out the door too. Just without a pulse this time.
@@bryanredhair3706 just saying they kicked in my neighbor’s door when he had an emergency
@incantations446 Okay, that wasnt the way it came across but an emergency is absolutely different. My apologies.
I was without power for several days in Corpus Christi. It was horrible. In south Texas we’re not used to that kind of weather, not prepared for it.
I was lucky. I live in a grid with a hospital and I had power basically the entire time during the storm. The first few hours were scary however. I had no power, it was around 49F in my house. My cats were pretty pissed and I called it the night of a 1000 meows. I was lucky in the end.
We live in downtown Dallas and spent 5 days without electricity.. cold can’t begin to describe how bad it was (at least for someone accustomed to 100 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Nothing has changed.
I'm from California and this is so shocking to me and sad 😢!! It seems like there was failure in so many areas!! It's tragic
April was preheat in Texas lol summer heat doesn't start til June....its amazing that foreigners apparently forget that we have seasons here in the states 🤷♀️....I remember that it was a colder winter even here in Southwest Arizona....it does snow in Arizona too....actually it wasn't the same amount of electricity cus they didn't have the same amount of power stations to pump the electricity....they definitely screwed up with how they handled the situation with the family of 4 who had carbon monoxide poisoning....the reason everyone over here in the states was making fun of Europe having a 'heat wave' is the fact we set our air conditioning between 75°F to 80°F which is hotter than the European heat wave temperatures not to mention we heard reports & saw pictures of people sunbathing & that's definitely not something you do during a heatwave in the states....it got too cold to fast in Texas that is what caused most of the initial issues not the fact that it was cold itself cus it does snow in Texas during winter
I'm not sure about elsewhere, but electricity companies and communications companies in the US make a habit of sending massive supplies, employees and vehicles into areas undergoing very large problems that are predictable in advance before the problems occur, like hurricanes, snow storms, ice storms, etc., and then they preposition all of their own crews with the borrowed crews across the area stationed in the parking lots of the companies involved, but also borrowing portions of grocery store, city, state, department store, mall, police and megastore parking lots to wait for the problem to occur and then begin with repair supplies, crews and vehicles already closeby areas that will likely need repairs and incur damage so that the time until things are restored is miniminzed. In Northern New England they often work in groups of two utility crews and one or two tree surgeon vehicles (to remove trees and branches as needed) with coordination to bring food and water and stuff as needed.
I would imagine it's similar. The same kind of thing happens with wildfires. The US will send shitloads of wildfire crews to help when some occur in Canada and in the US other states will send resources, crews and aircraft to areas currently experiencing them from areas where the supplies are available, but not needed at the moment.
I live in Dallas area. We don't see a lot of snow. Ice on bridges is disastrous. It was a rough winter. We had so many out of power that there were business owners who had power at their businesses open up and let people stay there for days. I remember a furniture store let people move into their showroom for awhile.
Yep, ice was not the big problem. Cold temperatures were.
Reason magazine has done several videos on why raising prices during an emergency is actually good for people experiencing the emergency. I helps to prevent people from hoarding the limited supply so that more people are able to have access to the limited supply & it encourages other people to see about getting supplies into the area helping more people. There is more to it & you may want to look into watching their videos on the subject.
To my understanding, Texas building codes are not designed for the cold temperatures that other states north of Texas experience. Better insulation would help with heating & cooling. Keeping plumbing inside the conditioned envelope of the home would also help prevent the pipes from leaking.
To my understanding much of Texas only buries water inches instead of feet as we do in Utah & other states.
One thing that helps when you have a basement you can easily keep your water pipes in the conditioned space of your dwelling to prevent the pipes from freezing.
I was extremely fortunate to be living in an area that never lost power during the Texas freeze. However I went through the better part of a week without power this year due to a minor hurricane strike. Fortunately I was somewhat prepared because I had a large generator that could supply most of my home's power needs (unfortunately not the central AC system, but I'm planning on getting a window unit for emergencies to cover that gap). The biggest problem I had this time aside from the lack of AC was having to keep the generator fueled. It was burning about 10-12 gallons of fuel a day and I had a limited number of portable gas cans so it became a daily chore to find a filling station that had both power and fuel. The entire experience was completely and has led me to draw up additional contingency plans for the next inevitable power outage. It really sucks that this state can't get it's act together on very basic things like adequate storm prep and hardening of infrastructure for protection from severe weather events.
I'm happy to live out in the sticks, i'm not reliant on others when we get snowed in, Woodstove, generator for the well.
I was lucky, by accident, I lived near a sewage treatment plant and DPW facility. I never lost power for more than a few minutes . Trust me, living near a sewage treatment plant isn't usually a benefit, especially on those 105 degrees summer days in Texas. During the ice apocalypse no one wanted the sewage plant not working.
Dispute popular belief, it does get cold in Texas. Every state in the USA can get dangerously cold in winter and the “warmer” states have all had a bizarre weather pattern at some point that made them experience extreme lows.
I was in Austin for this storm. Thankfully I never lost power but had no water for about a week. I love winter and cold weather…. But not like that.
You guys should react to the great ice storm of 1998.
8:31 for the record, ERCOT is NOT an energy provider. It is a quasi governmental/private company that coordinates and enforces regulations among the actual energy companies.
16:42 Dripping the faucets (taps) isn’t caused by water mains or pipes breaking, it’s done to prevent the pipes from breaking before the water freezes and breaks/bursts the pipes.
Also, weather forecasts become unreliable longer than seven days out. That’s why you will almost never see one that is forecasted further out. We Texans knew about a week (7 days out) and tried to prepare our homes and stock provisions before it hit. It was one reason the stores were out of so many items. There is too many factors to consider and they grow exponentially the longer you go before the prediction. There was no way that the power companies could prepare beforehand. Couldn’t know beforehand enough to take weeks or months to do the actual work to prepare for cold to that degree.
Also for the record, I live in Central Texas, just outside of Austin. We had about 3 inches of snow on the ground for several (2-3) days. Luckily, we had heat (gas) and power. We live along a dedicated power line. Just down the road a bit from a county sheriff’s substation. Most emergency services (hospitals, fire stations and police stations) are served by dedicated lines.
Also there are warnings about carbon monoxide that are aired on the television news and space heaters as well. Unfortunately sometimes people forget or have never thought about it. Space heaters can easily tip over and ignite a fire or ignite something too close to it.
We froze as Ted Cruz went on vacation- it was horrible
Thanks for mentioning this! I was so upset when that happened
I lived in Texas at the time but had no clue about the freeze until a year after because at that time I had never owned a TV , computer , phone , or radio. It was not until the 4th month of Pandamic that I knew about it for same reasons.
Lived in Frisco, a suburb of DFW at the time. We didn't lose power for very long though from what I remember.
I live in texas and im all the way down on the coast and i remember that deep freeze. It was below freezing for few days and no power. It got down to around 9 or 10 degrees Fahrenheit at night and stayed in the teens and twenties during day. Oh man it was so brutal. I had to sleep in the work truck with the heat on. Id turn the truck on and off all night. Worst winter ive ever experienced without power.
It sucked sooo much !!!! Power was out for days. Inside house temperature was around 36° - 42°. I live halfway between Houston and Galveston.
I live out east of Dallas, and we had rolling blackouts for days. My husband and I ended up dragging a queen size mattress into my oldest son's room because it stays the warmest in the winter, so when power turned on it would warm up the most. We all slept in that room for days. And thank God we had a fireplace, because overnight the temperature in our house would drop to the mid 30s. Definitely not a fun time, but we were fortunate to not be seriously affected.