Texas Power Outage/ Rolling blackouts

[Kevin]

I'm in Oklahoma.

You would not know that just last week, we were completely shut down. We did fare better than Texas though. I am in OKC, we had about 31 water main breaks. A lot of our friends experienced low water pressure. We really weren't affected where I am.

Over the last few days, we've been trying to ensure pipes don't burst (northerners would be shocked that our building codes allow for pipes on exterior walls with no insulation). So having to run faucets 24/7 has contributed greatly to our water efforts. We were told to hand wash our dishes and laundry, which we did.


Tulsa had 298 water main breaks. My SIL lives there and is without water.

Some friends living in Houston haven't had water for a good long while. Their power has come back on.

Texas politicians should be pilloried over this. The reason they were hit so much harder than places like Oklahoma, was that they had disconnected from the regional power grid. This was billed as being in Texans best interests so power companies could avoid regulation.

What Texans are waking up to is that they've been sold a bill of goods and that they need to make some major investments in their infrastructure and then rejoin the regional power grid ASAP.

And as of this moment, it's 61 degrees and if you look out the window, there are a few melting snow drifts but many fewer clues that just 6 days ago, we were completely shut down.

[APhi2KD]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Texas politicians should be pilloried over this. The reason they were hit so much harder than places like Oklahoma, was that they had disconnected from the regional power grid. This was billed as being in Texans best interests so power companies could avoid regulation.

What Texans are waking up to is that they've been sold a bill of goods and that they need to make some major investments in their infrastructure and then rejoin the regional power grid ASAP.

Yup.
I turned off the water in my home and my son and I stayed with my parents for their safety. Built in 1976, it’s seen “real” albeit Texas winters before. But the woodpile disintegrated over two decades of winters largely too warm to have a fire. We had little firewood and couldn’t get the living room above 50 degrees. When we ran out of wood it was 44, their kitchen was 33. My dad is wheelchair bound and it’s a big production to get him, his pills, etc., packed and out, but we moved them to our house which had heat but no water. Even their phones were down. They could not have called for help if they wanted to. If we’d still been overseas, they may have cuddled up, gone to sleep and never awakened.

I grew up with a couple good snows per year, frequents ice storms and many, many power outages. This was incomprehensible and criminal. But when you elect climate deniers, you’re not going to get much winterization, are ya?