Snowmageddon in Texas

[Mellow]

I thought everything was bigger in TX?

In this particular case... we will gladly bow to Minnesota.

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[Robisten8]

I don’t care where you live. This is a challenge to drive on.

 

[egilbe]

I don’t care where you live. This is a challenge to drive on.

That reminds me of the Ice storm of '98. Quebec and a huge swath of Maine and NH saw no power for weeks. I remember it was a Wednesday night when I heard the powerline pole across from my house snapped and launched the transformer into the river. Friday, I saw a CMP representative looking at it and I walked over to talk to him and asked him how long and he just shrugged. He said they lost more transformers in that storm then they had in all of New England. "Could be awhile" he said.

I was in the National Guard. Went to drill that Saturday and they still didn't know what we were going to do. They told us to prepare to be there for awhile. We were an engineer unit so we made sure that the trucks were ready, bulldozers and whatnot, chainsaws we set up, gas and oil available and we waited, and waited and waited. Finally told us to go to a CMP maintenance station in Bethel, Maine and we would get instructions from CMP on what to do. We drove around for two days with a CMP rep looking at miles of down powerlines with birches folded over them. Two days we stayed at the CMP station sleeping on cots. Finally, they picked out an area for us and we headed out with chainsaws to start cutting the birches down to free the powerlines. We cleaned a few miles of roads on the major lines and they had another mission come down for us to head up to Columbia falls to help with a Transmission line that fell down in the blueberry barrens. The roads were so bad and icy that it took us two days to get to the Belfast Armory where we stayed overnight. The temps were below zero during that stretch.

Miles and miles of transmission power lines needed to be cut up and hauled away, as well as the white pine poles that were all rotted at ground level. Al Gore came out for a photo op and grabbed one of the downed powerlines to hold up so the photogs could take his picture and show how concerned he was. CMP was running a public safety ad at the time with a CMP lineman stating "No line is safe to touch. Evah!" That became the running joke in our unit after that.

My power was finally restored after two weeks. I left my 6 month pregnant wife home alone with no power or water when the National Guard finally activated me. She finally gave up and drove to her mother's house who got power back fairly quickly. My brother was coming down and starting the wood stove for her every day and bring her drinkable water and grab buckets of water from the brook to flush toilets. I had chopped a hole out of the frozen over brook so we could get water and he kept the hole open. With the wood stove running every day kept the pipes from freezing.

So, the Texans who don't have power or water are in worse shape than I was out in the sticks, and they need to be patient until the bureaucracy finally recovers from its shock and gets organized.

 

[egilbe]

Enjoy, you'll have far less chances to do that than our chances to sit back and eat popcorn when y'all complain about how hot 85 degrees is in July. You're no more accustomed to heat than we are the cold. BTW, many Texans travel to Colorado and other cold climates for ski trips. It's just unusual to see these temps and weather in our own backyards. We're also not equipped, as a State, to deal with it. No ice trucks, salt, plows, shovels and most of our pipes are in the attic, etc.

A 110 degree day in El Paso is very similar to an 85 degree day in Maine. Its not the heat, its the humidity

 

[Robisten8]

A 110 degree day in El Paso is very similar to an 85 degree day in Maine. Its not the heat, its the humidity

I don't live anywhere close to El Paso. That's about a 9-10 hour drive from me. The climate there is very different. We actually hit highs of 100+ degrees with 90-100% humidity regularly!

And I was born and raised in Upstate NY. The Adirondacks were in my backyard at that time. I visit often and laugh when dudes I play golf with complain about the heat. I wake up for work at 4am and it's already in the 80's pretty much every day in July and August.

 

[Robisten8]

We’re finally thawing out around here.

 

[Strokerduster]

"I don't live anywhere close to El Paso. That's about a 9-10 hour drive from me" ......... A lot of people don't understand the logistics of Texas. I live off of IH10 and if you head west, the sign says El Paso 530 miles. If you head east the sign says, Beaumont 350 miles. Not even mentioning Brownsville to Amarillo.

 

[RoadtripsOfUnusualSize]

They say that we might have running water again on Saturday. That makes me very happy.

 

[VAMike]

I didn't know that Texas had an independent power grid. I looked it up and voila! Heads will roll once the dust settles. I don't see Texas giving up their power autonomy but I can see them doubling down on backup. The water shortages will be addressed too since they are impacting hospitals. Hundred year natural disasters tend to readjust design paramaters.

Well, texas had rolling blackouts the last time it got cold 10 years ago, but they didn't do much readjust design parameters as trust that "the market" would magically fix things.

 

[Robisten8]

They say that we might have running water again on Saturday. That makes me very happy.

We got our water back this morning, but have to boil it until further notice. It appears I didn't lose any internal lines, but my sprinkler system back flow is cracked. I wasn't in town to turn it off and drain it.

Neighbors down the street are stuck in Utah, but have another neighbor watching their home. They suffered a busted pipe and have about 3" of standing water in their house to come home to.

 

[Robisten8]

"I don't live anywhere close to El Paso. That's about a 9-10 hour drive from me" ......... A lot of people don't understand the logistics of Texas. I live off of IH10 and if you head west, the sign says El Paso 530 miles. If you head east the sign says, Beaumont 350 miles. Not even mentioning Brownsville to Amarillo.

No doubt. I drove to Lake Havasu, AZ from Austin back in the day and felt like Texas was half the trip!

 

[Leftcoast]

Well, texas had rolling blackouts the last time it got cold 10 years ago, but they didn't do much readjust design parameters as trust that "the market" would magically fix things.

IIRC it hasn't been this cold for this long in Texas since 1899.

 

[VAMike]

IIRC it hasn't been this cold for this long in Texas since 1899.

I didn't say it was this cold. And yet the texas utilities didn't learn when they had trouble providing power in 2001 when it got less cold, and the report issued then pointed out that the lesson also hadn't been learned when they had the same sort of problem when it got less cold in 1989. Either texas can decide this time to put money into infrastructure to survive rare (but 10-20 year rare, not 100 year rare) conditions, or they can handle it on an emergency basis again next time. It will require government mandates to force that, private operators have no reason to do it voluntarily.

 

[egilbe]

"I don't live anywhere close to El Paso. That's about a 9-10 hour drive from me" ......... A lot of people don't understand the logistics of Texas. I live off of IH10 and if you head west, the sign says El Paso 530 miles. If you head east the sign says, Beaumont 350 miles. Not even mentioning Brownsville to Amarillo.

I've very well aware of the logistics of Texas. I drove from El Paso to Texarkana in 12 hours. I didn't want to spend another night in that god-forsaken state. I can honestly say that hell has frozen over

 

[Tracy Bowman]

Well my other proud Ford Ranger owners....I am from Northeast Pennsylvania. We are about to get another 6 to 10 inches tomorrow! I just read that 76% of this great country is under snow pack! Crazy! Please all be safe! It is a beautiful sunny day here today which always means we get pounded the next day....I am very much into over landing and weekend landing but not in the snow! Please stay safe and warm!

You too, Jon!

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