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The 2021 Texas Deep Freeze - A Failure on All Levels - A Retrospective & Analysis
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- Опубліковано 15 лют 2023
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Winter storms: one of the more simple types of storm systems that occur across the world. At least in context to meteorology. More often than not, the majority of them are nothing to write home about in the weather history books. Very rarely do winter storms cause billions of dollars in damages, and rarely do fatalities end up being over 50 in the United States. But there are exceptions, there’s a few significant winter storm events that are remembered to this day. 2 Of them specifically on a national level. One of those is the 1993 Storm of the Century, and the other one, the topic of today’s video, is the costliest natural disaster observed in the United States. A series of Winter Storms alongside one of the coldest arctic blasts in the United States in recent memory spelled disaster for the state of Texas. That event was the 2021 Texas Deep Freeze, also known as the 2021 Valentine's Week Winter Outbreak
In February 2021, A blast of arctic air swept across the United States, bringing with them two winter storms which swept across the eastern and central portions of the United States. Most of the states affected saw significant impacts, but nothing outright historic in terms of winter precipitation, except for the lone star state. Record snowfall and ice alongside the bitter, arctic air; left the state of Texas frozen over. For nearly a week, snow and ice encompassed the vast majority of Texas.Pipes burst due to the extreme cold, and the Texas Power Grid failed across the majority of the state due to a series of failures made by those in control. The damage done to the state of Texas alone led to the 2021 Texas Deep Freeze becoming the costliest natural disaster in United States History, taking the title away from Hurricanes Katrina, and Harvey, with the official estimate from the state of Texas alone placing the damage total from the Deep Freeze at $195 billion, while newer estimates suggest the damage toll could be as high as $300 billion in the state. But what exactly led to this horrific series of events to happen in the first place. Well that’s what I’m here to explain today. Today I will be taking a deep dive into the 2021 Texas Deep Freeze, giving a brief overview on how winter weather setups work, the synopsis of the event, the preparations taken, an overview of what happened meteorologically, and on the ground, the response, the aftermath, and the significance of the event. Welcome to Nature’s Fury.
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Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. All Images, footage, and music are NOT OWNED BY ME AND ARE OWNED BY THEIR RESPECTFUL OWNERS. I own nothing but the video itself.
#documentary #winter #texas
Tags (Ignore this because they do not work otherwise): #Weather , #documentary , Alferia , Weather Documentary , Science Documentary , Weather Videos , Natural Disaster Documentary , Disaster Documentaries , Winter Storm , 2021 Texas Deep Freeze , Deep Freeze , ERCOT , ERCOT Failure , 2021 Texas Power Crisis , Houston , Dallas , Gov. Abbott , Costliest Disaster , Billion Dollar Disaster , Blizzard , Blizzard Documentary , Arctic Blast , February 2021 Winter Storm , Winter Storm Uri , Winter Storm Viola , Texas Winter Storms , Texas Deep Freeze , Texas Blackouts
Correction:
It took about 6-7 months for someone to point this out but this was due to poor wording. The I35 pileup DID NOT occur on the "bridge" but rather the expressway exclusively. The part of the Expressway that was involved, and a large portion of the crash extended back onto a bridge that is part of I35. The segment of I35 where it occurred, WAS on a bridge that crosses over West Fork Trinity River and over a turnaround road before connecting back to the "Road" part of I35. I do apologize for not being specific about it being only in the expresslane, but the crash DID extend back onto the bridge itself. I've never been to Dallas-Forth Worth, and I went onto Google Maps to check where the crash happened, and it extended PASS the bridge expresslane, but it goes back 1000ft on the southbound lane according to WFAA.
I apologize for not being specific enough there, and I apologize for any confusion.
Since this video is almost at 500,000 views, I want to address one of the...LOVELY comments that seem to be constant with every spike this video gets.
"Why did the interviews suck/Why did you interview the people who weren't hit the hardest?"
I want to say that I agree with most of the critiques regarding Hufflepuff's interview as I agree, that was problematic due to her going on one massive tangent responding to everything I sent in the email which was the list of questions I planned on asking. Normally I ask the questions first, and then they respond, but that didn't happen. By the end of the interview I was on the verge of not putting it in the video at all because of how much of a mess it was, but I went with it because I didn't want it to be a waste, and I didn't want to be a dick to her for setting an hour of her time aside to be interviewed. Regarding the interview with Helix, yeah I don't get what people are complaining about there. His interview was much shorter and stuck to the facts without going on a tangent. As to why I didn't interview people hit harder or actual meteorologists...well let me put it this way, at the time the video was being produced, February 2023, my channel had about 17k subscribers and I live in Georgia, having barely any knowledge on the meteorologists who cover local tv stations in Texas. I asked for names and didn't get many in response. My emails or requests that I sent out through Twitter dms were ignored, and so I asked my fans if they had any experiences that they would like to share. I would have loved to interview meteorologists or victims that had more stories to tell than what I had, BUT I'm one person, and when my requests went ignored, I went with the next best thing. I apologize if the interviews dragged, or flat out sucked, they are normally not this divisive regarding their reception.
There are more but I will cover those at the end of the year retrospective of all my projects that I do in December.
I think you did a great job, the production on this is amazing, with how in depth you went thank you for it I didn’t know how bad this really was
Your report here beats out 99% of the reporting we got from major media and is like a scrapbook of memories for me proving it really did happen. While this wasn't wartime, hurricane, tornado etc., it was a slow motion avalanche of horror that's impossible to explain to ones not effected. You've helped, my friend.
You did great. Thank you for covering this. People lost a lot here but nothing compared to the lives lost and the families that had to grieve because texas wants to be self sufficient. And still, nothing has been done to prepare the grids for the possibility of this happening again. Mainly because those that suffered the most were the lower class and we all know how much abbott loves the lower class. Also, thank you for throwing in how shitty our state politicians are. They had a job and an obligation to us and they failed us. And continue to do so.
still a good video! glad you learned from the experience and know not to send questions in advance/interview over email goin forward- it’s only gonna help your reporting
I thought the interviews were completely fair. You can't control who from your audience has time and interest in contributing. I lived through this, and my mind went straight to 'wow, Hufflepuff was lucky', not that her input wasn't valuable because her experience wasn't 'bad enough'. I felt lucky having only been without power for 24 hours. It was still down to 45 degrees inside when power did come back. My hot water heater (gas) also remained functional, so I spend a lot of time under multiple blankets holding a jar I'd periodically refill with hot water. And I could use a lighter to get my gas stove going to make tea and hot meals. It was easily the worst weather-related experience I've had, and yet there are always people who had it worse. I had coworkers who were without power for several days, and without water for over a week.
All that is to say that no matter who you talked to, I think people would complain. Some people probably would find my experience not 'bad enough' to represent the magnitude of the event as a whole.
People who aren't from Texas usually fail to understand our homes are built to dispel heat, not keep it in. When the blackouts started I moved our 8 seater dining table into the center of our living room and completely covered it with as many blankets as I could spare. I took what I had left and made a pallet underneath. We layered up and that's what me and my toddler slept under for 5 nights.
I’m from Chicago but currently SW WI for college I understand most southern homes layout is to keep heat out but in the north being made to keep heat in so summer is a pain for me who heat limit is 75 degrees when we get 90 where tue inside feel like 100 and my parents refuses to turn on the ac till June
Seems comfy, uncomfortable and annoying but comfy
A lot of us at least in the south of the state also only have a heat pump (AC running in reverse) rather than a proper furnace in our central heating, and while those are fine for normal weather around here, they get really inefficient at subfreezing temps... which means more energy consumption, which means goodnight Vienna for the grid
Yep. I grew up in Vegas & housing is built the same so when I moved upstate where it snows, first thing I noticed was the architectural differences. Everything from roofing, flooring, windows, doors, insulation, you name it. That’s why my heart broke when I heard this was happening in Texas.
I hadn't thought of that but it does make sense. F man, that sucks.
I remember walking out of my house on day one and hearing absolutely nothing. For the first time in my life the highway was quiet, dogs weren’t barking, and not a soul could be heard. It was strikingly peaceful.
Yeah, I live next to a major crossroad and I just walked down the middle of the road, it was apocalyptic
Same here! No dogs, no cars, no trains, no sirens, nothing. Thankfully my power and the power for my neighbors never went out, so I felt safe enough to spend time outside bundled up under a blanket and just sitting in the peace in the middle of the night.
yeah same here all the stupid ppl off the roads and it was nice
wait what? were the roads closed too? or did they stop salting them? im confused.
Just you mentioning it makes me picture you just walking down the street like if you were walking through a ghost state
As a Texan who actively lived through this entire event, it was terrifying, stressful and cold. Our homes weren't built for the cold, they're meant to keep the heat out.
Neither my mom or dad's home had water for days, our pipes had frozen over and I had gotten sick over the course of the freeze. It became harder to function because of how bad it had gotten that month.
@MidwesternCracker_2000 make your way out here to south texas and stay the summer then. See how long you last. Some of us have fireplaces and are better prepared
@@MidwesternCracker_2000 try further down than that
@MidwesternCracker_2000 SA is not south texas, shares some stuff with the south sure, but it ain't south. Big difference when you actually live here in the south
Same here pipes froze over and we had to use water bottles to take baths and then once the freezing was over we had to have plumbers come to the house to fixed the pipes and it cost huge amount of money that we didn’t have and my mom had to pull from her retirement funds to pay the plumbers
you should know to run the water when a freeze is coming, i heard 91 people died from this freeze
I remember this. I was teaching at the time, and school was cancelled for the week. My apartment kept power throughout this time period, but my parents' area didn't, they were without power for 2 days (they are elderly). Multiple people died during this due to not being able to heat themselves. Meanwhile, one of our two senators was boarding a flight to Cancun. That was really something else.
Good Ol’ Teddy Cruz..
Man this video made me appreciate my dad more. Dude was ready for the storm. We had prepared generators as well as food and water for days as soon as he heard speculation on the news. We also were able to help my grandparents who live down the street as well since we all gassed up ahead of time.
Shout out to your dad 🙌❤️
He probably had been through a severe winter storm before
My dad was the same. We had tons of food, water, generators, and even a space heater. Man was clutch af
shout out to your dad, we watched helplessly in CA while my brother in law and his family were stuck trying to keep their home warm. it made me realize we should also be prepared and up to date for ememrgencies
Sounds like Every man for himself down there.
It’s a similar yet opposite situation for Britain our houses are built to retain heat due to the moderately cold weather we have so when last years summer heatwave hit even rivers dried and every bit of grass I could see was gone
I was a firefighter in Austin at the time. I went 4 days without sleep, surviving off of hot pockets in the engine. We had calls constantly waiting for us and we ignored bystanders that were stuck in the snow because they were considered non-emergencies. Our priority was people living on home oxygen and busted water pipes. There were so many people that relied on electricity to survive and the blackouts took out their ability to breathe on their own. We had about 10 calls holding constantly, we would leave one call and go to another that was placed hours ago and waiting. The first call of the snowstorm was an obese hoarder that died in her house with no electricity. That was a really rough week.....
Thank you for the work you did
Thank you for all you do! We’d be lost without you
Thanks for what you did and also preventing an even deeper tragedy.
God bless you for your hard work and may you know His peace and hope thru all of the sorrow.
God bless our 1st responders!
i remember this freeze, i barely slept, and i got so sick i tore my throat from coughing. to this day, i still think about this and how genuinely horrible it was. to make matters worse, our thin house has a generator but it literally broke 2 days before the freeze happened, and we relied on this ancient one that could barely power a stove for more than 15 minutes(it did nothing to get rid of the cold unfortunately). we thought we were prepared and at the last possible second, we basically faced the wrath of god that winter.
heart goes out to people who had it worse off than my family though, god bless.
True,, and where I lived, you couldn't get more gas to run the generators because the gas pumps were frozen.
Amazing memory. Such a traumatic experience from so far in the past, yet you remember... 🤮🤮
i remember my dad literally went out and bought a generator not a month after the freeze
same bro I’m so glad our stove was barley working and we almost froze to death
as someone from the upper midwest, it's hard to fathom how a storm like this could cause so much damage, since i've always lived in a place where things like this are common. This video and the comments of personal reports has really put it into perspective how terrible it was for places that weren't at all prepared for this kind of weather. My heart goes out to all of the people caught in this storm, and the massive amount of damages caused.
We're use to hurricanes, not ice. My prominent memory from that is simply trying to get home. I was getting hit in the face by chunks of ice as I was stabbing the ice with my keys because it sealed my car shut. I hydroplaned going 10 miles an hour and passed several wrecks. The rest of the event was just as bad but the panic I felt at the thoughts of "Can I make it home? Is home even safe? Where IS safe?"
Yes, but your govt and grid operators prepare for bad weather. Texas grid operators charged to prepare for this, but pocketed the money instead. This was NOT a natural disaster. It was easily avoidable if the Texas grid was operated under the same utilities grid rules that your grid operates under. But NO! Texas cut itself off from the US GRID.. because they couldn't STEAL enough money under US grid regulations. ERCOT -the grid - knowingly killed all these people and knowingly allowed all the damage. They KNEW the grid would fail and warned no one.
Texans also have a hard time understanding when northerners die in heat waves when Texas may hit 115 daily for a month
It’s a difference of perspective and Americans should never root for the downfall of others, but unfortunately many people do
@@Zenth-cq1tbThat's because this country is divided. You're right, it's bad to root for the downfall of others but I'll tell you this, if you hate America, I hate you enough to do something about it when the time comes.
@@katrinascarlet5637that's how I feel almost every winter. Glad you got there safely though. It's never gotten that cold here though. I can't imagine losing power in that weather. I lost power when it was only 40°F out and was freezing. That was only maybe a month ago though. It rarely gets that cold here. I'm surprised that it got that cold there.
The scariest part was that there wasn’t much you could do. My family slept downstairs and we were constantly using the fireplace. We had all of our faucets dripping to avoid our pipes freezing.
We had to get wifi at McDonald’s 🤣 then we slept by th fireplace but th wood was so smoky 😭😭
Yeah that's the life.
@@darkchoco1836 We couldn't even drive anywhere. The roads were too iced over (and too rural to be deemed worth taking care of). Thankfully, we had power most of the time, though.
My old place didn't have a fireplace, we just lit the gas stove and stayed close to it in the kitchen. Now my new place has no fireplace and is all electric so I'm installing a woodstove because I don't trust that they fixed anything for this upcoming winter.
We had pipes freeze anyway (despite dripping them), though thankfully, it was only a couple of exterior pipes that we were able to fix ourselves. The water pressure in our city dropped substantially due to most households dripping their pipes, so it ended up being a pretty useless action.
Man. Being a Canadian I did NOT understand the severity of what went down in Texas in 2021. This has made it so much clearer. That sounds like a nightmare
Yeah it was😅 no power, and couldn't leave the house. People were dying of hypothermia.😭😭
As a Quebecker who lived through the 1998 ice storm disaster, I knew exactly how severe this Texas thing was. at the same time, I couldn't fathom how hard it was for them to cope with this. In Quebec, well most of Canada really gets to face the harsh cold for 4 to 6 months every year. We "mostly" know how to drive on black Ice, we've got thick warm blankets, layers upon layers of winter clothes, and most houses of a certain age had a fire stove or fireplace as a secondary heat source generation. We are used to it and we are equipped for it. Our houses are usually built to keep heat in, not out... Texas? Not really. Most Texans rarely experience snow. It takes 10 inches + of snow precipitation in a night for us to close school, in the south USA, a small douse of white glitter is enough to jam the roads.
Back in 1998, we lost power for two weeks to a month and a half depending on the region during the coldest months of the year. The damage was quite extreme, those high-tension towers were collapsing left and right. Most of what was described in this video, we experienced it. And yet we were "blessed" by the fact we are equipped to deal with it for the most part. Hyrdo-Quebec has learned a lot from it and has been upgrading its infrastructure to deal with a repeat event better. I fear ERCOT and Texas government will not.
Yeah it was definitely rough for is for about 8 days. Our homes are built to expell heat. We can deal with up to 115 degree weather, which our homes will expell enough heat to keep it around 95. Extreme cold we have only had 3 times in the last 25 years and I'm 30 so.... this year is supposed to get cold again so my family is preparing now just in case.
It was horrible. Texas concentrates more on dispelling heat. My family was fortunate, because we knew the storm was coming for well over a week and prepared. Just as terrible, people in northern climes were dropping like flies when the experience summer temps that are quite normal for Texas. There were many simple things people could have done to help themselves stay warm. A simple heater made from a lottery flower pot and some tea lights can prevent o e from freezing to death.
It was a nightmare. We had no clue as to how we were going to survive. I now have a nice Generator and Propane tank as a result of that terrible week.
As a resident of the valley, this was terrible for us since we lived without electricity for almost 4-5 days. I can't even imagine what the homeless people were going through while this happened
definitely put a dent in the texas homeless population as you'd imagine
They burrow and hibernate like hamsters, ready to pop out and start panhandling again once the temps rise above freezing.
I'm a Texan born and raised, this storm was beyond awful, my mom and I lost power for a few days and lost water for nearly 10 days, my grandma had to go to her brothers cause her power went out for a week. We have two small dogs that just shut down entirely during the storm, one of em is only 8 lbs, I kept him wrapped up next to me so he could stay warm. The cold was so brutal, it felt like it was seeping deep into your bones. Thank you for talking about this, a lot of people joke about it but the reality is if Texas is frozen, that's a sign of very bad things.
I'm from North Texas and this was easily one of the worst weeks of my life. Me and my siblings slept in my parent's room and during the night my dad would wake up and make sure we were still breathing. Shout out to my dad's boss, he gave us a generator on day 4 of the storm 😭 We were all freezing, and it was scary.
Did you lose oxygen in the house ?
@@leeallen3202 I'm pretty sure their Dad was checking if they had died from hyperthermia, and had to check their breathing
@@cyo_gollyna Yeah, right 🤦♂️
@@leeallen3202 Dude. "The early morning of February 16 2021 dropped to 12 degrees. Cristian Pavon age 11 was found lifeless." He went to bed under 4 blankets, wore 2 shirts, a sweater and sweat pants under his pants. If you reach over and your child isn't moving or breathing during hypothermic situations, start rubbing the limbs while attempting to wake them up. This is what we were taught in Alaska. Chiufuu's dad probably went hunting a few times. It's basic info for sportsmen.
I live in North Texas and i lived in Rowlett during this time, and our house went out of power and we had to stay in a hotel for a couple days. I never really knew how lucky i was until i reas other’s stories
I am 68 now. I damn near froze to death in Houston. Ercot just voted themselves a raise. My Neighbor saved me. I have no words to describe how I feel. 3 people on my street froze to death.
2 days before the storm hit, he governor requested permission from the department of energy to fire up coal plants as needed. THEY DENIED THE REQUEST! Greg Abbott should have fired them up anyway.
There is a special place in hell for the elected officials who DELIBERATELY MURDERED the people and animals who suffered and died in this preventable tragedy.
@@kennethpace9887 More lies from Abbott. He ordered the grid shut down. He's a domestic terrorist along with Rafael Cruz.
@@kennethpace9887 yes, Abbott wants Texas to operate autonomously and has no regard for the environment anyway, but then the one time he should, he doesn't. He's a hateful little man with obvious contempt and disregard for the people of his state.
@@kennethpace9887False. The request came from Ercot and the DOE approved it. Abbott just twiddled his thumbs and let y'all freeze.
I remember being absolutely furious to see the country mocking Texas as hundreds of people froze to death. I tried to explain to them that this was literally a life threatening emergency and it just did not register. They couldn’t imagine not being prepared for a freezing storm and total blackout..in Texas. One of the hottest states in the country with its own independent power grid
I'm in South Texas where it never snows for many years at a time. In 2021 I didn't even buy a coat for my kids because every coat would go unused.
It goes both ways. Remember what Texans said about the people stranded in NOLA after Katrina? Remember Texans rallying to stop the migration of people from New Orleans to Texas? Remember when Texans threw bible verses at New York when an earthquake hit after passing a gay marriage law? Texans love forgetting about the awful things they've said about national tragedies, especially after something bad happens in Texas.
And in case you were wondering, yes...I lived in Texas during this ice storm. No, I didn't have any power in my 6° house for the duration of the freeze. And the incompetence of ERCOT was on full display for the nation to see. This was a disaster that could have been fully averted. But Texans will forever vote the exact same negligent and incompetent leaders back into office simply because they said Jesus once or twice. Because people that say Jesus will always be the morally superior option and people that have said Jesus have never done anything wrong or morally depraved, ever.
I smell Californian
I think a lot of them laughed cuz majority of Texas is heavily against climate change & everyone was like ha welp ain’t that a coincidence sucks for them maybe now they will get it
Dare I say, folks around the country weren't pointing and laughing at freezing, dying Texans. On the other hand, folks with brains around the country were definitely wondering out loud about how mentally deficient and stupid Texans have to be to vote for (representation that supports) a privatized, non-regulated power grid. This is one of the most avoidable disasters ever, and only possible in a state like Texas with it's cacophony of stupidity and self righteousness.
This was traumatizing. From days without power to pipes bursting and our house flooding…I cannot believe how quickly survival instincts came in
I remember this not because of the struggles it caused, but because it was when my great grandmother died. I was fortunate in having power most of the time in our dorm. We still couldn't take showers or go to the bathroom. It was few days into this freeze that I decided to call my great grandfather to see how they were doing. When he picked up, I could hear his voice failing. The only things I could get out of him besides his situation being okay was that grandmother didn't look good, that she looked terrible. I remember asking my mother about going to drive over to them. She told me that the roads were probably frozen, but it was ultimately up to me. I was always afraid of driving on frozen roads, so I told him I would drive over when the roads got better. The next morning, I got like three missed calls from my mother. When I called back she was annoyed that I didn't pick up sooner. She finally told me that my Nana had passed away. I almost can't describe the feeling I felt. I didn't cry, there was just this low sinking feeling welling up inside me as I found myself on my bed. I had always visited them every monday the prior school year, but as this new school year started, I had hardly visited them at all. The guilt of not visiting one last time began to sink in. If I had known, I would've driven there in a heartbeat through the ice and everything. But that time had passed. I would visit my great grandfather after the freeze. It wasn't the same, but we had some good times as well. Many times he would tell me of the empty feeling he had. I remember walking to his room. He was showing me a hand-knitted blanket on his with all of his family members names on it. He found his wife's name on it: Joyce. He told me how sad he felt waking up without her beside him. In that moment, I broke down and hugged him. I cried every tear I held back and told him I was sorry. I told him how sorry I was for not driving over to see them together one last time. He said he knew and assured me it was okay. They're both gone now. I hope they both know I love them wherever they are.
I'm sorry for how far away this is from the topic of the freeze, but this is one of the things I remember from it the most. Thank you for reading this, and please remember to hug your loved ones tight when you see them. You never know when they'll leave you.
my condolences
I literally cried reading this... my heart goes out to you! Thank you for sharing such a hard and personal story.
Sending you love! 🙏🏾💕
Grandma was killed by the Texas Railroad Commission.
I'm so sorry for your loss! Was it the freezing weather that caused her death?
The scariest thing about this storm for me in Houston was the fact that I have reptiles. Cold-blooded animals require a hot side of their enclosure to regulate their temperature. When the power went out, I was terrified that I was going to lose my pets to the cold. I’d spend hours just holding them close to me to try and use my body temperature to warm them up. I’m thankful that they survived this, but it was terrifying
Im gald the lil guy made it
Damn fine pet owner my dude. They survived because of your hard work
I had a case of hamdwarmers that we used to keep the snake inclosure to temp
You should buy these dirt cheap handwarmers. They have some kind of chemical reaction, it doesn’t need energy. My cats love them. Theyre like hot stones.
Just wait for ww3
Being from Michigan it just never occurred to me why Texas could struggle so hard from this, this video helped put it into perspective
I’m from Texas & lived through this. No power for three days in my area. Luckily our pipes were okay however my friends apartment flooded with freezing water and absolutely ruined her apartment. She had a move. We were absolutely miserable
I was in college in central Texas when this storm hit. I was living in cheap student housing that did not stand up to the harsh conditions well. We lost power and cell service for a week, and water for a week and a half. It was freezing with no heat, and none of us had the proper clothes to protect ourselves against it. The pipes in the apartment above us burst the first day and flooded out apartment, which didn’t exactly help our heat situation. We also didn’t stock up on food- we were young and stupid, and there was no precedent for this kind of storm. Almost no one thought it would last more than two days. Stocking up wouldn’t have helped much anyways; we had electric stoves and microwaves to cook with, both of which were completely useless to us until they implemented rolling blackouts about 3 days in. When the lights would come on 3 or 4 times a day we would rush to the stove and microwave to try and heat up anything we could in the 10 minute window. We ended up running out of food completely, luckily only a day before the roads melted and we could make it to a grocery store. Our water was out longer than the power, and even after the storm had passed my apartment complex turned it off again for another two weeks to “fix pipe damage.” They turned out to never actually do this, and we received an email about two weeks after the storm telling us our leases had been terminated due to the extent of the damage and we had until the end of the week to find a new place to live. It feels childish to call the experience traumatic, but it sent my roommates and I into a months-long mental spiral. One of the worst parts I think is when after we regained service, we found out that the people across town living in the expensive apartments on the university’s power grid didn’t experience any of this. One of my classmates said his wifi didn’t even go out. That and Ted Cruz’s flight from the situation as a whole was so demoralizing to hear.
it was traumatic and it's so irresponsible for the texas "government" (lol) to just ignore that 🙏
Don't ever feel like it was childish to call the Winter storm traumatic; you were in a cold building without water, heat, electricity, or a hot meal. The lack of any of those four things can break a person. I knew friends and family in South Texas, and the Valley area was anxious. They could not get to HEB because they were trapped in their house, the roads were too icy, or they were slowly running out of cell phone battery, food, and water. I was living in an old house where the pipes broke, and water was lost. Surprisingly we had heat and electricity, but I had started bringing in the snow for waste.
I would probably have cried through most of this event. I've never been in this situation but it would feel like a breakdown of society to me? like when you think something is safe and will stay that way forever and suddenly this feeling of safety is shattered completely. and you don't know when it ends - I'd say that's traumatizing alright.
The college station wellborn main incident?
I mean, no offense but I do think it does kind of show how weak westerners have gotten for being so pampered by modern luxury. I have friends in the country who have no heating, no plumbing, no electricity at all, who are snowed in by 6+ft of snow in the winter.
I lived in Texas for one year, and this happened during it. I have never been more happy to be a Michigander born and raised, because I was able to give a lot of good advice to coworkers on how to stay warm and safe in this kind of weather. Plus, it helped out my job a lot since I was one of the few people at HEB willing to run groceries out in the cold lol
Why’d you only stay for a year?
Illinois born here yeah we also survived pretty well since we still had our winter gear and winter protection from ice and snow haha
@@rodrigoblastburn7566 This Texan wore my ski jacket and snow boots for the **checks notes** third time since they were purchased in 2013.
Thanks for doing that. Some might have laughed.
bless your heart
Thank you for bringing awareness to this. I lived through this and it was genuinely one of the worst experiences of my life. My house was 30 degrees for a good 4 or 5 days. We lost power for maybe a week. One of the worst experiences of my life, we could NOT get warm. I remember being so mad at our governor. I will NEVER forget this.
"30 degrees for a good 4 or 5 days." I STILL have trouble even understanding how that could cripple what is basically an entire country. I know, I know, I know, you folks are NOt used to that and I'm sorry people died. I just I just don't GET IT. Infrastructure SHOULD have been rated to what is considered mild to somewhat chilly weather here in Minnesota. In Jan & Feb, it's routine for temps to be in the -20 to -30's for at least 4-5 days, sometimes longer. kids waiting for the bus in -17 weather. Then after a few days it would get back up into positive temps, even up to 27 or 30 and we were all in t shirts. No kidding.
@@jaygosev3589 sorry mister individual, our state must be separated from the national grid for... Reasons. No we will not upgrade our grids to ensure that another freeze doesn't cripple our state, that's what global warming is for, God bless.
I actually live in Texas, around the San Antonio area more specifically, and we were extremely lucky to be in one of her few areas that never lost power. It was still really wild to see something like this happen at all in my state, but I’m glad to see this being documented with this perspective/critical analysis
Prolly alamo heights, olmos park, and terral hills, maybe even the dominion haha
We live in Schertz, we were having rolling power where both electricity and cell service only came on for about 10 minutes at a time. No where near enough time to warm the house or cook. We were lucky that I love camping so we had a bit of equipment to somewhat mitigate the effects. Our at the time 8 year old was priority number one and here and there I would go over to check on a couple of elderly neighbors. During the times where cell service was available, I would call to check on my parents. It was a surprise to hear that they weren't suffering any of the effects, they live right outside Kelly AFB so I'm assuming that little area was considered a priority.
This multi-day failures apparently happens pretty regularly in Texas, spaced out every 5-10 years or so. It is know that this will happen again, unless they winterize.
But Texas politicians will blame Federal regulation (despite Texas controlling its grids, specifically excluding the feds), or woke wind power (although winter outages still happened even before Texas had many wind turbines), or anything other than “we need to winterize the equipment.” And it will happen again.
Didn’t have power for 4 days in the UTSA. Got suck at work the first day the snow came in
I arrived at Fort Sam Houston in san antonio on Feb 14th for AIT, and was wondering what everyone was talking about with snowvid. It was pretty hot.
I live in Beaumont Texas and that week was the worst of my life the day after everything froze I lost my dog I searched for 16 straight hours I used all types of movement I knew even my longboard I couldn’t stop he was my best friend and I was forced by my family after severe fatigue and being completely numb but I kept searching.. then on one of the last days my sister went to work at like 6am and heard a jingle and called out his name and he came running wagging his little tail when we checked the ring he had found his way home and sat at the front door for a whole 7 hours shivering the whole time when she dropped that sopping wet dog on my bed and me sleeping all I did was hug him for hours and keep him warm he’ll always be my good boy. My best boy
I'm so happy he came back to you ❤️
Damn u just made my eyes all extra wet 🥹
A happy story… I’m a dog lover too and I was worried about reading the end.
That was worth reading - I presently have 6 dogs - 3 little ones and three big ones - and yes they stay in the house and have recked it -
But there worth a recked house to me -
When you said you lost your dog, I thought you meant was frozen and possibly dead
Glad to see that he’s still alive.
Me and my mom started playing out in the snow when my step dad, who was from Colorado, literally yelled at us to get back inside. I'm glad that he did because our power did not come back one for a couple more days and we would've have already lost a ton of body heat if it wasn't for him.
Good point! Dad knew better.💛
an 11 y/o died in my county due to this, he was never able to get warm once he came in, he fell asleep wrapped in blankets and his parents thought he'd warm up, but he never woke up
If playing in the cold one has to embrace "comfortably cold" Big poofy warm coats are dangerous. it's so easy to build up a sweat, then once you stop moving you get chilled to the core.
@@imblue9839If you're talking about the child in Conroe, the autopsy determined he died from Carbon monoxide poisoning.
None of us excepted this storm too be this crazy, we just thought we'd have frozen roads and maybe a short power outage or two. We always play in the snow when it snows, because we've never had the power go out for days. I had to ride out the storm at work. I left my 18 year old at home with a bunch of HEB meals, snacks and water, that's what we always winter storms I had to ride out. We lived in an apartment so we didn't have any way to hook up a generator. I freaked out when their phone died and I couldn't get in contact with them. Thankfully when they finally contacted me they were smart enough to pack a bag, bundle up, gather snacks and walk to a trusted neighbor's apartment when they got too cold. They rode the rest of the storm out with the neighbor family and got to charge their phone in their car so they could warm up a bit and let me know where they were and they were ok. None of us that lived through that storm will be the same. I rode out Hurricane Harvey at work, this winter storm was by far scarier because while I was safe and warm I was worried about my family and friends here in Houston, in Central Texas and South Central Texas.
I remember being on the phone with a customer service rep in Texas during this event. I don't remember what company it was or what I was calling about.
The man was telling me about how they didn't know what to do with the cold. Everyone around them was losing power and they didn't know what to do. They were worried about the pipes freezing. Being a life long New Englander, I taught him what to do. I remember staying on with him for over an hour, explaining how to stay warm, how to make a fridge outdoors and how to prevent pipes freezing among other information. I like to hope he, his family and Everyone else in his apartment made it through.
Honestly hearing you talk about it makes me want to cry…. It was such an awful time. My mom and I had gone to my sisters house for shelter and she ended up losing power too. When we woke up my nephew was in a full blown anxiety attack. My dad came to pick me and my niece and nephew to take us home because he got our generator working. My sister stayed behind in her house for a bit… as soon as I go home I started making ramen for everyone to eat something warm… even my dad ate and that’s cause he’s not a big fan of pasta…. I got my nephew to finally ground himself and take a nap. We stayed without power for a while but takes to the generator we were warm… With all the freeze going on there was still people messaging my boss to see if they could go in to get their nails done. She even posted that we were closed and people would still message her. We survived it but we were left traumatized. Mr. Ted Cruz, the person people voted into office to make decisions for us, left us. We felt like the little girl in Jurassic park when the adult left her. He just left us to deal with his failure.
Im also from texas and i was there to no power no nothing i agree with you
I’m from Fort Worth but was at school in the Midwest when this happened. I remember my friends joking about how Texans think they’re so tough but they can’t even handle a little bit of cold. That’s when I realized that people outside the state really didn’t understand how devastating sub-zero temperatures and inches of snow/ice is for people who have never experienced it before and don’t have the proper infrastructure, resources, knowledge, or government help to get through it.
P.S. the 100 car pile-up happened very close to my childhood home. My brother could hear the crashes as they happened. Shit was terrifying
My newborn grand babies and sons were in that mess. I was worried sick from Wi.
My grandpa decided not to go to work that day. His route to go there was through that very road. My mother was worried sick when she found out about the 100-pile car crash. He is fine now though, as said he didn't go to work and stayed home
I’m always astounded at how ill-prepared the US is for natural weather problems. From Upstate New York to Texas, the lack of infrastructure is insane.
@Alexander Davidd global warming is causing temptress and weather that we aren't equipped to deal with
Yes, they need to picture it from a southern perspective. I live in Houston. Nobody I know has snow tires. Most people don't have a winter coat or gloves and nobody has thermals. Beanies and boots are purely for fashion. The deep freeze was by far the coldest temperature I had ever experienced in my life. Before that, I had experienced 25F. This was easily 20F below that, plus wind-chill. Imagine 20F colder than you have ever been, but without any power and without gloves. Just some blankets.
The cities don't have a way to de-ice or plow the roads. Why would they, they'd only need it for 12 hours every few years. House insulation requirements are completely different than up north. Floors, for example, are hardly insulated at all. Lots of houses are on blocks and get plenty of airflow underneath, the opposite of what's needed when it is cold.
Pipes burst because they lost power. They are usually only lightly insulated in the attics of houses. People here only wrap outdoor hose pipes. It's not a problem when heated air is funneled into the attic (houses here are very much designed to remove heat). Without heated air in freezing temperatures for several days, the minimal attic pipe insulation isn't enough and the pipes burst. "Rolling blackouts?'" lol no. When our power went out, it was gone for most of the week. No rolling about it.
I will always remember the anger over houston. Because downtown had a hospital the entirety of downtown was considered essential. So while people in the nearby neighborhoods were freezing, the nearby office buildings were lit up like Christmas trees.
False
@@thiscommentwillbedeletedso5211 True and it happened in Austin as well rich neighborhoods and large corporations kept their power
@@thiscommentwillbedeletedso5211 the lies you tell
That’s COMPLETELY false. I was downtown for a considerable amount of this storm and we had no power at all. This is in no way true whatsoever
I was living in downtown San Antonio when this happened and I had no power in my home for an entire week… we call this Event Snowvid lol
As a Texan this was such a wild period of my life, I remember my university cancelling everything mid class and then absolutely eating it on the icy sidewalk. We didn’t lose power, but being without water really puts in perspective how important it is.
It must have reeked in texas
@@BeaneabeanYou'd think, buuuut... Luckily for us there was all this fluffy ice sitting around if we needed water. Not GREAT, but better than zilch. And those who lost power had a natural freezer to save their food.
@@wordforger
If you needed water? Why not smelt snow?
@@Dwight_bro we hade no power it was so cold nobody was trying to drink the snow hell no my dad was driving and i saw even the traffic lights were off and everything my dad was tryna get the generator working to its way to cold
@@KainobiN
but if you had a generator, could you not smelt snow too room temperature? on a fire or something?
My mom’s a nurse and we live out in texas. She was having to work 12 hour shifts while the entire hospital was losing power and water. It was genuinely a nightmare for her, Im incredibly grateful that she was able to get me and my family a hotel in time and make it less of a nightmare for us.
I was traumatized after this years winter storm. I lost my apartment after a pipe burst which led to my entire apartment being covered in ice because we also lost our power/heating. I lost my TV, mattress, sofa, and everything in between and insurance didn’t give me nearly enough for everything I lost. I was living paycheck to paycheck at the time and now I didn’t have a place to live or a place to stay warm. This was the longest week and a half of my life and every year I fear the same thing will happen
I'm so sorry, I hope things get better for you 💖
Sorry to hear that, hang in there
Wait until world war 3 starts. What you experienced during the 2021 winter storm will be a permanent reality for everyone. You as well.
@@Speed00007 Wow, thanks for being a downer when someone needs tangible help.
@@indigopines Al Gore said we would not have snow. They gave him an award and lots of money for global warming if I remember correctly. 1970 was the last snow is what those politicians were telling us. How many years did they tell us we are all burning up? No cars no trucks no fireplace no campfires no natural gas. I may be wrong but that sure looks like snow.
The worst part for me was that I have a dog who's legs were paralyzed during all this and she couldn't walk at all, so we had to take her to a vet, who said she might require surgery. So we had to drive all the way down to Fort Worth to an animal hospital to get into contact with a surgeon, and schedule her surgery. So even after the winter storms, I still had to deal with a disabled dog.
The good news is she was slowly getting better in the coming weeks, and was eventually able to fully walk and act like her old self again!
Yay!
I was there...
On day three, I woke up feeling like I was on fire. As I'm taking my clothes off, I realized in was the hypothermia kicking in. Then I noticed the small ice crystals on my arms.
I drove nearly three hours to my mom's house (usually a 45 hour drive) figuring I'll either freeze to death in the apartment, die on the road, or make it where there's rolling power and a fireplace.
Stayed an hour in a hot tub to make sure I had shaken the cold.
I was in Dallas at a trucking terminal. We had one truck fail and I had to take that driver to the hotel. They wouldn't let me take my truck which was frustrating I'd have rather had 8 wheel drive. They had me use the stupid eco van. That 20 minute drive took me about 30ish.
I was in Austin during this storm. School was out for a week and a half after it ended due to a pipe bursting inside. I was very lucky because my house never lost power or water. I remember the weather being in the single digits. It was one of the crazing things I have ever experienced, and I will never forget it. My heart goes out to all the people that lost their life in this storm
I work at a major Houston hospital affected during the storm and we had SO many carbon monoxide poisoning cases, all during covid too, from people lighting grills indoors or running generators inside with no airflow. Whole families came in bc it made them all sick just trying to stay warm :( I drove in to help at the hospital bc I'm from the midwest and feel ok driving on snow and ice but it was wild. We all slept in the basement and rationed water - thank you for covering this topic
💛
Hearing that shocked me because my family almost became one of those cases.. I was lucky to recognize the symptoms early enough to open enough windows to let out the smoke.... They make texas homes air tight to where if you light your fireplace or any fire in your home it backdrafts in or gets kept inside due to how the homes are made air tight...
Thanks for what you did. I live in Houston as well and oh man, that’s not something I want to experience again.
Thank you for helping at the hospitals and braving the danger.
I live in New a England and even I avoid driving in snow.
It boggles my mind that people STILL need to be told to not light grills or generators indoors. Isn't Texas the state of 'everybody is a redneck who knows nothing other than trucks and gas'? I'd expect, at the very least, that people in such a state would know about CO.
This was a traumatic experience. Friends and family outside of Texas didn't understand how bad it really was until I talked to them about it. So many people died who didn't have to. Two years later we're still having to deal with power outages due to cold weather. I don't believe those in charge will fix the situation. Thank you for covering this. People need to know how bad it really was.
I mean, as long as y'all continue to elect a party that cares more about banning drag shows and letting vultures sue anyone who aids in not forcing a nine-year-old to give birth, than actually governing...
Glad that Americans suffered.
It’s not traumatic quit being so damn soft
Crazy. I only recently found out people actually died from it. This storm is actually one of my fondest memories for reasons I stated in another comment at length and won’t really go into here but I like winter weather, particularly snow, and I was well prepared. The worst part was the evenings when the power would go down for hours and boredom would set in.
That’s what happens when the government becomes a for profit corporation. Not even trying to change. It’s why he border issue continues. Our “conservative” politicians are as in love with cheap labor as anyone else. Duty isn’t really a priority anymore.
I’m from Dallas, we had it worse than most of the state because of how far north we are. I was lucky enough to not get my heat cut off because we have gas for our heat rather than electric…. But I can’t tell you how many people I watched suffer. How many people were burning their furniture to stay warm. My brother and boyfriend had to come stay with us. My cousin touched down from Egypt and called me saying she had no water or electric. No one expected this. Yet the country laughed at us like this was a joke or something we were supposed to be prepared for. Our state government failed us.
There are many Texans in the comments section saying that the rest of America just didn't get how bad things were. Texas is the 9th largest economy in the world. After 2011, there was no excuse for why Texas collapsed the way that it did in 2021. The state was given a decade to get its power grid up to par. Nobody could fathom that an economic behemoth like Texas would be brought to its knees so easily due to mother nature. Meanwhile Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, collectively some of the poorest states in the nation, fared a lot better than Texas did.
I want to personally thank you for the best comment on this video in literal months.
90% of the comments I've been getting have been "Grow TF up" or "THE FEDS SCEWED US OVER" or "It wasn't THAT BAD only 310 people died which is like nothing compared to the actual population," or "[Insert stupid conspiracy theory nonsense here]."
I recall politicians from Texas running off to Cancun and blaming windmills. 😂
If you expect the government to save you in an emergency, you are rolling the dice.
Yes but Oklahoma got it just as bad as you did.
As a Texan, this was extremely crazy. And where I live our power lines are very old. We where certain to lose power. But somehow we didn’t it, begin one of the few lucky people to keep it.
Same. We didn't lose power either and our area is... ancient lol. We are also very VERY rural. So it was surprising all the city areas were without power and we weren't. We are close to the red River.
@@AmandaSchnaare I live in the permian basin, ya know, middle of nowhere 😂 even the small towns in the Permian Basin have really old power lines. Almost everyone went with out power. I definitely counted my blessings with the storm in keeping power
Same here, my power used to go out for hours during regular severe storms and once in a great while it would go out for a few days. I was certain my power would go out but it never did. I remember at one point my sister was told by someone she knows from our electric company that they would have to shut down power for my area for a few hours to prevent overloading the grid or something like that, but they never did.
You might have been connected or zoned to an important power grid. Our electricity didn't go out because we're 3 minutes away from a hospital.
@@Ojo10 We live in the middle of no where lol. We are VERY rural. Farm land for miles. That's it. Nearest major hospital is 45 minutes from my home.
As a Texan and just a person I can tell you, be prepared to suevive 3 months without power. This event was nasty, but not even close to as bad as it could get. If it happened that the grid shut down and it wasnt too cold to go outside things would have got wild
That actually happened to my mom when she was staying at the pavilard mobile home park in Amarillo tx. The entire park lost power for at least a month, she never thought to call the power until weeks had gone by figuring somebody else had called and they were probably dealing with hundreds of complaints. She was super surprised to find out that she actually was the first one to call since everyone had the same line of thought as her, the utilities company had no idea the park was without power and it was quickly restored. She has crazy stories about people getting desperate and doing things burning those mosquito repellent rings indoors with the windows closed for some heat and little bit of light, some people basically lived out of thier car since those heaters still worked, some were lucky enough to have gas central heat that didn't fail but just as many people were relying on plug in space heaters.
Id modify your tip to say "Be prepared to survive 3 months, at any point in the year"
I was a food delivery guy back then and i remember a decent amount of my customers ended up moving into nearby hotels because of how bad it got. Some were there almost a year
True but aside from infrastructure the cold was the reason there was no power. Mainly renewable energy couldn’t output anything but no one wants to blame renewables because that’s the “future”
@@RedHaloManiac95 Did you ignore the entire video? It was all energy sources that failed... Renewables still make up less than a third of our energy production.
I'd like to share a little story that helps people understand how rare winter storms are in Texas! In the winter between 2017-18, I remember waking up in the morning and noticing that the light coming from the window was really bright because when I open the shades I saw the entire ground was covered in snow! Naturally I was excited because I've never lived in a place where it's snowed, so on the way to school I was messing around picking up the snow, but I started my usual day in 8th grade and not even by 10 or 11:00 a.m. the sun had come out and all the snow had melted! I hadn't been in Houston for long but my friends told me that the last time it snowed in Houston was 7 or 8 years before and it's never happened since. Besides the 2021 freeze, in which most of Houston didn't get snow they got ice cold rain that would freeze the ground and create a layer of ice on every window!
I was 14 in 2017 and 2018 and remembered how exited everyone was for snow
snow is so rare in texas in general! Even up in Dallas, if it does snow it doesnt stick and you can get maybe a handful off someones car to play with. Usually it melts as soon as it touches the ground bc it doesn't get below freezing for long enough to get the dirt, concrete, and asphalt cold enough. Most of the times our trees dont even fully drop all their leaves, they go yellow, it gets cold for 3 days, they get green again lol
Womp womp
It happens occasionally in Houston. I recall it happening about 1989, an ice storm in the late 90s. Don't let your friends fool you, its happened before in Houston, its just rare.
The reality is you go to sleep, it snows/sleets/ice rain. Wake up, everything is covered and by mid day its hitting 50 F and everything is gone and the next night you're lucky to get mid 30s.
The 2021 was different in that we never got that high temp during that day.
The hardest hit places are obviously the ones who get occasional big winter storms. In places where it snows every winter, they spend decades adapting around that, like downtown Montreal having a system of nice indoor shopping corridors, tunnels and walkways between buildings, so you don’t need to walk outside.
But the places that freeze occasionally don’t have the army of snow plows, etc. and people have a rough time.
2011 federal government: wintertize your stuff you got hit by a winer storm
Texas: no no
*Shoots itself in the foot*
As a midwestern. I definitely understand what everyone was going through. Losing power in the winter is always dangerous. Happened to us again last winter.
@@KenyonThatcher How did you boil water??
When my family lost power during the storms of 2021, it was in the 30's in our house during the first day. We had a blanket fort in the living room, did our best to trap in heat but honestly we had almost no warning that this would happen and very little time to prepare. We had a 9 month old baby, my niece. The kids cried all day and night. We stayed there for a night. Taking turns warming up in the car while trying not to run out of gas. (All gas stations were sold out) We had a fire in the back yard but put it out later when the city issued a burn ban. Two houses in our neighborhood burned down that night because of out of control fires. The water stopped working as pipes burst all across the city. It was 24 degrees in the house at the coldest. The next morning we had to flee to warming stations. The warming stations had 30-45 minute limits due to the amount of people in the same situation. I'm just glad we had friends who had power still in a nearby town and we made it there safely. It was very very bad. Abilene, Texas.
The problem is our houses aren’t built for this weather. I live in Houston and we are built for floods not snow
Here in Louisiana we prepare for winter storms. So do native Texans. This "disaster" affected newcomers to the state. The power also failed here in central Louisiana. The temperature that morning was near zero with several inches of snow and an ice storm. We had gas heaters and solar power for fans to circulate the heat and we left all the water faucets dripping rapidly, checked them regularly by turning them on full blast to clear ice, and we were fine. I have emergency gas and solar heat and air conditioning in my camper. We had 45 mph winds last December with way below zero wind chill...very low temperatures for a week. I powered my electric blanket from solar batteries.
@phunkyessence2417 I am from the Midwest. I was baffled at a number of things all throughout this situation. One, that losing power was considered this impossible to navigate obstacle. Two, that nobody could drive. I chauffeured people around in a damn equinox, it was not a big deal. The only thing you had to watch out for was Texans trying to drive. Slamming on their brakes, driving way too slow, too fast, etc. these nimrods here also see fit to go to all stores and buy everything so you can’t get a ho-ho let alone gas. To this day I still don’t fully get it
Thank you for making a video about this. I am a Texan and I did suffer through the freeze, but I didn’t get the worst of it. I know friends who’s homes were uninhabitable after, their pipes bursting and being forced to live in a motel for two years. Many made fun of us because many don’t like southerners/Texans. Nobody really understood the severity of it.
Democrats are 100% pure evil. They`re not gonna survive what they`ve created. The end for them is very near.
Yeah I hate people like that. They think they are sooo better than us cause they live in some over priced blue state when in reality their ego makes them just as bad.
@@topaz3452 Absolutely. Maybe I’m a little critical of them, but I feel like they create the divide between us themselves. They very much can act egotistical and hold themselves to a higher image than us because they think we’re dirty racist farmers or something. I think it has to do with past history and divided beliefs, along with the ignorance to our culture or just downright belittling it. I couldn’t believe how many Northerners were offended by the terms “ma’am” and “sir”! It’s respect immediately given to a STRANGER and they despise it! It’s ridiculous.
@@topaz3452 my friend your state abandoned you and all you can do is complain about “overpriced Blue States”
@@bruh4573 I moved to Texas a few months before the storm(s) hit. This is a perfect example of the Texan ideology. My mind was blown at just how much this state was willing to ignore its own people and the problems that are clear as day, yet everyone that has lived here for their whole life is so used to it that they see any comment on it as a personal attack. Texans have backwards logic and create excuses for the states lack of ability to take care of it's own people :D
It’s nice to see someone covering this. After power went out, the filter and heater in my fishes tank went out. Even though I tried my best to replace water and keep the biome active, my 20-30 fish were tropical and died in the cold. I know I definitely did not get the worst of it because I got power back relatively quick, and no people died, but I’ve still learned not to trust the grid. This was definitely avoidable
Doesn't Texas have universities that study everything about the state? Then government takes that information and uses it to form public policy. This failure in Texas is like if the government of California ignored the threat of earthquakes for the last hundred years.
@@diegoflores9237 Both states have issues.
I live in Houston, and this storm was terrifying. I was one of the extremely lucky ones who never lost power; I think it's because I live next to a hospital and share their grid. One thing this excellent report didn't mention was the few Texas cities not under ERCOT control. My family lives in El Paso, TX, and they received the same bitter cold storm, but they also never lost power. Their federally regulated electric company had winterized the grid. Ironically, much of the electrical insulation was made in Houston.
Yep I live in the Spring Branch area and lost power and water for 5 day's I sent my Senior Mom and Dog away somewhere better.
Which hospital? I lived literally across the street from west Houston hospital and never lost power either and I'm positive that the hospital being there made it so the power companies prioritized keeping the power up.
I live in the woodlands and my dad’s house had in a 3 day time period maybe 12 hours of power and that was with rolling black ours
@@jonathanlemon544the woodlands and spring are on a different grid than the rest of Houston
@@jonathanlemon544 I lived near the med center.Yes, I think it saved me from the freeze.
As someone who lives in Austin, Texas. It was a horrible experience, but what was also horrible to me is how voters were able to ignore the events and still keep the government that failed us in power.
Uhhh, that was mostly due to Beto being ABSOLUTELY NUTS.
You can't say, "YES, WE ARE COMING FOR YOUR ARS, YOUR AK 47S," etc. etc. and expect to be elected in Texas.
Never gonna happen. He tried to capitalize on the Waco shooting and lost his political career in the process. Dum bass.
On the flip side, Ted Cruz and Abbot got enough heat from this, they not only winterized these last 2 years, they advertised they did it. 🙄
But yeah Beto is dumb. I work construction and in one porter I saw, "Beto, fake mexican, real pendejo." Which, I couldn't help but chuckle at, since the house it was placed at had a Beto sign in their front yard.
Edit: for the record, I lean more left than right. But, I also don't associate myself with either extreme. It's just dumb. That's my opinion. 🤷♂️
And I didn't vote for either of them out of disgust. Even though I knew I was essentially throwing away my vote. Is what it is. Le sigh.
Amen
R'amen! That was one of the things that told me we were gonna have a storm and disaster like this again in probably 10 years. Why? Because we have a crazy short attention span and if there's money to be spent, they're gonna delay-delay-delay until we forget how bad things got and decide not to prepare... and then it happens again and we wail "why weren't we prepared?" Ugh--sucks all around.
I was more pissed at the local leaders of the city. Those guys were idiots.
Republicans voters don’t care if they freeze to death as long as they keep out the democrats. Remember “better Russian than democrat”? Delusional.
I live here is AUSTIN TX, so here's my story.
I had lots of fun in the snow, first time ever seeing it, I had fun until one night
I was doing homework when I heard an explosion, then another, there was tons of Explosions coming from my garage (now a kitchen)
With this lights started to flicker a ton
Me and my parents run outside to see a branch fallen on a power line leaving no power in many rooms
A few days later we learned a fire started in our power box, we got lucky and it had nowhere to spread and ended, this event made me scared of going in that kitchen even again
Afterwards we had some family come over to help us, but they accidentally left a heater on and their home burnt down do to it (idk how but uh, yea)
Afterwards we had power go out for 10 mins - 1 hours each
We had out wires get fixed and the company we had moved to a nearby house
In the end it was crazy, sad, and unpredicted
As of 2024, we have fully recovered but the other people (aka the company) have not repaired their old home snd still live in the one they moved to
THANK YOU for taking time to create more of a longform video. The proliferation of shorts and videos that take just 14 or 15 minutes to cover a topic like this has not swayed my adoration for longform documentaries. Consider me subbed!
For me, we were without power for 4 days and we were without water for 2 weeks! It was crazy, and seeing the loss of life, and the number of people in other states mocking us while our residents were DYING was awful. And seeing our politicians just up and fly somewhere else while the rest of us were stuck here was a blow as well.
Reminding me of what Ted Cruz did makes me want to punch holes in the Sheetrock with my fists.
i nearly lost my grandparents to this-they live far from anything
Still blows my mind that those same politicians managed to keep their seats despite everything. Pointed it out to my aging parents who said 'Wouldn't you fly away if you could?' Hell no! Not if I'm an elected official and my constituents are literally dying! If I was gonna fly anywhere it would have been to go get help and bring it back, or at least start banging down doors in Washington, literally anything to try to help the people I'm sworn to represent, not off to some tropical escape 😡
I was without power for about double that time. All we had was like 4 packs of bottled water for 6 people. Didn't see much mockery, but when I could get on Twitter for 2 seconds in a miraculous temporary return of cellular service, I was also infuriated to see Cruz simply fleeing the country
Well Texans who voted for them shouldnt vote them back in
I drove through Texas and Louisiana when this hit. I was a trucker and got stuck in Shreveport for several day, it was wild seeing the swamps iced over and frozen.
I’m a trucker from the Shreveport area and I spent the night in Austin and then drove up to Dallas early in the morning. 35 southbound was completely halted and piled up, and I was one of the only souls driving northbound but there were so many cars on the side of the road it looked like an apocalypse movie or warzone.
@@daveyjoneslocker4703 I passed through Dallas as it was still coming down and it was pretty wild. Wrecks everywhere, frozen pipes, food shortages. When we had to stop in Shreveport all the food we had was what we already had in the truck till we got out.
I thank y’all for being the back bone of the nation, how would we get anything anywhere without y’all mfs
@corypreedom8660
And we still have folks badmouthing truckers, do they not realize they'd starve without them?
I was in Dallas as well for three days during all of it. Was not a good time, most places nearby had either no power or if they did, very low food supplies. Finally got out when my truck was close to being out of fuel and dispatch said screw it and take the load back to Phoenix.
I remember watching how bad it was in Texas on the news. I felt so bad especially for the elderly who froze to death. May those people R.I.P.
Just before my house lost power, I had asked my dad why he was leaving the tap on, he said that due to the blizzard that was about to happen, we had to keep the tap on to help melt ice within our pipes. I was not too interested in weather or really anything from the real world at the time, so I didn't think much of the nightmare that was going to occur. Thankfully our cousin's house had power, so we mainly stayed there, but there wasn't much to do except wait for the power to come back on for a multitude of days.
I am a part owner of a natural gas distribution company that serves the suburbs of Houston. I spent 48 hours outdoors, in near zero temperatures, making sure my customers, who are like family, remained in service. We lost a few (mostly because home generators were kicking on) but got them back in service quickly. I have really never felt that cold before.
I’m not sure if this is the same company that served my family since were renters. But I thank you anyway for helping my neighbors through this
@@a.g.r1350 most of us are dedicated to making sure the customer is safe and warm. Cost us a lot of overtime, cost of acquiring a temporary gas supply, and working with our community to make sure they were supplied with natural gas.
It never got close to zero degrees. Me thinks you exaggerate a million times too much😝
@@chuckinhouston9952 College Station got down to 5 and a kid died from hypothermia, me thinks you don’t know what your talking about
@@chuckinhouston9952 it was 8 degrees where I was. Methinks you have no idea what you are talking about.
My family is beyond lucky to be living on the grid of a hospital- or we would’ve been screwed. This messed up everything. And has left texas with some serious winter anxiety- there’s a reason everyone freaks out now
The virgin Texas vs the Chad Midwest literally everytime when it comes to weather. Just got 2 feet of snow and all businesses were still open, if that happened in Texas the whole damn state would've shut down even IF the power grid survived
@@ungabungus01 It depend on the infrastructure and how much people expect to live around snow
@@ungabungus01 As someone from the midwest who moved to Tx, we never saw ice up north the way it happens here, it isn't snow, everything is covered in a thick, heavy, solid sheet of ice. Even living plants, it's a bit surreal
@@ungabungus01 If we're talking about our winter infrastructure, then yes I agree.
Instead of freaking out why don't they do something about it? Texans act like Earth has never experienced cold winters before.
I live in the North where snow is a yearly thing. It's always funny when people from the south come up here close to or during the winter and get this kind of sentimental shock like I've gotten going to the south and just sweat all the time. I think I may have scared a contractor away when we got hit by a tiny little one. He asked me if this was normal and I responded "one day you'll have to dig your car out and still have to come to work." Haven't seen him since... But you know what's different. We expect this kind of weather in the North and have preparations for it. The south doesn't. Whether it be dedicated trucks to salt and remove snow to our infrastructure being designed and built around knowing we'll have to deal with this and not that. We even have business that excel at collecting salt all year round to end up super busy during the winter. And the thing about the cold is that it practically makes life... stop.
Now I'm not gonna lie. When the storm first started I was joking around about it. But as soon as I saw the power started going out I knew it was no longer anything to joke about or poke at.
Side note, a lot of homes in Japan don't have heaters. So people get gas portable heaters to heat their homes. The reason they don't get hyperthermia or die from carbon monoxide is that every so often they'll turn it off to and open a door or window to get some fresh air. This of course causes them to get cold again to turn on their portable gas heater again...
Also another side note I know somebody who works at a power plant up here in the North that was designed by Texans. Since it was designed by Texans it wasn't exactly winterized. The plant isn't really new and we've been able to keep it online by doing some "crazy" things but it keeps the power going. To include going out into the middle of the nearby lake to reopen the water intakes...
I guess another side note since I've taken some winter survival training and forced by the Army to sleep in the woods (plenty of going to bed to wake up covered in snow) during freezing temperatures here's some tips. Layers. Thin layers closer to your body with thicker puffer ones towards the outside. Don't just do a single thin layer and a single puffer layer during really cold scenarios. You'll get very cold. Armpits are warm areas so use them to warm up your hands. Keep your feet dry. If they get wet you'll need to let your feet dry off along with socks and shoes. Insulated sleeping bags are amazing! If your using one you don't want to sleep in it with clothing on. Let your body warm up the inside of the sleeping bag. If laying on the ground find something that doesn't hold any moisture to insulate yourself from the ground. Again from the North I've had a handful of winters where I did not use my heater once in my own place. (I was trying to save up money and not using the heater allowed me to save up even more) I did this with my insulated sleeping bag. Even if inside of my house was close to freezing I was still warm. Outside of getting a little cold to use the bathroom, get food / drinks, ect.
As a transplant to Texas. We were not prepared. Texas is prepared to tackle the high heat of the summer, not a freeze.
People froze to death in their homes. Homeless people froze to death. I thought my children and I were going to parish because we had no water, no heat, no food, no way to get to the store. It was the scariest near death experience I’ve ever had. (I’ve had two and it’s 10000% times worse when you think your children may pass along with you)
Go back
I remember the day after the freeze I went to the nearby wafflehouse and it was so surreal seeing half frozen roads, empty roads. When we got our food the waitress started a small talk with us about the freeze, and mentioned that her neighbor had been found dead in her living room because of the lack of an AC. Many friends of mine who lived further away within Texas told me similar stories when they got their internet. It's sickening to think that ERCOT had so long to winterize their shit yet decided never to do so.
Ercot really sucks for making us Texans literally suffer because of their laziness to make their power grid less prone to shutting off in winter and anyways as of now their basically having the same issue BUT WITH HEAT. THE LITERAL THING THE GRID SPECIALIZED IN
They still haven't done much of anything
I'm a Texan. It was so surreal when it happened. I didn't experience the worst power outages, but it was still a rough situation. The grocery stores were empty. People bought out all the bottled water because the power outages meant the water wasn't clean. At one point, I stood in line in front of town hall to get clean water from a truck. I can't imagine how bad it was for people who had no heat whatsoever.
When we were able to reach Wal Mart to get some groceries, we picked up an axe because some of the wood we had in the garage wouldn't fit in the fire place. The cashier told us people were buying axes to chop up closet doors for wood. (Incidentally, the axe we got was crap - it would have been a hard call to cut butter with it).
Edit: this was up near Keller.
We were fortunate to have a few cases of water, but with no heat it was frozen. That is when I got scared
Power was out for about 4 days for me (except for one random time when it turned on for about 30 minutes one night, waking me up.), heater didn’t work but I used a gas stove to heat the house. I got home from family gathering a couple hours before the storm REALLY hit, there wasn’t any snow yet but the roads were barren and frozen over. Somehow my dad was able to drive on them without crashing.
When we got home, the power was already out, and my reef aquarium got completely wiped out from the temperatures. We didn’t have a water problem as before the storm really hit, we filled the bathtubs with water.
The funniest part is, is that I have 0 pictures from this, as my phone went dead day one 😭
As someone who lives in NY and with both friends and family in Texas, I never truly understood how the odds were truly built against them. I'm so used to cold weather to know what to expect so when I heard about how unprepared texas was, I was shocked. I havent watched the full video yet but I come to this channel to educate myself on situations and natural disasters like this. With that being said, thank you for educating people while still doing what you love
that was definitely the worst part of my year then. it was definitely disheartening to see people from other states mocking us when our entire neighborhood were freezing our asses off and having power for like 45 minutes at a time.
from a then high schooler’s perspective, we were doing online school and my teachers literally excepted me to have my internet at the ready like they weren’t experiencing the same thing.
a pipe busted in my grandpa’s house so both him and my aunt who lives with him had to stay with us and it was super cramped having 7 people in the house and my grandpa trying to choke us with cigarette smoke.
my grandpa and aunt lived with us for another month or 2 after because their house was a total wreck and the stress from school and our situation really feels like i got taken a shit on by the universe but thankfully everything and everyone in our family is alright
I remember an online friend of mine in Texas keeping us updated about this, they said their family struggled to power their house for a long while even after the main storms because of how expensive they were with providers hiking their prices in order to make up for losses
Yes! There were bills for as high as 10k in areas that still had power.
I deliberately shut off some appliances at the breaker (like the dishwasher, washer & dryer, etc.) and kept the heater low on purpose for a week after the emergency was over because I wondered if we'd get that treatment in my neck of the woods. I have so many blankets and towels that me and the pets just relied on those mostly for heat. We still do that most of the time today.
Ah, even in dire conditions capitalism still feels the need to beat down already beaten people what a great fucking country we live in 😊👍
Darn. I live in N.W. Michigan mitten, my electric supplier is a nonprofit coop. If there's a profit it's returned to the shareholders --- who are the customers. Great maintenance. People elected to the board, by the customers, see it as an honored public service. I don't know how this was setup but I really appreciate it.
Do not trust capitalism for essential services.
Should be illegal to hike up prices after disasters
If I remember right, places like Highland Park and other rich neighborhoods didn't experience nearly the amount of rolling blackouts everyone else had. Interesting to think about.
Oh, of course not. Do we even need to say out loud why?
Highland park, oak lawn and cedar springs, Plano, Frisco and other parts of North Dallas like the esperanza area, spring valley, and Richardson all had power and water. My best friend lived in the Richardson area off belt line and westwood
Capitalism
@@astartes3280 Nope, pure Texas greed.
Anybody near a hospital usually kept power as well. Thank God I had one down the road and I only had to deal with frozen water pipes.
Thank you for taking the time to mention the suffering and disproportionate fatality rates among the impoverished and disabled. The same is true of any extreme weather or natural disaster, and those are only becoming more common as the years go by.
I remember this! We were luckily saved by our wood furnace, which did insane wonders. Had power too. My condolences to those whose lives were lost during the events of I-35.
Living in San Antonio at the time of this storm, but originally from Washington DC where I spent the first 23 years of my life and experienced 20” snowstorms that were nothing, this storm was horrifying. I can’t put into words how bad things got here and what I witnessed/experienced. I have a picture somewhere my friend took of me walking down interstate 10 north of the city in the middle of the snow covered road, 4pm when it should be rush hour, mild, and sunny. It was apocalyptic.
I was in San Antonio as well (or at least right next to it) it was crazy
We were on the south side. It was horrible.
I think what made me upset was seeing the car sales lots with power yet seeing houses and apartments without power. I was like yea selling cars is essential right now.
@@Gutenburg100 I lived in the Medical Center at the time. Since I was surrounded by hospitals and doctors offices, our area stayed with power, fortunately. Other areas were not so lucky.
Yes. EVERY OTHER electric grid is prepared for WINTER. The Texas grid broke off so that the investors could make a killing (literally) but poorly maintaining the grid, and pocketing the money they should have spent on upkeep. This was not a fluke. It was intentional negligence, and the grid monitors knew the grid would fail and warned NO ONE. This is murder on a Titanic-style level. Only FIRST CLASS got in the life boats.
Me and my family were dealing with covid during all this. Mom and dad had gotten covid before me and my siblings just a bit before the storm hit. When it did my mom had just got out of the hospital but still had to be on oxygen to breathe properly. When the power went out she had no oxygen and trying to get her to walk upstairs where it was warmer almost killed her. I still remember her gasping for air laying on the stairs while we desperately tried to help her out. I myself had been running a high fever and experiencing the worst of covid during all of this. I could barely move or keep myself awake so hearing my dad and brother try to keep her breathing while I felt like I was dying myself and was trying to call 911 was pretty traumatic.
Well I had just gotten the second covid shot a few days before I and my mother managed to get it early due to our work and her age. But I did not lose power. Lost a day of work and basically there was no school not even online school. It was like April 2020 again. Got to see snow for the first time in 5 years
Goddamn dude, that’s horrible. My family went through their own Covid phase but nothing like you’re describing. I know words on the internet ain’t worth shit but I really do hope things are turning out much better for ya right now.
😢😢😢
Fuck. That's really awful.
For future reference you can get canned oxygen from any place that has a pharmacy, and you don’t have to have a script or anything like that. CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Albertsons, etc..
I realize because of the weather at the time that may not have been an option or even a thought.
I’m sorry for what you and your family went through, and I hope they are all okay now.
What i remember most is that senator hopping on the plane and heading to a tropical 🏝 island and leaving us behind to freeze. 13 days without power!
I remember this week so vividly. My parents were both sick & in really bad condition. I honestly thought we weren't going to make it through but we did. & i thank god every day for it. I will however remember the storm the rest of my days.
People who aren’t from Texas don’t understand how bad this really was for us. For a week straight my family at least probably had power for about an hour but for an entire week we had no water or power
Yikes, I'm sure Greg Abbot fixed everything since then, he's a Republican after all and they're known for not being corrupt or incompetent.
my family was stuck without power for 3 days and without water for an entire month
Your right the rest of the country have no idea like any of the northern states. Good luck next week because here it comes again prepare now. And im not trying to scare ya. All weather models are predicting near zero degree windchill by next in about 9 to 10 days.
@@DTS45 Yes, Texas is a hot Southern state, which means we aren't used to harsh cold weathers. We aren't used to roads completely freezing. You being in a Northern state, which are usually colder, means you are used to living in all of those conditions you listed. While us being in southern states, which are usually hotter, are not, our infrastructure is not built for harsh winters, only mild winters, and even then, our homes, pipe etc, still have the risk of freezing over. While i don't believe you mean to, you are being kinda ignorant.
Also, it was essentially life or death, as many people actually did die to the cold weather, 246 People to be exact, as many of them could not handle the cold weather, you are used to. So again you are being kinda ignorant.
@@DTS45 From personal experience, moving around in a car was extremely difficult, as cars would freeze over, and take a few minutes to defrost, and the tires were not built for the snow so it was easy to slip around, and when all was said and done, there were expensive damages to our car that had to be fixed. There were many motor accident related fatalities due to the snow, so trying to get around was also very dangerous. There was case where a women's car broke down on a freeway, and she froze to death because the EMS couldn't get past to snow to get to her, if i remember correctly it took a whole night for the EMS to get to her, and she was unfortunately deceased by then. And while yes learning to drive in the snow is easy, it becomes hard when your vehicle is not built to drive in snow, and when it doesn't snow often enough for you to learn. Roads do freeze over easily because our infrastructure is not built for the cold, or the snow.
I'm disabled and lived in a group home in Texas (specifically, right outside of Fort Worth) when this storm happened. The place I got housing though had ZERO plans for what to do in case of something like this. It was a stroke of sheer luck that I was able to find a cold weather shelter to go to for three days while power was out. My mom was able to arrange a ride for me... while my phone was at 1% battery, the power was out, it was near freezing in the house, and I had no access to food (basically everything I eat is a "take it out of the can and microwave it" kind of thing, because of said disability). The one night I had to spend alone in a freezing house without power was terrifying.
❤❤❤❤
💛 Glad you made it through. Your Mom is awesome.
@@Nice-qi5cf Isn't she? I forgot to mention that she was in Florida at the time (she lives there), so she did all of this from several states away, no less.
The people who blame individual Texans clearly don't understand just how dangerous snow, ice, and sub-freezing temperatures are. At 0C/ 32F, an unprepared person can develop hypothermia and frostbite after 10 minutes and will almost certainly die of exposure after 1 hour. Im from the temperate climate of the Ohio River Valley in Kentucky, so I grew up constantly knowing the dangers of both extreme heat and extreme cold, but only because both of those things were dangerous every year. Texas and much of the American South never experiences extreme cold, so of course they'd be unprepared. Would you expect a beduoin tribe living in the Sinai to know how to prepare for tsunamis? Even if it miraculously was each and every Texans individual fault that this disaster occurred, how does blaming people after the fact help? Would you scold a burn-victim for failing to stop, drop, and roll?
i’m watching this while it’s 4 degrees f in missouri lmao but at least our power grid is equipped to handle that and keep us warm
As someone who lived through the 2011 and 2021 winter storms, this video explains everything so well that it's almost scary thank you! To give you a perspective for just how historically cold this event was, the lowest temperature in the 2011 event was 9 degrees, while in 2021, it was -1 that's how bad it was
Oh yo same! It was absolutely crazy
Yeah, alot of Yankees were amazed at our reactions. At those temps and no heat, people in Buffalo would die!
2011 also had the hottest summer. Texas is very bipolar
@KIM JOHNSON Texans always oversell themselves and undersell everyone else.
@@kenoverbay-baker4653 No matter where they are, you can ALWAYS tell a Texan. You just can't tell us much! 😁
Thank you, Alferia. I nearly watched my dad die 3-4 times over due to stress and poor health during this frozen hell. We lost $500 worth of groceries with our insurance carrier refusing coverage, and just this year's Winter storm reminds me of just how heartless our State's government and execs are when it comes to storms like this.
This was cathartic, again, thank you.
Just put the groceries outside...
@@MetaGuideMedia and let out what little heat the home has trapped in?
@@indieoregano uh... there wasn't much heat if you didn't have power...
@@MetaGuideMedia I know, I lived through it too
@@indieoregano idk that's what I did. Also packed snow in gallon size bags and stuck them in the fridge and freezer.
As a Texans, that was terrifying a lot of people don’t know or don’t realized that Texas homes are not built for extreme cold and how some people in the north was saying stuffed was disgusting and there tune end up changing after they realized the devastation we went through smdh 😢
Lived near the TX coast my entire life. We were warned for 2 weeks the freeze was coming. Yet, people don't prepare. Generators, water, and non-perishable foods are things Texans should have on hand. I'd rather be without electricity when its 17 degrees outside than 117. Hopefully people have learned to always be prepared.
The craziest part about the power outages of snowmageddon was how long some outages typically lasted, like I knew of a neighborhood that didn’t have even a flicker of power for 12 days straight. Those of us that had generators would practically scavenge for gas, and I even saw a few brawls over open pumps. The scariest part of the whole thing wasn’t really covered here, but the massive amounts of ice accumulation absolutely devastated the trees. Here it’s mostly Cedar and Oak, but Cedars have really shallow roots so trees were falling left and right. I knew people who had cedars fall on their cars, as well as someone who had a tree punch a hole into their roof. It was super eerie hearing all the crackling and splintering of falling trees, as the silent and sharp air was constantly pierced by crashes and booms coming from across the neighborhood. This taught me to make sure to trim my trees before winter comes.
You think that was Snowmageddon? In February 2015 I had three-day weekends every week in because of a fresh blizzard sweeping through the area every Sunday night. The snow pile didn't finish melting until late June, and it merited a commemoration ceremony by the city mayor.
@@blackjac5000 It’s not a contest of suffering. This was a “snowmageddon” for Texas due to the complications and unlikely location. There are many places that get more snow or blizzards, but the amount of people put unpreparedly in harms way made this somewhat apocalyptic
@@scrubnoodle It was four inches of snow, and somehow the place was plunged into the Dark Ages over it. The world laughs hysterically at Texas now and forever.
@@blackjac5000 It wasn’t the snow that caused the disaster, so you have a point in the fact that the nickname isn’t very accurate. It was the combination of the power grid, the lack of insulation in Texas homes, the temperatures, and the ice.
@@scrubnoodleTexas really saw the consequences of trying to be the lone star of America by having a power grid disconnected from the rest of the country
As someone from Texas (baytown tx), this was devastating. We didn't have power for DAYS, my town looked like a ghost town for DAYS . I remember we went to help a friend and it was scary that it was dark on our way to our friends house. I almost thought something scary was gonna come out. My mom made sure that my dad was warm due to him being disabled. We honestly thought that it was my dad's last days. Thank goodness he's still alive now, but sadly on his last heart nerve (idk how to say it). At any point he could pass away and as I said we thought this storm was going to take him.
Overall this was so badly managed, I wish our politicians in texas set aside their problems to help their state.
Hey u might want to edit the part out of saying which town u are in you are just doxxed yourself at that point.
Lol you deserved it.
@@TheKracH3adJeff thats not doxxing yourself. I live in dallas. Goodluck finding me after doxxing myself.
@@Lobonova idk man telling people what town or city your living in isn’t the brightest idea.
@@TheKracH3adJeff I understand your concerns, however, wanted to you know from my perspective on how things went in my town. Really vision of the freezing hell we went through. I'm not the only one who named their town. We just want people to hear our stories and in hopes to show people what it's like. Plus Their is 100k + in my town. And in Dallas I would say 1M+ not 100%. This is mostly just to tell our stories rather than trying to get doxxed.
ERCOT in Texas implemented policies similar to PG&E in California. Instead of fixing the litany of issues with their aging grid equipment, they poured billions of dollars into renewable energy projects like wind and solar farms. In California, this has resulted in PG&E equipment causing several massive wildfires that have destroyed huge areas and killed many people. The most shameful part is that instead of taking accountability, these bureaucracies blame their incompetence on climate change and then double down on the wind and solar, allowing their old equipment to remain in service (some of which is over 100 years old) to cause even more death and destruction in the future. This is gross criminal negligence and these people should be in prison.
I still fume with rage when I remember the one asshat on Tiktok that said that we deserved it because we voted Republican. Even if that actually warranted something as horrifying as this, it ignores that our state is heavily gerrymandered and blue votes are suppressed heavily. But even if everyone in the state voted red, it wouldn’t have meant anyone deserved this. No one deserved this.
Thank you for your coverage on this. I'm from San Antonio. We are "preppers" so we were fine with food and water. So were our pets. I also have a medical condition where anything less than 75 degrees is too cold for me and sets off my Raynauds. I keep a stock of Hot Hands on hand so I was able to regulate my temperature and avoid any long term medical issues. We used melted snow to flush our toilets and were able to grill for hot food. When the local Dollar Store opened, my husband tracked a mile down the road to get his beer LOL.
Haha alcoholism will make you walk in snow yay alcoholism.
surviving in the sovereign state of texas is just like on the frontier. the sovereign government of texas is for big oil, by big oil and of big oil. so help me big oil.
Can also speak as someone who is from San Antonio. Most of us had everything prepared, and had 0 issues with the freeze, aside from things out of our control like frozen roads. In fact, our family from Copperas Cove drove down to us because their power went out and had no heating.
An adequate supply of beer is a MUST for any prepper! LoL I don't blame him, I would have done the same hehe 😁😁😁
I also have Raynaud’s and live in SC, for my line of work I keep those Hot Hands in stock just in case. People don’t understand unless they have it. I’m so glad you and your family (pets as well) made it through safe! A little planning goes a long way.
As someone who's from Texas and lived through the storm, thank you for covering this! I was one of the lucky ones in that my power was out for only two days and once it came on it stayed on. However, I didn't have water. I didn't have water for almost a week. I couldn't drink, shower, or use the toilet normally for nearly a week. If I wanted to use my toilet, I needed to scoop snow into my tank enough to flush. If I wanted to wash my hair, I needed to use snow to lather and rinse. I was fortunately warm after two days, but not having water for such a long time was scary and unnatural.
I feel there's a lot of misinformation about this situation, especially for those who live outside of the state, and I appreciate you taking the time to break down *why* this happened as well as the effects of the storm. No one I know got out of this storm unscathed and my friend's dog even perished because of it. It was a scary time for many of us and it's important to get good, accurate information about it out there so that no one has to experience something like this.
P.S. I heard and recognized the Okami soundtrack a few times throughout this video. I see you're a man of culture
I have well water where I'm at, so if your pipes are insulated well enough, you're likely to still have water (unless the inside of your house's insulation has deteriorated). I lost water for a day just because I had one area that got exposed to the cold temps (the small inch around the water shut-off to the house that I couldn't cover up effectively and didn't realize my temp cover had slipped). So I made a wind barrier with plywood to create a pocket, hooked up a space heater set on some bricks, and let it run for half an hour, aimed at the pipe. That little bit of ice that formed in that section melted and boom, I had water again.
It's amazing how little it takes to stop the flow, and how little things you do to prep are necessary. I had rain barrels out there, too, with 55 gallon capacity and figured I might have to chip some ice to get water for flushing toilets. Nope--the WHOLE barrel was a block of ice for days. I'm amazed it didn't split and burst, being made of resin as the thaw started.
I had 0 issues 👍 West Texas.
Thank you for covering this subject. I’m currently writing an essay for government regarding creating a policy proposal. I immediately thought about the Texas Freeze aftermath and how poorly it was dealt with. I still remember clearly I was very young, and for about a week or so, my siblings stayed holed up at the master bathroom with numerous candles burnt. That is all we had as a heat source. We had no generators, warmers, or electric stove. I remember being extremely hungry as we had finished all of our food that was still consumable. I remember my whole family praying in the night especially with the strong winds as we struggled to sleep. I also had to juggle online school which was torture. I always asked my parents what time and day it was, and they just guessed the best they could. It felt like an eternity of being held by my thin blankets piled facing down in the freezing bed. They ended up cancelling school later on as no one had wifi and nothing to charge our devices with.. On one of the days, my dad brought barbecue warm food. I felt my body go into immense happiness and I literally wanted to cry. We all ate it less than seconds. The unimaginable imprints it had left on families and people will be an unforgettable event.
Man I remember this it was torture for about 7 days. No water or power. Nothing. Everyone smelled like complete shit in my house, and we were bored, freezing and starving.
i knew this was an awful disaster but i was not aware of the scale until now, so thank you for making this video. it was honestly painful to hear those people recounting their experiences, i could hear in their voices that it was a terrifying and traumatic thing to go through... this should never be downplayed. the greed and negligence of texas authorities cannot be overstated. it is pure evil and i don't say that lightly. nobody had to die.
Texas listened to the Al Gore "experts"....why winterize if there will be NO MORE COLD OR SNOW! We`re listening to B.S. here. Is Los Angeles winterized for the snow THEY just had? Nobody expected OVER 50 FEET of snow in California! LOL! Why? Because they were LIED TO....just like Texas. I know the actual facts about this.
I was a resident in that state for thirty years of my life. The officials, especially in my city government were corrupt as all hell. They also controlled the power company and had rates that were nuts. The west half of the city had power, the rest we got left out.
Ngl I live in San Antonio never lost power and overall had a good time. I probably just lucked out tho 😅
@@-____________________- i mean, yeah, the video did explain how a lot of deaths were caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. why do you think that happened? did people poison themselves for fun? no, it was a side effect of the ONLY method available for keeping warm. people lost power and/or did not have adequate heating systems. would you rather die from hypothermia or carbon monoxide? not a fun choice to make. and sadly, some of those people probably didn't know that using cars or other machines for warmth would poison them. they were just trying to survive. cold temperatures are deadly.
@@pablogarcia6188 i'm glad you were spared my dude 👍
I’m a Texan, south of Houston. luckily I was ready for this. Had my own back up power, food and water, the basics from my hurricane kit. Lost power for 4 days. Most people in my community were not ready for this and it was sad to see some that died. Yes we are in the deep south but prepare for anything. Don’t forget, Houston was just coming back from Hurricane Harvey too. All I can say, people in charge completely dropped the ball on this one.
Smart man.
Well, it wasn't just the government... because this same issue happened during 2011 if my memory serves and public enthusiasm for spending the money on Winter mitigation procedures for future events like this seems to have vanished, thus preventing winterization work from continuing...
Yet people keep voting them in.
So people just sat in their cold, dark homes and perished? Natural selection at it's finest.
They not only dropped but absolutely fumbled and destroyed the ball with how many lives they allowed to pass away.
No tap water, no heat, and no cell service was insaaane. Everyone would have one but not the other.
I'm a truck driver from Texas. The day before the pile up happened, an overnight dispatcher, not mine, tried to force me on a load that would've put me on that exact expressway just about the exact time it happened in Fort Worth. With the storm approaching I knew I had to get out of there. Luckily the Texas supervisor let me drive home, shout out to Brandon, he may have saved my life! After that, my apartment lost power for 4 days and water for 3. Luckily we had food and even cooked some of it in my truck. Still, it was pretty much a week-long nightmare. Ben, the worm who tried to risk my life, you're a garbage human.
I'm from San Antonio. At the time I was working at a very abusive hotel workplace. I was very numb and close to considering dark thoughts. When the snowstorm hit. It snapped me out of my mental funk. However, the snowstorm was worse than people imagined. My then boss was like don't book any rooms or let anyone in and your in charge of the hotel for the night, ALONE cuz I can make it and the 2 housekeepers cant. I knew we were booked but we had running water and warmth and food. Id secretly let people in who needed gallons of water refilled, something warm to drink, or just hang out in the lobby for warmth until the other hotels nearby have rooms. I never told my boss and never got in trouble. I left that place a month after the storm cuz i needed to more paychecks to gtfo. I couldn't reject people for help despite my hotel workplace being fully booked. Happy to announce when my bosses leaders found out of his abusive practices on me and others in our hotel, he got fired and I like to think, charged. Get bent Ernest!
As someone from Michigan I empathize with everyone that went through this storm. It's a common occurrence for me but it requires an entire change of mindset once the snow falls.
Not just a mindset; we also don't have any infrastructure to support or keep us safe. And you just know that ERCOT didn't do a damn thing to fix anything. Why would they? They got to charge us extra for their f up. Even killed people.
There are more people living in Texas originally from the Midwest and the Northeast US than you could ever imagine. Many of them know how to drive on ice and snow. Many people outside the state think than there are Native Texans adults are a majority of residents of the large cities. They are not.
@@lisasdfwhightechworld9946 Yep. My great Aunt and Uncle moved to Houston from Iowa and when they lost power, they just took it in stride.
@@Robynhoodlum As a native Texan I have to say I experienced blackouts a lot, I remember my first one when I was a toddler and my last one, this particular freeze. It honestly felt like weathering out a hurricane. I have been lucky to have never had much damage to my home for any natural disaster we'd had, I enjoyed the novelty of snow as much as I could, even let my cat try it out. The most shocking thing about it for me was what happened to other people who tragically lost their lives.
@@lisasdfwhightechworld9946 yeah and they were the ones who had the most trouble adapting back in the 2011 heatwave and drought while native Texans been through that Rodeo before. 10 years later the shoe was on the other foot
16:31 surprise xenoblade 2 orbital ring music
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Uploader has good music taste, those two OSTs are amazing
I was working down in Texas at the time the weather hit and I'm still so angry at how incompetently handled literally everything was. Without going into too many personal details, I worked an essential job that NEEDED to be active during the winter storm, but we also weren't prepared for winter weather or for rolling blackouts. There were just literally DAYS where I'd show up for work just to sit huddled in a blanket in a pitch black room with everyone else while the IT crew scrambled to find a way to get our generator to work.And we were lucky nobody we knew personally died and that we were able to stay warm enough in the first place.
I lived in Houston for 10 years, lived through several hurricanes - including Harvey - but the winter storm of 2021 was too much. Made plans to leave Texas, and I got out the next year. That winter storm was the final straw.
And people want Texas to withdraw from the USA?
Good for you. Texas should be its own country
@@hahaimatree8343 That would be funny to see
I'm eastward of Houston proper, but on the very edge of the metroplex on somewhat higher ground than a good chunk of what affected folks in Harvey (stranded b/c of the roads, home was fine in that). I got this new manufactured home in 2018 and got wind zone 2 protection (better insulation and more sturdy protection in winds). They told me where I was that didn't quite need the upgrade b/c of previous storms. I told them we hadn't had a direct hit over my house, either. They laughed and built it to spec.
Think that extra insulation was a huge help. I covered the bird cages with thick blankets and moved them away from the windows and kept them covered (except my living room window a little bit). Had the fireplace going and some space heaters. We did lose some power on occasion, but not for days on end. Mostly where we were, the power was being redirected for emergency services, so I would go to my car and charge my phone and get updates when the charge was low in those times. Had an emergency radio going the whole time. We lucked out in my neck of the woods, but I had some dogs that needed to pee and used that chance to exercise them and check on neighbors. We were okay, just cold, but so many others had it far worse. I can understand why Galveston folks were super pissed off--they were completely cut off for days on end and folks were dying.
And Texas has a very serious problem frfr
I was attending Texas Tech when this occurred, the campus was practically brought to a standstill. It was also the first time I ever experienced 0 degrees F. Wild stuff.
Mind you, it absolutely can get cold in northern Texas (below 30F temps plus high winds is not fun), but this truly was another level of cold. Thankfully we didn’t lose power.
I'm from and living in Michigan it's -6 rn lol
(If anyone misunderstands this comment I'm not being a dick)
that school called me and begged me to apply but i harshly declined bc i felt that it was insensitive to ask for applications during a literal winter storm that knocked out my power and i had to heat myself in my car
I remember watching this happen from MN, where I don't think it got much above 0 that whole week and there were mornings at -30. I was just baffled that an entire region could be so thoroughly brought to its knees by a taste of winter
Yeah, it does get cold in northern Texas... My parents were raised in the panhandle and I spent some years in North Central Texas...and it definitely got cold. However, my dad left Wichita Falls, where this is pretty normal, and moved to the balmy city of Victoria. Oops. We were prepared for it in Wichita Falls, a cord of firewood and stored food just in case, but he was definitely not prepared in Victoria when this hit.
@@ebnertra0004 As someone who lived for years in Wisconsin, but have Texan parents and spent time there as well... This is what I tell people: My village in Wisconsin, population 827...had three snow plows, which was one more than the entire county I lived in when I was in Texas (population 130k), and one of those two was on permanent station at the airport. And this was in north central Texas. This particular storm went way far south of that.
Im from Wisconsin and I learned first hand how little Texans know about the cold during our vacation to Arlington this year in January. It was icy out and our uber driver was driving like it was a hot summers day, nearly sliding into the median repeatedly. All of us northerners in the car were just gripping the seat as I was like "Do you guys have snow plows down here at all to de-ice the road?" "Do you have winter tires" My driver laughed it off. We get bad accidents every year on our interstates, and most people will spin out on ice at minimum once in their life. Drive slow, for the love of god when the ground is ice.
Don't forget earning to steer into the skid!