Post storm Texans check-in

[tcufrog]

Hey fellow Texans,
How are you doing post storm?

 

[ashley0139]

Doing okay. I was very lucky not to lose power the whole time. Thought I got lucky with water but the water main breaks a couple nights ago took us down. So we didn't have water yesterday and we just got it back today. I am thankful that is all it was. Went out and collected snow to flush the toilets yesterday and still have some sitting outside on the balcony in a trash can just in case. My friend had to evacuate his apartment so he and his puppy came to my place to stay for a bit.

 

[Kitty 34]

I'm not a fellow Texan but can I just say, I've been following the stories and hoping and praying for all of you. Hopefully a lot of the worst is behind you.

 

[Planogirl]

We were on the blackout cycling list for a few days but that is over and luckily we haven’t had water problems. Some of our roads are still bad but they keep getting better.

 

[rlk]

My son, who is a student at the University of Texas at Austin, just happened to be visiting his girlfriend Michigan last weekend and had his flight canceled this past Monday. We are grateful he was not in that mess but are worried about everyone else. He is flying home to NYC tonight and will return to Austin when things settle. His apartment complex sent out notices that they need to boil water, but he only has a kitchenette with no ability to boil water. They also asked that the kids collect snow to use for toilet flushing.

 

[penn19]

I’m good. We have power and window. But still leery about a broken pipe happening as we thaw out.

 

[tex1989]

Lost power only for 11 hours on Wednesday and are still boiling water but no broken pipes and doing a lot better than many of my fellow Texans. We are very fortunate. Going to my farm tomorrow to see what happened there. I winterized shut off my well and drained pipes but it got to -2 degrees there so no telling.

 

[Kirby]

A little east of Dallas here. We were fortunate not to lose power or have any water issues, a lot of my friends did though. My husband is a plumber and he's been pretty busy, in fact he's still out, one of his stops is in Wills Point about 40 minutes east of here, don't know when he will be home.

I have a friend who just got her power on this morning. It's been out since Sunday.

 

[mom2rb]

We are in the Houston area. We went days without power and one day without water. One pool pipe burst but it is easy to replace when the hardware stores get more pvc pipe in stock. We were very fortunate. We had our 37 year old galvanized steel pipes replaced last week. Our plumber found three small leaks in the house and one in the main pipe in the yard. He was working until Sunday evening and we lost power Monday morning. I truly believe that we would have been one of those houses that had the ceiling cave in.

I coach gymnastics and today we played winter winners and winter losers. We all had to say how long without power and water, how cold your house got and how many pipes busted. There were only two winter winners in my team of 32 girls. Those two girls each live next to a hospital. One coach lost almost all of her ceiling, another coach’s parents had theirs cave in.

 

[rs1228]

We were in a constant state of rolling blackouts from roughly 2am Sunday until 6am Thursday. It was a battle making sure the pool didn’t freeze up. Came very, very close, but we think it’s all good.

We never lost our water, but the kitchen sink did freeze up for 3 days.

Hoping we continue to be as fortunate as we have been as we thaw out.

Our paychecks will be almost nonexistent.

We have many friends and coworkers that have suffered greatly through it.

 

[aggiedog]

We are on day 7 of no water. We lost power for one day. I'd rather that than the opposite, but I'm sick and tired of not being able to clean, wash my hands, cook a meal that requires more than the barest clean up possible, flush the toilets without dragging a bucket of water in from the snow melt bins outside, and I dearly, dearly want a shower. We currently have no idea of when the water will return.

 

[Heigh-Ho]

I am so sorry for everyone experiencing issues I hope the damage isn't too bad but just the freezing pipes alone!

I asked on the gotten covid vaccine thread but this one also might work. How has vaccines been handled? I know throughout the country shipments were delayed and clinics cancelled was this the same for Texas? Was anyone able to get their vaccine before power started going out? I know vaccines are probably far from people's minds I just didn't know how everyone was doing there in Texas with that. On a good day I know dealing with some of the side effects can be hard I just can't imagine dealing with that while also trying to deal with all the power issues and other worries. My heart goes out to everyone

 

[ahutton]

We are outside Dallas and are lucky. Gas heat, fireplace and cooking. 3 days of rolling blackouts every 15 minutes. We were warm and well fed. I've not cooked 3 meals a day in forever!!

 

[Cheburashka]

Our home was without heat or power for two days during the worst of the storm, but fortunately after the first day & night without heat we managed to evacuate to my mother's house in Georgetown (no small feat given the condition of the roads). And fortunately for us, her home was spared any blackouts. We've been boiling water for days but that's nothing compared to being without heat or power in an older home with no fireplace and no gas line for cooking. We've been through the boil water thing before, anyway, when a few years ago the Austin water system failed after a different (& much less significant) storm.

 

[Skippy918]

We got lucky. We never lost power or water or gas. We’re on a critical infrastructure grid with the water supply pumping station. No issues with pipes or ceiling leaks. We invited our friend to crash here since she was without water or power since Monday. She said it was awful cause it got into the 40s inside her house. She also didn’t have much food left. Roads finally cleared up enough yesterday to actually venture out. Today it’s all melted and was almost 60 degrees.

 

[Nicolepa]

We got very lucky. At one point we only had (cold) water in 2 facuets. I was sure we were going to have issues but we have Trec piping in our house vs copper and everything thawed. The neighborhood across the street that my husband really, really wanted to live in has at least 20homes with burst pipes. The pool was the hardest part. I was up every hour during the outages to break up the ice in the pool and filters so water could keep flowing. We just moved here from another state and I will say the rolling blackouts facinated me. Where we are from when the power went out it was out, sometimes for days. Our house never got below 57 which is doable if needed. Kids just slept in their 20 degree sleeping bags. They said they were too warm. We have a gas stove so we were still able to cook.

 

[mom2rb]

I am from Texas and this is the first time that I have heard of rolling blackouts. If they happened before, they were not in my part of the state.

 

[tcufrog]

We live really close to a hospital so we were lucky not to lose power or water. My mother's senior home lost water and power so we had to pick her up. She's handicapped and lives on the 3rd floor so the firefighters had to carry her downstairs on her walker. My sister sent the fire station cookies from a bakery as a thank you. Five of my friends though have burst water pipes.

 

[ToddlerMom311]

Oh boy this was an experience, but we definitely had it better than thousands of other Texans.

Sunday (Valentines Day) - I went to sleep excited to see the snow starting to fall and woke up to no power around 3am.

Monday- Power came on and off about 3 times before waking up at 7:30. The power was on long enough for me to shower and get dressed for snowplay with my kids. We got 4 inches in San Antonio which was shocking and beautiful- also was a cold 9 degrees. That morning the disastrous rolling blackouts started. Started as 30 minutes on, 15 minutes off but began stretching longer periods off until it was 2-3 hours off and less than 5 minutes on. Power went completely off by 7:30 that night. We put our girls to bed in all flannel and multiple blankets with hopes the power would come back on. Our house is completely electric! I woke up multiple times panicking because the power hadn't come back on and I was worried my 2 year old was too cold. We also have a 240 gal saltwater tank and the fish were definitely in peril at this point. It got down to 10 degrees that night but our house stayed in the 50s somehow. Still cold but could have been worse. We have a fireplace but had never used it and had no firewood. Everywhere was sold out.

Tuesday - My husband was able to start our fireplace after finding untreated lumber wood at Lowes. He had to go to work that day. I spent the whole day with our girls huddled in front of the fire and eating junk food from the pantry. All our fridge food was moved outside but we had no way at all to heat up any food. It was so cold that day. We were too nervous to put our girls to bed in their rooms, so we moved them in the living room to have a sleepover. Luckily the power came on that night around 10pm, so we actually slept with heat!

Wednesday- Power went out again midmorning, after I had stupidly brought the food back inside to the fridge. Temps were a little higher, but still below freezing. I was a champ with the fire at this point. We played tons of UNO as we nestled for another day without heat. Power was finally restored for good that night around 9pm.

Thursday- another snowfall but warmer Temps on the horizon. Power stayed on, but the boil water advisory started that day.

We were incredibly lucky that our house stayed habitable throughout and that we never lost our water or had any frozen pipes. Today the high was in the 60s and I had such a calm feeling for the first time in a week. We still have to survive in bottled or boiled water, but I will take that over no power in a second. Overall I am incredibly disappointed with the Texas energy grid but am grateful because I know things could have gone so much worse.

 

[DisneyOma]

Daughter and family in Houston never lost power or heat, but lost water and had a frozen pipe that leaks now. Her wife is handy, so can fix the leak, but there's very little left for supplies down there right now so we had to ship them a box of parts