All Texas residents please check in periodically and let us know how you are doing if you can.
27 degrees here currently (09:30 Sunday morning) and dropping into the low teens by tomorrow morning. Single digits by Tuesday morning with about 9" of snow predicted over that period. Not supposed to rise above freezing again before Friday.
The power remains on, we have a good fireplace and plenty of wood should we need it. All is well.
23 here now, @Tinker. Predicted to be -1 tomorrow night. Got to be a record.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
We're fine, but we have two rent houses I wish I could personally work on. As of now, my wife doesn't want me on the roads.
Here's a couple of tips.
If you don't have fancy insulation for pipes, you can make your own.
Lay a garbage bag out flat and slide a bath towel into it. You want the bath towel laid out flat inside the trash bag.
Now gather up the closed end of the bag and put a zip tie around it a few inches down from the closed end. A sailor would call that a seizing.
Put the trash bag/bath towel assembly over an exposed pipe, closed end up. Secure with loose zip ties as needed. You want air trapped in the bag, so don't crunch down on any zip tie, except for that first one that captures the towel at the closed end of the bag.
For the truly paranoid (me! me!), keep the right fittings on hand to connect an air compressor to a garden faucet. You have to follow a sequence to do this right and not damage the air compressor.
Turn the water off at the street. Turn off the cold water input to your hot water heater. Open faucets to bleed down the water pressure. Connect the air compressor to the highest cold water point you can and keep the air line high to prevent water backflowing into your compressor.. The washer's cold water connection is a good candidate. Adjust the regulator to 40 PSI or so.
One at a time, open faucets until they blow air. Repeat with compressed air on the washer's hot water connection.
To turn the water back on, be gentle. The water hammer effect can be damaging. Turn all faucets off, turn on the water, and then bleed air out of your pipes without turning faucets all the way on.
And, by the way, where is global warming when we really need it?
And, good suggestion with the bag. I had never heard that before.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Made a trip to the farm yesterday to prepare the animals for the freeze.
Protein tubs full, hay rings full, ensured access to sheds to get out of wind. Cows need a lot of food to generate body heat during really cold weather.
Turned off all water and drained, turned well water off at well.
Turned incandescent lights on in bathrooms and wellhouse, and turned oil radiant heater on in kitchen.
This will be a rough one.
"If the Union is dissolved, I shall return to my native State, and share the miseries of the people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none" Robert E. Lee, February 1861 following hearing of Texas secession.
Can you please send these to people in California so they will rethink about coming here to live?
"If the Union is dissolved, I shall return to my native State, and share the miseries of the people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none" Robert E. Lee, February 1861 following hearing of Texas secession.
The streets may actually be a little better now that there's a little powder down. It's still a good day to stay inside, fire up the word processor, and blaze away at Congress. It does no good, of course, other than stress relief. Kind of like Captain Jack Sparrow giving the what-for to his undead monkey.
I think we'll survive the big freeze.
I'm thankful I've got a four wheel drive pickup. It's only a standard duty half-ton, which makes it sort of a Bubba Prius by local standards, but it's still handy. Should anyone end up stranded, I can help.
We've got potable water, a few buckets of water ready to cycle The Speaker's Chair when that's necessary, food, and supplies, but I've let my family down. I went to the store earlier - and I forgot the Cheetos. How can you survive an apocalypse without CHEETOS!
On a more serious note, if you ever have to survive killing cold, never discount the value of a windbreak and trapped air.
Just after high school, a couple of friends and I went on a jeep trail tour of Colorado. We were headed for our first really cold campout and stopped for supplies. Our sleeping bags were more suited to July on Lake Travis than at 9,000 feet in a mountain cold front. My friends bought high-tech thermal "space" blankets. I thought they were expensive and didn't get one.
And instantly regretted it as we pulled out of town. It was going to get cold.
Naturally, my friends gave me the kind of ribbing and gloating one only hears from the best of friends, bless their hearts. That night, to even more hooting, I cut the bottoms of trash bags to make a tube for my cloth Coleman sleeping bag. I was able to get my ground pad between the trash bags and the sleeping bag, and I wadded up a bunch of newspaper for more insulation.
The next morning I woke to my friends bemoaning the poor performance of space blankets. I joined right in. We were all so miserable, and then I let it be known my misery was from being drenched in sweat, not frozen solid. Heh, heh, all that heckling the night before was suddenly in perspective.
That's where I got the idea for trash bags and towels for pipe insulation.
I hope everyone is well and has survived the blizzard of '21. Our power has been out all night, but it's sunny outside! I can see the sun!
No water and it got down to 7 degrees, but all is well otherwise.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
DALLAS (AP) — A winter storm dropping snow and ice also sent temperatures plunging across the southern Plains, prompting a power emergency in Texas a day after conditions canceled flights and impacted traffic across large swaths of the U.S.
Rotating power outages were initiated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, early Monday morning, meaning thousands went without electricity for short periods as temperatures fell into the teens near Dallas and 20s (about minus 5 degrees Celsius) around Houston.
“We urge Texans to put safety first,” the council tweeted as it urged residents to reduce electricity use. ERCOT manages the flow of electric power in the state.
“Traffic lights and other infrastructure may be temporarily without power,” ERCOT said.-- excerpt, rest at link above --
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Nearly half of the wind turbines in the state of Texas froze in recent winter weather, hurting state power supplies, according to state authorities.
The Austin American-Statesman reported Sunday:
Nearly half of Texas’ installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.
Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.
As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.
The outlet noted that the loss of power was largely offset by the fact that the remaining turbines were spinning quickly because of strong winter storm winds.
Millions of electricity customers across Texas suffered blackouts, partly due to the problems with the turbines, as the Washington Post reported:-- excerpt, rest at link above --
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Unfrozen Cave Water Cooler
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The Unfrozen Cave
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Sun Feb 14, 2021 10:31 am
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