Emotional Brit Reacts to "The INFAMOUS Texas Deep Freeze 2021"
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- This was heart-breaking to watch, so many lives lost & others changed forever, today i am reacting to the The INFAMOUS Texas Deep Freeze 2021.
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3 days of a living nightmare.
I live in south texas. El Campo TX to be exact. My wife was pregnant with what is my 3 year old now. I had a 5 bedroom house and lost power that Monday. We didn’t get power until that Friday. My generator wouldn’t work so we had no power. I had my wife and step daughter sleep in our car with the heater on and me then 12 yr old step son slept in our house living room floor with five blankets
and 3 jackets on. I had to grill every day to cook food. It was really really bad. Prepared now. When Hurricane Beryl came through last month I have a generator to power up my house and we were good. Never making that mistake again
@@donnabertDonna I will check now!
@@keynanmartinez oh no it was not three days that’s just for some places most places it was about a month
In another horrible Texas tragedy, Not too many years ago there was horrible flooding during a hurricane. A woman in an office building realized the parking lot was flooding. She got in the elevator to the ground floor. The water at that point was deeper than the elevator car, which shorted out and flooded. You can guess the result.
I am a lifelong Texan. This was a brutal, brutal winter storm. Temperatures stayed below freezing for days. We didn't lose power, but many in San Antonio did. And traveling by car was absolutely impossible. But we survived, thank God. But it was horrible.
As an OTR refrigerated trucker I got caught up in the ice storm that hit the New Orleans area in Jan '18.
I had three deliveries in L.A. and Mississippi, I was on time for the first delivery, I had to wait for the employees to show up, after that they closed the roads due to the areas inability to cope with the weather.
It didn't phase me in the least as I'm a Michigander and know what winter is.
It took a few days for them to open the roads up, I had a parking spot so I was fine.
As a lifelong New Englander, I want personally to apologize on behalf of all of us for all of the times that there was ever a meme or social media post mocking the south for not being able to handle a bad winter. Even we are not prepared sometimes, just as what happened in NY just a year later during the massive ice storm in 2022. There's nothing funny or lightheartedly about being stranded or caught in bad winter weather.
Texan here, we were really lucky, we were on the same electric grid as a hospital, so we weren't getting as much throttling. My brother's family on the other hand had no power for days, and young children. They were fortunate that they had switched to a fully electric car with a built in solar, so they were able to warm up every once in awhile.
Lived in SA when this happened. The night the power went out, I had food poisoning and was in really bad shape. I remember the power switching on and off and just getting colder as I went in and out of consciousness. My family wanted to take me to the ER, but were so concerned nothing would be functional. We’re from CO originally, but had never experienced anything like that.
I remember being so dehydrated once I had stopped vomiting, but the water wasn’t safe to drink and I felt so helpless. My husband went to the HEB, and all the fresh water was gone, so he just grabbed anything he could with a water content. I rehydrated on almond milk.
We ultimately didn’t have power for 4 days, and didn’t have drinking water for 3. The only thing that got us through was our gas stove.
@@hannahbanana7126 This is why SA has been overloading with those huge gallon jugs that have the carrier handle, to make sure that at least people have water in case this happens again. Recently we had cold, like strange cold, late august and like the first 7 days of september. The worry is that this might be a tell for another freeze like before. So we're stocking up again on water, cans, dry goods and tons of firewood for us up here in Helotes. Living on a mountain was not fun for those days without electricity. I'm glad you got through this, I hope it never happens again for you as well.
Texan here. News told us to keep the water off, and as a result, many people's pipes burst from the water icing up. My mom's from up north, so we were relatively fine and kept the taps running. We didnt have any good insulation on the side of the house with the kids' rooms, so mom got all of us to sleep in the master bedroom. Me and my brother were the only kids out of 8 to stay in our rooms with 5 or so blankets each. We werent aware of what was going on outside our neighborhood, so we took advantage to no one driving and made up a game. We'd chuck a water bottle outside and then kick it up and down the street like soccer, and try to catch it without slipping
I was without electricity and water for 5 days. Put on my ski clothes, dug a latrine in the backyard, and lived on bottled water and non perishables.
Same and had no hot water, only blessed our pipes were okay
Man yall are so lucky I lost power for about a month
I stay in East Texas and my city is run by swepco and we didn’t lose power but we got 10 inches or more of snow and ice, my sister’s cars were halfway submerged in snow. I had to literally dig their cars out of snow with snow accumulated on the top and sides of their cars. After that first day some of the snow melted and it sleeted and by the next day it was 4 inches of ice on top of snow. The temperature in my city got as low as -6 degrees and wind chill was almost -20. It took 9 days for it to get above freezing and 3 weeks for all the snow and ice to leave
Had no power for 4 days and also had to go back and forth to my elderly mom's apartment across town by car to check on her and she had just come home from a skilled nursing facility after having had a stage 3 heart attack the day before Christmas. She is still kicking at 84 and the only bad thing is she is still addicted to shopping....LOL I lived in Breckenridge TX and hour east of Abilene TX.
That was us as well, we had a fire pit outside that we used to grill the meat on, and used it to melt snow for water for the dogs. It was pretty bad. My family and i just treated it like a week long camping trip
As my name might imply, I'm from Texas. Thanks to this event, any time it starts to snow, I start to silently panic and lose focus and sleep. For someone who loves the cold, I never expected a snow event to leave me with PTSD. And then some time later, two years ago, winter cold busted a pipe and flooded my house. Happened again last year and caused a power outage for a day or two that time because the water soaked into the walls and hit some wires. Now it's not just snow anymore, it's any time it gets near or below freezing I start getting intense paranoia and all the other symptoms. I still enjoy the cold and will always take it over the heat, but past a certain threshold and I become an absolute wreck, don't even feel like the same person. Had a series of bad winters nearly ruin my life and change me as a person. I have no doubt in my mind that our pipes will freeze and flood the house again this year and I'm dreading the possibility that it might do some actual damage to this already falling apart house that we can't afford to maintain as it is.
Absolutely crazy. I'm in north Austin and we were all wholly unprepared. Without snow removal equipment, everything shut down. Power out for most people. Many without fresh water. I was very lucky and had both. We hosted about 8 people who had nowhere to go because pipes froze in their homes and they got flooded out. It's amazing how quickly things can spiral out of control.
Glad you're okay!
I was in north austin too!! I was super lucky and happened to be on an emergency grid and never lost power. i spent the whole week filled with anxiety i'd lose power. def ptsd from this event lol
Awesome to know that there are still people like you in the world willing to open your heart and home to others in need. Crises are trials that can bring out the best and worst in people. Bless you. ♥
I was in Killeen. I didn't know what to do with frozen weather, we didn't have cold weather in Africa and Texas doesn't get that cold. roommate knew to keep the faucet dripping
@@jaseaustin991my job and my home and my job never lost power
I'm from Austin, Texas. I lived through this. I was dealing with a toxic household. My grandparents who raised me were very toxic. I lasted four hours without power with them. The last thing my grandmother said is if you don't like the abuse then leave, so I left barefoot, no jacket, just the clothes on my back and never moved back in. Now I live 1,800 miles away in Pennsylvania. I walked to my boyfriend at the time, house. They let me stay and my boyfriends dad used a power converter and solar panels to create enough power for us to have light in the living room and charge our phones. We used the gas oven for heat with ventilation holes created so we wouldn't die of Carbon Monoxide. This lasted for about a week. All the stores were picked over, and out of power. No one knew how to drive on icy roads. It was bad.
I’m glad you’re ok, that sounds like a very traumatic experience.
I lived through this in Houston TX. The first day of the storm was great. Everyone was in good spirits because we do not get snow. Kids were out playing around, it was just a good time UNTIL the power went out. That is when sh*t got real, real fast. Immediately everything in the city just shut down because no one could operate without power. There were brown outs, there were black outs, and then there was just nothing.
I was hunkered down with my parents, and it felt like in our house, that we were physically just sitting outside in the snow. We were huddled for warmth, we had every piece of clothing and blanket wrapped around us but it was mind numbingly cold. We were so scared the pipes would freeze, so we had to drip water through them and thank god we did, because they would have frozen over and ruined our plumbing.
During the night, my aunt got power back, and we left immediately to her house for warmth, but at 3am she lost power and again, we were freezing all of us indoors.
People were literally dying in this storm especially those homeless or elderly or those who were forced ot try to run space heaters, candles, burn fires, and generators that got out of hand.
This storm was one of the few times in my life I genuinely feared for my life and the lives of my family members. Now thanks to this storm and subsequent hurricanes that have knocked out power, we don't trust our power grid, at all in emergency times. Just about everyone I know is buying generators or power stations to have some power in case of storms.
It took a couple days for power to be restored to the city, but by then the damage was done and how. Many people had pipes burst and destroy parts of their property, the deaths, the damage out on the icey roads. Yeah, not a fun memory at all from what started out as one.
I lived a little North of Houston back in the winter of '89. Only a 1/2" of snow and freezing temps shut the city down, all the pipes were frozen, power was out, but they recovered quickly. I had hoped that they would really overhaul the entire system so it wouldn't happen again.
@ArleneAdkinsZell Here in lies the fundamental problem...We are hot 9 months of the year. From a funding or expense rationale, it doesn't make sense on their end to spend billions overhauling a system for a major winter storm that comes (to my knowledge thus far) thrice in my lifetime over decades. So they are literally just *hoping for the best * and that no one has noticed. Guess what, when people are freezing to death...they notice!!!! By then, its far too late.
Same issue with hurricane preparedness---the city has only ever had a few *the big ones * so again, from a funding perspective putting something up on a ballot in late Fall here when the weather is less hot and relatively nice and asking if people want to spend a couple billion to shore up storm infrastructure to protect against furture storms, is not getting the votes. Now though, at least in regards to Ercot, there feet were put to the fire and now legally have had to make changes, and at least from what I can see after hurricane Beryl that just happened, Centerpoint energy is following through with what changes they promised thus far, but it may be too little to late for this year if we get another storm because it will take years to do what they need to do to shore up the system.
Lived in Houston 12 years. What's worse, is the water pipes and often the water heater are up in the attic.Not the case up north? When it thaws, water causes massive damage to the house, sooner if it doesn't freeze.I'm back up north. We have the water heater and pipes in the basement. Don't Mess With Texas.
Same here in N. Houston (Conroe). But after freezing for a day we got lucky and booked a hotel room with power in College Station and drove there since we had kids. Although we left the faucets dripping, the pipes and insulation can't handle that cold. The pipes above our garage froze then burst and the ceiling caved in. The Tx electrical grid can't handle anything. The cat 1 hurricane that just hit us in July left us without power for 6 days and we were lucky we got it back that quick. Temps were over 100. Many people in Houston didn't get power back until August. The gas stations with power sold out of gas and the gas stations without power were full.
@@woods2587 I worked for HL&P as a fleet mechanic while I lived in Houston, Pearland, and Kemah.
Yes, Texan born and raised, went out in the weather to get my elderly gma who lived in a house without proper heating. We were out of power for 8 days, idk how to convert temps, but it was negative F° INDOORS WITH A FIRE GOING 24/7. Using cars to charge phones, cooking canned food in the fireplace, wearing all the pants, shirts, jackets and blankets possible on
Texas still ain't ready for something like this again.
Really wasn't that bad in my area. No power, no problem. More people should learn how to live without power. Being self sufficient is priceless.
The elderly and disabled are nothing but jokes to you aren’t they? You realize it’s about more than having no electricity right? Or you to busy trying to prove your better to realize people have different needs and problems to care?
@@gabrielf1911 what an insensitive thing to say when you know nothing about what some people went through....
Just like beryl.
@@gabrielf1911. Please go back under your rock, or learn to show some common courtesy. Either is better than your attitude as displayed here.
Bro! I lived through this one! As soon as they said there may be rolling blackouts ... the power went out for 4 days. Everything became like the movie The Day After Tomorrow. We have propane space heaters around the house we could sit in front. I can't imagine what it was like for people that heat with electricity. The actual temp in our house got down to 46 F, in the dark, no hot water, stove, lights, microwave, internet, or tv to keep updated. Of course when things thawed out we had to replace all of our pipes, they cracked too. Gave me slight PTSD now when they call for ice storms. But, we live on, people had it worse than we did. Prayers for those victims.
Now you southerners understand what we go through every winter up north lol 😂
@@dacrosber Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota, I know northern winters! It's funny though, I don't remember any power outages during the winter up there. Probably were a few, just not in my memory banks.
@@txlady1049 I’m from Wisconsin and I’ve personally never had any in my life although I’m only 24
There was a time only like 5 years ago though where it got down to negative 60 degrees Fahrenheit (with windchill) I think it was -30 Fahrenheit without wind lol 😂
Glad you are okay man!
You should have turned off your water and drained your pipes. In MN when I leave my house for a few day in the winter I do this in case the furnace would go out. Every homeowner shoukd know how to turn off the water main.
There were many things not mentioned. ERCOT, the commercial agency responsible for managing the power distribution system, was actually in MICHIGAN and had already been heavily criticised for incomplete or badly flawed emergency plans. At the start of the emergency, ERCOT actually BLOCKED emergency efforts by local governments and utilities.ERCOT repeatedly ignored sound recommendations by local experts. There were numerous occasions when heroic work crews were able to bring power plants and substations on line to restore electricty ahead of schedule, only to be blocked from doing so. Note, I am in Texas and lived through this.
I live in a suburb of Dallas about 30 miles from where that 133 car pileup happened. Lots of neighborhoods around here lost power, but somehow I got lucky, and my neighborhood never lost power. From what I was hearing, the company that was paid to de-ice the roads in the Fort Worth area didn't do what they were paid to do. The roads near my place were properly de-iced, and the highways were driveable.
I live outside of a small town 60 miles east of Dallas Texas. We have a small generator and we are on a well. I live on 100 acres of farm and ranch land. My two children live on the land with their families. We also live very near to several large dairies and as you know, cattle is king in Texas. Our electricity was sporadic during this time. We invited family and friends to our house. We have a wood burning fireplace in our house so heat was taken care of. Cooking was done on grills outside. Our horses stayed in the barn with hay and grain in generous proportions. Feral cats were kept warm with propane heaters. Chickens were kept warm with heat lamps. We divided the electricity generated by generator between animals and humans. We had no water. Purina brought in feed free to distribute to starving animals. Brookshire’s, a local grocery chain, did their best to offer food to animals and humans. It was not easy but my small town did their best. The electrical grid remains inadequate in winter and summer. We lived through it but mourn those who did not. It was a very rough time.
I think small towns and cities will do better than large cities and metropolises since the people who live in those areas (especially rural areas) are more self-reliant and know how to take care of themselves when the "luxuries" of life go to hell.
@mortimerbrewster3671 yeah, I'm in OK, and during that storm, we did ok, but we lost power. The same happened in 2000/2001 during that ice storm. We didn't have power 11 days that time. Luckily, in a rural area, we got through.
I live in Texas with my husband and 2 children. I was born up north and knew about ways to stay warm when it’s cold. I also study weather and knew this was coming and tried to warn as many people as I could about how bad this was going to be. Unfortunately it’s hard to explain HOW cold this kind of cold is to people who have never experienced temperatures like that. They listened to me but underestimated my words.
Our houses rate designed to keep the heat OUT not IN. Most people here own a medium weight jacket at most. Where I’m from we all had snow pants, snow boots, jackets and snow gloves for temperatures like this. We don’t have snow plows and when de-icing the roads, we only have enough for the major streets and highways. Our building structures are also not designed to handle the weight of ice and snow on roofs. So things were collapsing. ABSOLUTELY unprepared!!!
Somehow (still not sure how) we managed to keep power the entire time!! We lost our water a couple days in but still had a trickle coming out of the faucet. Fortunately it allowed us to fill pots with water to boil so we could cook and drink and wash dishes. I had ALL doors and windows covered with thick blankets.
My husband had a large pickup truck with 4 wheel drive and as we saw peoples stories on Facebook, my husband would go pick them up and bring them back to the house to warm up and have warm food. He picked up a few heath care workers and took them to the hospital to work their shifts.
Our family faired better than so many but then, after the weather was over, the water problems continued and the food shortage was scary. The trucks that carry our food shipments couldn’t get through because of the roads. All of the grocery stores being without power for so long caused all perishable food to go bad. There was seriously no food!! Not in the city, not in a nearby town…..nothing. They were showing on the news a loooooong line of truck with our food waiting on the side of the highway to get food and water to us. Then as people were trying to repair the damages from things that collapsed and pipes that had burst, we had a shortage of materials needed for the repairs 🙄. It took weeks for things to get back to normal. I will NEVER forget it.
I am an ICU RN and this was a terrible winter because remember we still had COVID going on bro! I was pretty much working 24 hour shifts on all the units throughout the hospital. I lived in the hospital because my hotel was flooded and I couldn’t get home. I drive a big 4x4 truck. It was -12 to -15°F in DFW at the hospital with 12” of snow/ice. We were having to warm people up to declare them dead. It was a really sad time bro.
However, as bad as it was I saw some of the greatest examples of community and humanitarianism. Us Texans stick together through terrible times. I saw people checking on each other, strangers sharing their homes, and people actually loving each other. That was the silver lining during this time.
As an OTR trucker I'd have to call B.S. on the -15°f in Texas, those are N.D. Temps
@@RiverRatWA57 DFW native here, it definitely got to -15 F during this storm.
@@apatheticwraith was that the Actual temperature or was that the windchill???
There is a difference, I drove for a trucking company based in Fargo and it was -24°f and I was out walking the dogs around the truckstop in shorts, what's the big deal??
@@RiverRatWA57 windchill was below -30 at night. think the actual temps were closer to -10 to -12.
@@hairbarnes530 I know that it got colder than you are used to but I doubt that it got that cold.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_13%E2%80%9317,_2021_North_American_winter_storm
Im now a U.S resident, but in 2021 i was still going through the immigration process. The day of the freeze, I had an appointment in the Houston office for fingerprints. Since the appointment was first thing in the morning, my mom and I drove 4 hours (We came from Corpus) and stayed in a nearby hotel the day before. We heard the weather was going to be bad, but since the office hadnt canceled the appointment, we took the risk.
That night the hotel lost power, pipes froze, we didnt have proper clothes, no food, and we were stuck away from family and from home.
My mom drove her tiny old car with no working heater through the snow/ice to my appointment. We were sliding on the ice, probably going 5mph. By the time we got there, there were like 7 other people freezing waiting outside the office for their appointment. The office never opened, so we all lost our appointments regardless 😅.
My mom and i ended up leaving and driving around for like 2 hours until we found a gasstation that was still selling food. We shared a pizza with our hotel neighbour (The sweetest lady. We are still in contact), packed our stuff, and somehow drove all the way back home that day.
This was our first time experiencing ice/snow, much less driving uphill on the highway through it. 🫠. My mom's hands felt like ice bcs as i said, we had no heater, and she had no gloves. The car stalled like 3 times bcs ig it couldnt handle the temp.
Somehow we made it to Refugio with the last whisps of gas (No other gasstation on the way had working pumps), refueled, and finally made it home.
Ill never forget that Texas freeze 🫠🙃
I’m from Dallas. It was terrible. We had no power for 5 days, and on the last day, no water because our pipes froze. It was 39 degrees inside the house. Outside, it was between -2 and 15 degrees. We had to huddle up and eat any canned food we had. I had to store my frozen and cold food on the patio because it was so chilly out there.
I remember back to these excruciating 7-9 days every year, especially when I start to feel the temperature in Texas is getting colder as fall and winter come. Everything was fun the 1st couple of days as snow was falling from the sky in Texas. Everyone was so excited because it’s never snowed in the North Eastern/ Southern West part of Texas! The last time it probably snowed was when I was in 6th grade (middle school) and I was around the age of (11-12) and I’m currently 22 years old so it was a decade ago. But back to the storm. I remember when my mom told me to turn all the tabs in the house to leak water so the pipes won’t burst and that we would have water. We would find any candles/Flashlights/Batteries in case the power went out. Which it did, but before that had happened we would have 4 huge buckets that you would get a Home Depot and fill them to the brim with water and then boil them to get rid of any germs/bacteria and for it to be hot/warm enough to cook/bathe with it. And we did this for about 2 days since our heating went out, but on the 3rd or 4th day everything went out. I remember hearing my siblings calling me from the 1st floor of our house saying “Alice! The WiFi is not working!” And I said “Yeah I know! It’s because the power went out!” And I just remember my mother being scared/worried for her kids/pets/ and her 4yr old grand daughter. It was one of the most harshest Winters I ever dealt with in my life. The amount of warnings I would see on social media warning all of us Texans wasn’t enough to convince anyone to get what we needed until it was too late. The amount of THICK MEXICAN BLANKETS my mothered own is what saved us all from getting Hypothermia. This was one of the times I was truly grateful of having a Mexican Mother 😂 and myself for never wanting to throw away blankets/pillows. My Mother, Myself and my 3 other siblings, my niece, and 2 chihuahuas, and 2 birds were all inside with a blanket. (The birds had a thick blanket over their cage just enough where they wouldn’t suffocate) I remember stepping outside to see how bad the weather was it was 11 pm I think where the snow was really coming down and I would hear the windows in our house raffle from the harsh winds then suddenly I hear something hard hit the roof (my room is on the 2nd floor and my room had a window where you can climb out of it to go on the roof) so then I pulled my curtain to look outside the window and saw hail and immediately went downstairs to tell my mom and older sister that there is hail outside. So then we put on our boots and thick coats and ran outside to get our tarps and cover our 2 cars with them so they wouldn’t get damaged. Thankfully in the morning it had not damaged anything. But there was Black Ice on the roads/streets, trees from the harsh winds were pulled out of the ground block streets, streetlights were hanging on from wires and power lines were broken from trees knocking them down. Everyone and their families and friends were all trying to leave their homes to get more supplies just ended up in disasters. People slipping from the ice on the roads, car accidents were happening left and right. And the most hardest part was having to walk outside (12 degrees Fahrenheit) to walk to a local supermarket or gas station or just to check on the pipes and their property to see if there was any damage. Everything just wasn’t ok, we were worried about when the power would come back on. It had been already 7 days and nothing was going right. We just had to wait it out. It had finally ended the sun was bright and melted all the ice and snow but that’s when the pipes would start to burst but luckily we had a plumber to come and help us out. Everything turned backed on! WiFi! Heating! Electricity! We could finally flush the toilets 🚽 🤢 and take a shower after several days unable to since there was so many of us 🛁. But now that it’s been more than 2 years since then we’ve been prepared for every upcoming hurricane/ tornado/ cold front heading towards us!!!
And if you’ve read this far…. Thanks for reading!😊
I'm from Minnesota, and we have to be prepared for -40 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. We get it all lately. Texas has its own power grid separate from the rest of the United States. It was such a sad and heart breaking situation. Texas was totally not prepared for this type of weather. Hopefully they will be prepared going forward.
Ikr? Not from Minnesota but another northern state. People scoff at building homes the right way then are like there was no way to be prepared for this, our houses are built for the heat. They say that like it doesn't get hot here. It was 100 today. We get extreme heat AND extreme cold and survive just fine. This is not the first time its happened in Texas and, with their extreme hubris, it won't be the last.
@@joseherrera8489from Ohio, moved to Dallas in 2012. Had 5 days without power. Was fine.
Spoiler alert: we're still not.
@@drummermoe yep. Even though its been years since the freeze, our electric grid failed terrible during hurricane beryl. It was only suppose to be a smaller hurricane yet our providers and government never got preparing for it or upgraded and repaired the grid since then, and we lost more electricity in a category 2 then when category 4 hurricane ike hit. Iv lost all trust in our grid, the providers, and the government in making sure we don't lose our most valuable source of energy in times of emergency
The problem in Texas was largely because it was such a rare event for us. A normal winter for us is scattered days of weather dropping slightly below freezing. Usually it only drops below freezing at night then warms up during the day. If it stays below freezing for multiple days, it lasts about two to three at most.
While we don't get nearly as cold as the northern states. When it happens so little, it has a big effect. Just like we are used to 30+ days every summer with temps above 100, but a week of 80+ weather in Chicago is considered a massive heat wave.
On top of that. Because of the size of Texas it is rare for weather to be anywhere near the same across the entire state. Amarillo could be well below freezing and have near white out conditions, while Houston could be sunny in the 60s or even higher. The statewide power grid can easily handle that However, this storm put almost every square mile of the state to single digit weather for almost two weeks straight. A once in 25-50 years occurrence, if even that often. The cities just don't invest in the infrastructure to fight something like that.
Texas still should have been better prepared. At the very least there should have been an emergency plan in place with surrounding states in the event of a statewide failure. But at the same time, I can see why no one here truly expected it to happen.
Also, as bad as the reports are. Many people think the ENTIRE state went dark. I live just outside of Dallas. We never lost power and tons of other people didn't either, although I had several neighbors and family who did. I am not trying to lessen the impact, just letting people know that it actually could have been so much worse.
Adam, this video just popped up on my feed. I was born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast. I grew up watching hurricanes out our bedroom windows and thinking if this is the worse that I ever had to deal with weather wise I was lucky. We get warning that hurricanes are coming and can evacuate. This polar vortex kicked our asses. I live in a 4 bedroom brick house that is thoroughly insulated. We have a fireplace that has never been used because we've never needed it so we've never had it cleaned or serviced. Also, our house is fully electric, we have no natural gas lines running into our subdivision. For days my husband, son and I along with our 3 dogs were huddled into one room with doors shut to conserve heat. I wore 5 layers of clothes in my dining room. By the grace of God it never got below 40 degrees Fahrenheit inside the house and 17 outside. We were without power for over 30 hours. Thankfully our pipes held during the thawing process. We weren't so lucky at my mom's house that was empty. She had 5 pipes burst inside her house. We had to completely gut the kitchen and front bath and 2 other rooms lost their flooring and 3 foot of wall due to water damage. Anytime it freezes now I get PTSD and can't sleep because of the fear of pipes bursting or losing power. The Texas electric infrastructure failed us and cost way to many their lives.
Hi. Yes, I live in Texas and that time was intense. I worked at a Mental Health Crisis Center and it all started going south for us when a Client came in and said that the shower wasn't working. We knew then that the underground pipes had burst, but we didn't know where. We made the calls we needed and got the clearance to evacuate everyone, only that took time. From the time the pipes burst to the time we left was roughly 3 hours and the storm was getting worse by the minute. We ended up taking all the Clients to a hotel, the only one we could get to that was available (in a shady part of town) and we got everyone as settled as we could. We then realized that we didn't really have any way to cook food and we had only grabbed some snacks, not realizing that food wouldn't be available. The hotel had no cook as they were trapped at home and of course, no one was delivering. It was too dangerous to go out, so we sat and looked at each other with a growing sense of panic. We called one of the night crew with a truck and he agreed to come in and pick up some gas station food on the way, so that was our dinner. Whatever was left over became our breakfast. All in all, I spent Saturday morning until Monday night at work in a shady hotel with flickering power, no food and scared/ upset Clients who were struggling through a mental health crisis while on the phone with the everyone who might have a way to help and trying to figure out what to do. When I finally got home the power was out for days at a time and again, there wasn't enough food to last, but getting to a store was nearly impossible. The power would come on for a couple of minutes, then go back off again, just teasing us it seemed. It was so cold.
It was awful. I’m north of Houston in a rural area. Icy roads no power for days and days. Snow is not something south Texas gets often. People using grills indoors to try and warmup was far more common than I would’ve ever imagined. I stayed under blankets with my dog to stay warm. When we finally got power back I found out every waterline in my house where burst. Took another 2 weeks to fix to get running water again. I was extremely lucky that was all I had to deal with I am very grateful for that. Some of my neighbors and many many other people suffered so much worse.
Arkansas here. We were all pretty much shut down for 4 or 5 days. Luckily for us, we didn't lose water but we did lose power. We're big on hunting so we had some propane heaters we use in our deer stands. We slept in the living room with those going, the doors shut/covered, pinned blankets up over the windows to keep the cold out. We had plenty of canned food put up and a gas stove, so we made it but it was rough. We bought a generator after that and now I just refuse to own any vehicle that isn't 4 wheel drive. My husband and I both have elderly parents who were left with no lights/heat in very rural areas, and that was the scariest thing to me.
Precious animals Blessing of Love and Light and to all that Passed away, Rest in Eternal Peace.
Fort Worth Texan here, I was 21 years old and bed ridden with COVID when the storms hit, we lost power and my family gathered in the living room with blankets and the fire place and I was quarantined in my room. I woke up shivering harder than I can even explain, my face was hurting so bad and I'd lost feeling in my nose completely, I turned on my flash light and I'm not exaggerating when I say I could see my breath inside my room, I had no energy to do anything but put my head under the covers and try to keep warm, I couldn't even call for my family for help or another blanket, the next day my mother said she could barely wake me up, my skin was ice cold and I don't remember a single thing for almost 10 days after, all I did was sleep, occasionally drink water, and use the restroom. I'm thankful my family and I survived knowing so many didn't.
I’m from Northeast Texas near Texarkana. I remember my car being covered in nearly two feet of snow as well as working to make sure none of my live stock froze to death. The power went out, but i don’t remember the exact amount of time, but it was at least a couple of days. My dad was deemed essential personnel and had to go to work and he nearly went into the ditch off the road because the snow on the road was so built up and not packed down you couldn’t be certain where the pavement was. The snow didn’t start melting for nearly a week, and it was nowhere near how bad it got for the rest of the state.
I live in an apartment here in Austin TX, the freeze sucked so bad. My power was turned off for about 7 days total. Luckily, the water still worked, but it was absolutely freezing inside. There was no way to call anyone, like family, for help because I had no way of charging my phone. A few neighbors and I decided to huddle up in one of their living rooms, and we made a fire using a mini grill that you put charcoal in. It was dangerous, but it was also the only way to stay warm. We all had to basically spoon eachother under a mountain of blankets when sleeping. Mind you, this was the first time i had ever met these ppl. But when there's a crisis like this, I guess ppl come together. We initially tried to go to a hotel, but none of their power was on either... either that or they were fully booked. When we went to the store, we would have to walk several miles in the freezing weather because driving wasn't an option. The ground had like 2 or more inches of just solid ice coating it. Cars were sliding everywhere. There were so many car wrecks. When the electricity finally came back on, we were so happy that we all literally cried. We were also very lucky that none of our apartments had any busted pipes, so no flooding....thank god. I definitely will never forget the freeze. It was scary and emotional for all that had to experience it.
I’m from a little town NE of Dallas. We call that week Snowpocalypse. We live in an RV and lost power the second day. We had to hook the car battery up to the rig’s battery to keep the heat on just enough to keep the heater running to keep the pipes from freezing but not enough to keep warm. Me, my husband, our dog and the cat into our car for the night. We were glad the gas tank was full and we had heated seats! We had plenty of blankets, snacks and watched movies on my iPad. It was like date night at the drive in movies. We finally went to sleep around midnight. At 3:30am, the cat started holding choir practice. I got him to be quiet but he woke me up again about an hour later and this time he wouldn’t be quiet and the dog refused to eat him so I was awake for the day. We found out that many of our neighbors had done the same thing. Later that day my husband stood in line, outside, for over three hours to get our three propane tanks filled. We were lucky because they ran out of propane before he got back to the car. Later that day, his boss brought us a generator so we got to spend stay in the RV from then on. I’ve lived in Texas my entire life and this was the worst weather we’ve ever had. Even worse than the ice storms of 1984, and they were pretty bad. I hope we never see winter weather like 2020 again!
I worked as a firefighter/paramedic in Dallas that day and it was unreal, chaos everywhere like no other.
I live in San Antonio at the time in an old uninsulated, definitely not airtight apartment with a special needs daughter. Day one was fine. My daughter was excited to go out in the snow. I shoved mail in all the window and door gaps and put mylar blankets over them. But sometimes in the night we lost power. Then we had periods of 15-30 minutes with power.thats when I microwaved water for hot food and drinks, watched news, and charged rechargeable batteries for lighting. I used candles under a clay roaster to warm the living room, and a clay flower pot over candles in the bedroom. We wore 3 layers of clothes. We only had power 2-3 times a day until day three
By then we were under a boil water notice. It was scary because my daughters regulatory response doesn't function properly. And yet she won't feel uncomfortable because of it. So she can overheat or get hypothermia much easier but without showing outward signs. And to add insult to statewide injury one of our Senators, Ted Cruz abandoned his dog in a house with no power, and took his family to Cancun!
I'm from Fort Worth Texas. It got pretty brutal in this part of Texas. I recall that pile up on interstate 35 all too well. But being somebody who was well-informed I was able to see what was coming and actually prepare for what was about to happen. My house stayed nice and warm, I lost no electricity and my water lines did not freeze. I went out and bought plenty of food, water and a 9000 BTU indoor/outdoor propane heater just in case the absolute worst still happened. Once it started to sleet and snow, I stayed home for the duration of the storms.
As a final thought I just want to let you know that the Texas power grid was never intended to handle a brutal winter like this. These types of storms just don't happen in texas. It gets really hot and we get a lot of thunderstorms in the summer but outside of that our Winters are actually fairly mild compared to the northern part of the United states. As a matter of fact, the northern part of the United States has an energy grid that is made primarily for extreme cold weather and not hot weather. If they were to have a brutal summer heat wave in the northern section of the United States there is a very good possibility they could be going through a similar situation but just heat-related.
That pile up was insane. I was living 5 minutes from where it happened.
Texan here and when the freeze happend we all came together to help each other, We pulled each other out of ice and snow banks, salted roads, side walks, walk ways, brought food, water and fire wood too people that needed it.
"Ice storms" are maybe not something you're familiar with, it starts with cold temperatures that cool the ground to freezing or below. This usually happens overnight. Then a "warm front" drops rain or sleet that is only a few degrees above freezing. Then, you guessed it, the temperature drops below freezing. So everything can have a coat of ice with snowfall over-top. This is especially dangerous on roadways and leads to horrible pile-ups of multiple vehicles. The ice can build up on power lines and trees, really stressing them. The trees snap or droop over the lines or just the weight of the ice on the lines is enough to bring things down. Then stir in cold temps and high electricity usage (for heating) putting a strain on the electrical grid. Lose a substation and several more can follow or in the worst case, a blackout. Ice storms occur every so often in the American South and seem to be far more impactful than just large snow falls that we get in the more northern states. Not fun...
I lived through this in Fort Worth. My family laughed at me when this was approaching. I grew up in the north, so I did what we did up there. I sealed all the windows in plastic. I covered the window AC units. I wrapped the outside faucets in plastic and covered it with those Styrofoam covers. I made sure the water heater in the garage had its pipes insulated. We had two outdoor cats we were feeding and we brought them into the garage. We have a pantry and a spare freezer. The pantry had all sorts of canned goods and the extra freezer was stocked. Our pets had plenty of both dry and canned food. I have three and five gallon water jugs and I made sure they were full. Before the storm hit I made sure both vehicles had a full tank of gas, antifreeze in the radiator, Due to my job, I was required to go to work daily and when I went I knew I wasn't leaving in 8 hours and just expected either a 12 or a 16 hour workday. During the event, our house lost power. The longest we were without power was like 8 hours. We had a lot of rolling blackouts. The waterline in the kitchen froze, but we still had running water in the bathrooms. We were fortunate that we didn't have to go to the stores for groceries and in fact we had enough for our household and was able to give stuff to our neighbors who was struggling. The waterline in the kitchen unthawed and did not burst, thank God. Texans are great with the summer heat, but are complete idiots when it comes to winter. One thing the video did not show or go over was gasoline. Most stations ran out and it was difficult to find gas for your car.
I'm from Denver, Colorado. This always pisses me off sooooo much. All of this shit is so preventable. We were at -20 here then, and I barely fucking noticed because we are all taught from like 10 years old how to handle a blizzard. I remember a blizzard hitting us that had snow 4 feet deep, and NO ONE DIED. The Texans who weren't prepared, absolutely not their fault. The reason we knew that shit was because our state taught us. It just breaks my heart man. I remember being just a couple states away, with a worse freeze happening, and watching the news everyday and barely being able to help still haunts me. My heart goes out to any Texans ❤🤍💙
Here in Houston we refer to it as Snowmaggedon. We basically snuggled with our pets under lots of blankets, playing card games under candlelight, and eating canned food we were able to heat on our gas stoves
I thank God every day for insisting on a gas home. I have a fireplace with a gas line, so you could have those fake gas logs. We had a big piece of lava rock we picked up on our travels, put that on the grate, lit the gas, and let it burn for 5 days. Kept the house at least above freezing the entire time. shoved the couch and loveseat up close to the fireplace, blocked off the doorways to other parts of the house, piled on the blankets, and that's where my husband, I, and our pets spent most of the time!
And a gas stove too, one that can be lit with a match, so I had coffee and we were able to cook food.
@@txlady1049 We only had whole coffee beans and couldn't use our grinder so coffee was the one thing we were dying to have. We've learned to keep a ground stash ever since 😅
@@txlady1049 This is why people get so triggered when State and Federal policies keep pushing for the banning of all gas being banned in new construction in the near future. Not only do to emergency situations though, it's much easier for them to shut off electricity if they wish to.
Yes I'm from east Texas and the day it hit everything was either covered in thick snow or frozen solid in ice not only that but the people who didn't keep their water running ended up having their pipes freeze solid and some busted flooding homes across the state and most people lost access to water for a while due to their pipes being frozen solid and people really couldn't drive anywhere because the roads were completely iced over
Yep. We had no power or water for 4 days. Luckily I had a few 5 gallon jugs of water so we were ok for drinking water but no bathing or flushing the toilet. Our barbecue grill got a workout. I grew up in Florida so was used to having extra batteries and flashlights but was NOT ready for the cold though. We slept huddled in my bed, 2 big dogs, me and my 2 adult children
I was in Dallas, and I also work for an energy company. I was without power for three days. Our power grids severely underestimated their ability to handle the situation. We were getting constant updates from Ercot but they were not accurate. The biggest issue was that the grids were not winterized, there was never a real need for it, therefore majority of the grids were permanently damaged. To this day, they are constantly doing repairs from that event.
I live just north of Houston, my mother in law is just south of it. She had no power (and no water, because well water) for 4 or 5 days. And we couldn't get to her or vice versa because the roads were impossible. It was awful and cold and scary to watch what happened to so many people, we were very lucky and able to keep our kids and pets warm with a generator and fireplace, but lots of folks didn't have that.
edit to add: I forgot about the water boiling thing. That just added to the fun at the end. Almost every single house on my street had burst pipes somewhere.
San Antonio, TX here. 35 years old at that time. The power went out but gratefully I have a fireplace, plenty of pecan wood & my home is outfitted for gas & not electric so my home was pretty much okay. My family basically holed up in the family room altogether: sleeping bags & thermal blankets courtesy of my prepper brother everyone used to call paranoid. We made it out cranky, chilly & wanting a hot meal but all alive & that’s what matters.
It’s was hell. We were 6 1/2 days of no power and it was in the low teens(f) and we measured the ice was 4” thick on the road and my entire car. It was myself, my elderly mom and 3 girls and our pets. We lived in a smaller town in central TX. We wore several layers of clothes and comforters. Only heat was from our cats sleeping under the blankets with us lol. My girls are autistic and it was very hard on my youngest. We were one of the lucky ones to not have any pipes break.
I'm in Dallas and we took the warnings seriously. I live 40 miles from work and my boss made it clear that I don't get on the road. I always have plenty of food on hand. Just needed to stock up on firewood. When the power went, moved all the frozen food outside to the balcony. Kept the apartment warm and pipes dripping. Cooked the food in the fireplace. Neighbors came over with beer and wine for food and games. The most eerie sounds were hearing cars crashing. After it started warming up... the ice was still a major issue. It dumped ice first then a layer of snow insulate it. And what did melt... refroze at night. It was indeed a brutal storm... but country boys can survive.
As someone who lived through Canada's worst ice storm ever in '98, when I heard what Texas was dealing with, my heart went out to them. They're one of the southern states and as such don't usually have to deal with extreme cold or snow, so the average citizen would have had no idea what to do. It was heartwrenching.
Hello Adam. I lived thru that! We called it SnowVid. I live in Abilene...about 3 hours west of Dallas. That was a very horrible time. I had natural gas (thankfully) but no electricity. It got so cold the pipes froze and burst at my house. Luckily I was able to haul water from a neighbor down the street (their pipes didn't freeze). It was two storms back to back). Love your channel. Blessings
It's still fresh in my mind. My family got lucky because our pipes didn't freeze, but we were without power for almost everything. It was stressful taking care of my bedridden grandmother while my parents struggled to keep generators on for her oxygen and heating. Even with electric heaters, our home was constantly freezing, and blankets barely made a difference. I'm thankful we all made it out safe and recovered shortly after.
I did experience true snow for the first time, so it wasn't all negative. I know that my family got off extremely lucky, and so many people suffered and lost more than they thought possible.
Native Texan here. We had it better than most. We didn't lose power so we had all of our family members come stay with us. 9 people in a 2 bedroom traler house. It was cramped but managable.
The problem for us was water. Before The Freeze our water plant was contaminated with sewage and the whole system was shut down to flush and decontaminate. The stores ran out of water with in a few days. They had berley got it fixed when the storm hit. All the pipes froze and there was no way to get more water cuz the stores hadn't gotten a chance to restock. We were lucky that we always keep a few cases of water in the pantry.
But all the pipes froze and burst. Everyones did so tring to find the parts to fix it took almost a week.
We were LUCKY, many were not. The Freeze took many lives and left so many other helpless and led to many others losing there lives, homes and everything they owned.
It was really rough. Some people from northern part of the U. S. was making fun us. But, they don't realize that Texas homes isn't built for extreme cold, extended weather like this. Also, we don't have the proper equipment to make the roads safe during a bad snow storm at the time this happened.
Texas winters is normally at the lowest 30-35°F. We might get ice/snow for maybe a few days, but never a two week long winter storm. Also, it's not a thing to buy or purchase chains for vehicle tires in Texas. We don't get snow, we get ice during winter.
My family was lucky because we live off grid, and had a old school wood burning heater. We always make sure to keep a good supply of can goods for soup and gallons of water saved up for situations like this.
This Was Literally The Apocalypse When That Blizzard Hit Texas.
As someone who lives in the midwest we found it cute that Texans were complaining about this.
@@Thesinistereyes1 You had years to prepare. We have days and even then no one knew the entire grid would shut down. Why would we be prepared for snow when it hadn't snowed in years?
@@Thesinistereyes1 My Family Almost Died!
@@keynanmartinez is that your attempt to make me feel bad shame on you. Stop being an offended snowflake. it's just a little bit of snow.
@@Thesinistereyes1 You have no idea how bad it was.
I was 3 months pregnant with my daughter when the deep freeze hit. We live in the Dallas/Fort Worth, TX area. I thank god every day that we were not effected as much as some other people were. We never lost power, as I believe we are on one of the Fire Department's grid in our town, and we're from Chicago, so we understood how to prepare for the winter storm a little bit better. However, the other side of the street was not so lucky. They lost power for 5 days. If the families on the other side of the street had no other place to go, they were housed with our side so that no one was in an ice box house and had food, water, and a warm place to sleep. 12 houses made room for everyone. It was tight for a while, but we most differently saved lives when we opened our homes.
Definitely have some PTSD from this. We had a water line bust and were sealed in our house due to a thick layer of ice around the doors. Blessed we didn’t lose power, I was able to melt the ice around a window with a blow dryer and was able to crawl through that to get to the cutoff valve. By the time I managed to turn it off we had 5 inches of water making a lake in our front yard that turned to ice. 2 days later had to go back to work because I was considered an essential worker and almost drove off a bridge that was iced over still.
It was absolute hell. We were fortunate enough not to lose power where we were but it was still freaking brutal. Almost lost my mother in law when her heart stopped beating but her husband managed to keep her alive until EMTs showed up. She flatlined several times on the way to the hospital. Thank God she’s still with us today.
I live in Arlington TX and I was one of the only people that I work with that didn’t loose power during that freese.
I live in a small town east of Longview, Tx. I worked in Longview at the time this happened. The day it started I was at work... The instant I saw snow I told them I was leaving. That was around 12pm. I barely made it three miles before my car started sliding down a massive hill. Never been through that before, I panicked but somehow managed to make it to the shoulder. I managed to make it home and by that night the snowfall was already up to three inches. The next day we lost power and water, thankfully we had gas heating and gas stoves so we could still cook a few things. We were without power, water, and phones for a little over a week. Thankfully none of our neighbors or family memebers passed away during that time, but it was hard keeping our animals warm and keeping food in the house. There's a little store less than a mile from our house so we'd walk there through piles of snow and ice to buy bags of ice or other neccessities since it remained open. When the ice and snow began melting my manager called and said I had to come in since the other housekeepers who had stayed at the hotel were getting too much overtime, I told them the roads around my house still weren't drivable and that I would not be risking my life just for $9/hr. I didn't quit that day, but I did quit a few weeks later due to unrelated reasons...but yes, this storm was one of the worst I'd ever seen in all my 34 years of life. First time actually seeing powdery snow, though...so not all bad. And yes, we did melt water for dishes and baths...that was an experience. Standing in the tub, waiting on the next pan full of hot water.. Never wanna go through it again.
As someone from New Hampshire where this weather is normal 4 months of the year, this is mind blowing. It is so sad.
I live down in League City, Texas (South of Houston). When this happened, we luckily had a gas fireplace we could use as well as a gas stove. We kinda just built an enclosure around the fireplace to keep the heat in and stayed there. The rest of the house was freezing, but in there, it was tolerable. We cooked meals that helped warm us up, like stews and one pot meals. Took 3 to 4 days for the power to come back on. Our neighbors across the street from us got it worse. The water pipes burst in their house, and it took a month or two for them to get it all fixed.
From Texas here, we were thinking it was just going to be another Cobblestone ice day that we had a decade or so earlier. So nothing special just ice. Then the power went out, and it never came back for us until 48 hours later, and from then on it was 15 minutes power, then 2 hours off. We gave up trying to turn on the heat for the 15 min, and instead layed around our fireplace and once the fire was about to go out, we would add more wood. It was terrible, and even worse our senator tried to escape and go to Cancun while his constituents were freezing to death
Yeah, Cancun Cruz can kiss my ice.
I'd have killed for a fireplace...but my way overpriced apartment didn't have one.
What was he supposed to do for you?
I have lived in Arlington, Texas since 1973. We have excessive heat during the summer months which is to be expected. This particular event of severe cold and weather came most unexpected. It was devastating to wake up and turn on the news and watch the devastating pile up live on tv. Horrific is a better word. I was fortunate to have a neighbor on oxegen, so i never lost power however my neighbors across the street had none. I managed to find enough extension cords to run across the street to help. It's definitely an event i will never forget.
Earlier that fall we had had a leak in our foundation that required our water pipes to be plumbed into the walls and hail storm damage to the roof got us a fully replaced and winterized roof and attic fan about 5 weeks before it hit. We were 3 days without power and water but as amateur preppers we were stocked with nonperishables, water tanks, and propane. The repairs kept us from freezing at night and let us thaw our pipes slowly to prevent damage. My son was three and it was his first time seeing snow. We slept in sleeping bags on our king sized bed all rolled together for warmth.
We felt like we were in the movie,"The Day After Tomorrow ".
I lived through it. We live north of Austin. Have 3 kids, and that was the week I decided to start homeschooling my oldest, lol! It was beautiful at first, but then everything was frozen solid for 2 whole weeks. Many of our neighbors' trees died and are still falling apart from it. Thankfully our power did not go out, but it was so cold that my husband and I moved our bed out of our bedroom to the living room floor and we all slept in there together. My youngest was almost 2 and I couldn't fathom leaving her in a corner room with it that cold. I don't remember running out of food or anything...I guess we just had everything we needed. We just hunkered down and watched the show. Definitely an interesting adventure for us.
As a texan it was crazy experiencing this freeze right after covid and then seeing other states saying we were overreacting it was absolutely insane.
I worked at HEB, Texas's main grocery retailer, during this time as a bagger/cart pusher. In fact, I was The Guy for carts at our store, and even just in the five hours the store was able to remain open on generators as the city's electrical grid was down, it was hell on Earth as panic shoppers and doomsday preppers poured in and cleaned us out for three days before we were able to resume normal operations. I at least got overtime for the collective fifteen hours, but between the 15 minute drive to and fro on the highway, having to drive around and use a car plug to charge my phone to keep in contact with elderly family members, and the general uncertainty of how long this would go on now that we've seen it can even happen in the first place, was enough to radicalize me that Texas's deregulated energy grid will never improve, and that ERCOT is the real enemy, turning off lights and power in residential areas while the skyscrapers in San Antonio and Dallas remain lit for days on end.
EDIT: OH, NOT TO MENTION ONE OF OUR SENATORS, TED CRUZ, WHO FLED THE STATE ON A TRIP TO CANCUN DURING A STORM!
I live in Dallas,well north of it,we never lost our electricity Thank God, so we had people without electricity come and have a big slumber party. The roads were horrible for days and so many deadly wreaks with 18 wheelers and cars literally flying over other vehicles. So sad!!But, we all helped as much as we could and my husband is a plumber, he worked on so many houses for free for all the pipes freezing and breaking all over the city for months after we thawed out. Texas government still hasn’t fixed the whole grid issue. Even a senator from our state took off to Cancun Mexico to miss the storm, a congresswoman from New York raised over a million dollars and also brought supplies for Texans. Yes, some people received electric bills in the thousands, during this outage!!!
A big thank you to your husband for helping all those people for free, I’m originally from San Antonio, so I know how scary this must have been and how much the help of your husband meant to the people around you so thank you to you, your husband and your whole family
@@Margauxhayley❤❤
Texan here! Thankfully our power didn’t go out because we were living near DFW airport at the time and were supported by their electric grid, but it was wild. Everyone bought all the firewood they could and when power started going out people were walking through the cold to buy proper building lumber from hardware stores just to have something to burn. People were freezing in their homes and some had no food. Outside it was eerily empty. Too much ice to drive in so no cars or people outside despite living in one of the largest cities in the country.
Yes, I was living with Dallas at the time. I had no power for 5 days and the temperature in my house dropped to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. After two days without power, the water line to my tankless water heater in the attic froze and burst. This caused water to flood three rooms in my house. Water came through the light fixtures and the air/heat vents. I didn’t have a tool to turn off the water at the main but after posting for help online, a neighbor came to turn it off. I now had no power and no water. This lasted another two days. I kept warm lying in my bed with my two Corgis. Eventually power came on but I still had no water until I could get a plumber to fix the burst pipes . Then a couple days later I had a company tear out the water damaged walls and insulation. All this just a few months before I had planned to sell my home.
My family and I live in south east Texas and we were lucky to not have gotten the worse. We went almost 24 hours without power the first day and then had rolling blackouts for three. Thankfully my family have a fireplace where we were able to cook food and stay warm. The first night my kids and dog slept on an air mattress in the living room with blankets and the fireplace going. We had enough food that we didn’t have to try and go to the store. My oldest was going through chemo at the time and it had to be delayed. When we finally were able to take her, the nurses said they spent the night at the hospital because it was too dangerous. Hospitals in my area were running out of food for the staff and so families were making batches of food for them. It definitely a learning experience. I was just thankful we had our fireplace that we could cook food. And we have a billion blankets to keep warm. I know there was people that went almost a whole week with no power. And that was hard.
As someone who lives in the central area of Texas, I can tell you that it was really bad, fortunately I had a wood burning stove in my workshop snd that is where I stayed warm, heated water I hqd stored up in old juice and milk jugs bottles, I cooked on a small propane burnee and put a pot of water on top of wood burning stove to heat water for washing etc...
I had air mattress and blankets to put on the shop floor so I had this setup for sleeping and for a light I had a 12 volt car battery, a small 12 volt - 110volt inverter and a small tavle lamp.
Was kinda like camping in the Alaska winter inside an off grid cabin.
Very thankful I had all these preparations set aside so when this happened I was able to stay warm and have water and a way to cook food.
Oh and by the way those temps were -6F to -21F and it was brutal with wind blowing.
I worked in a hotel in an adjacent state when the storm hit us and Texas. We hosted a lot of families deciding to flee Texas and take a short vacation until the storm was over. They were excited to have an adventure and watch the storm hit without worrying about survival. That first night changed everything when news and footage of the massive vehicle pileup was everywhere.
During the entire time Texas was in a state of emergency, we always had at least one concerned person in lobby trying to reach friends and family without worrying the rest of the group. I overheard many debates if it was too late to flee Texas to someplace better prepared. I also saw people juggling phone calls to relay messages so their friends and families can conserve their cell phone batteries without electricity. It was a really messy situation.
I'm in New Mexico, just 20 minutes from the Texas border. There are 2 major national power grids, east and west, but Texas has their own separate power grid not connected to the others. They also are very conservative and anti-regulation which was a recipe for disaster since they were so lax on keeping their power stations up to code and ready for anything. They cut costs by skipping upgrades and it cost lives.
We had a 3 day deep freeze here in New Mexico back in 2011. It snowed for 3 days straight. We don't have the snow tires so the city basically shut down all 3 days. All businesses and schools closed to keep people indoors and safe and we weathered the storm much better. There were rolling brown outs to help the grid but it kept people with power to use periodically to warm up. Thankfully my house was in a neighborhood between 2 hospitals so we didn't lose power once.
Texas has already reduced the possibility of this happening again by 50%. The Texas power grid was built for extreme heat, not extreme cold and extreme snow. Just like northern states power grid is not equipped for extreme heat.
The problem was ERCOT in my eyes a bunch of Canadians and Yankees that didnt care about the people of Texas. They were responsible for keeping the lights on but were too green energy conscious.
Texas still follows federal regulations on power production, even if we have our own power grid and Texas was also allowed to produce excess power but only if they planned to sell it at $1500/KwH (also tack on non Texans running ERCOT).
@@remanscimitar they don't understand. They have no clue what FERC is.
I was out of power for a long time, we had no water either. We were worried about food for a while, but thankfully my family made it through. We gained power back before some others and offered up our garage fridge to help store their food and gave out water to those who needed some due to the stores being sold out of water. For over A YEAR, my family’s home had piping issues and it was very difficult on my parents’ wallets. We didn’t get the worst of it, not at all, but it was still scary not knowing when we would have power or proper food again. My heart goes out to those who had it worse and those who are still suffering from the freeze. ❤
I live in Dallas and was considered an essential worker. During that winter storm I had to traverse from Dallas to my job (I'm the GM) in the northern suburbs each day via the highway even though my location kept losing power. (Normally my commute is 25-35 minutes one way.) We tried to stay open so the few people who dared to walk to my store could get some food, fire logs, their medicine, etc. Multiple stores in my district had pipes burst and it was cold enough that it would freeze over inside. There were so few cars out and we were all driving so slow cause the snow plows from states north of us hadn't arrived yet that I was actually able to safely stop on what was usually one of the busiest highways in DFW and take a photo from my car. I remember seeing multiple videos of that car wreck in Fort Worth with the 100+ cars so that was in my mind each day I had to go to work. Thankfully my apartment didn't lose power aside from a few hours, but the ones across the parking lot (same complex) did. It was pretty surreal. This video makes it sound like ERCOT actually fixed their stuff and got their shit together, but in reality they haven't.
I remember bits and pieces of that time.
I burnt candles during the night (put them out before falling asleep) to read while I was stuck in a dark house with little to do. Was working retail at the time, and they had shut down the store for the while (an extra day or so after temperatures let up and the boss went out to find several pipes burst and flooding), and all I could do was shiver in my bed with my cat snuggled beside me under a comforter, all the blankets from the closet, in two pairs of pants, thick socks, two sweatshirts and gloves. Family also did the "pipe drip" thing to keep them from freezing. Most of the back roads where I lived near at the time weren't attended to right away because local government had to prioritize the major roads and interstate, so we got stuck in the house despite melting snow and neighbors shoveling what they could.
I think where I lived, we got lucky. Maybe went a few days (two, at least?) without power and tried to make do with bottled water and quick meals (granola, probably snack chips and the like). The family had a generator that took only a few plug-ins, and when temperatures were warm enough, some of us traveled into town to keep warm with relatives who luckily had power the entire time. I don't think I needed to grocery shop at the time (thankfully), so I don't recall seeing the bare shelves like they were during the Covid shut-down.
I heard about a mom and her kids passing away some town or two over after the ordeal (don't know if it was any mentioned in the video), and some of the rumors about what caused the power outages, mostly the speculation that ERCOT got sloppy in regulations and the wind turbines froze during the freeze. Can't say I followed that line of news at the time, so I'm not a credible source for it. But I did hear about the highway pile-up. It was definitely nasty stuff.
For clarification, I'm not trying to look down on people who were a part of the accident and suffered injuries, but I can't stress enough that living near both interstates and back roads has you see all sorts of BS. Even up to today, there's at least one accident per week on the interstates entering at leaving DFW on regular weather conditions. If it pours, it's a guarantee there'll be something major. People fly down and between lanes as if they're trying to get their pregnant partner to the hospital before the baby pops out. Sometimes people don't secure the items in the back of their truck. Sometimes they don't use their turn signal at the utmost crucial moment. Sometimes it's an eighteen-wheeler that needs to be on schedule and can't wait behind someone in the right lane. And sometimes, Fido the family dog found himself crossing the interstate (or back road) at the worst time ever.
I desperately wish there were local government programs that take notes from Japan's protocol that teaches people what to do in emergency situations or inclement weather. Or that TX government put away a little more money for emergencies like this even if it's never that cold on average. But seeing how things were handled and to what limits some first-responders had to stretch themselves to help others, I won't hold my breath.
I'm a native Houstonian who survived snovid 21. I'm lucky that I have natural gas and a wood burning fireplace so I could cook and stay somewhat warm. We did get in the car to get warm and charge phones, but Outside the garage. I ordered a solar lantern (that charges phones) after this instead of candles for power outages. It wasn't bad compared to the many, many hurricanes I've lived through with horrendous heat and humidity. I would rather be cold than hot and sweaty. The worst part was the cold toilet seat. After snovid, in the summer, it was obvious that my electric bill was jacked up twice as much as years before, so the costs of snovid were passed down for customers to pay. So, I switched to a different company and refused to pay that extortion bill. My house didn't grow any bigger, and nothing had changed, so why was my bill suddenly twice as much? Because ERCOT isn't for shit, and they are sticking customers with their mistakes. As the 4th largest city in the US, we should have a functioning power grid like Every Other Major City. It's a disgrace that ERCOT can't get it together. I understand that snovid was a freak event that they weren't prepared for, but that's not an excuse to gouge people. And after 55 years in this city, I expect more diligence for hurricanes as we are known for them. Just in May we had a little hurricane, and my power was out for the same amount of time as snovid, and I had to flee to a relative's house for air conditioning. We had another storm in June and people went WEEKS without power, even in living assistance facilities. People die more from the heat here than the cold, especially the elderly. There's no reason for that. NONE. But of course, ANY improvements to the system are trickled down to customers to pay.
I live near Austin Tx. And I’m disabled and on dialysis-a life saving medical treatment that replaces my kidney function. I have to go to the med facility every other day to get treatment. I’m there for four hours. During the winter storm, we were trapped in our house and I had to missed two treatments. Not to mention all of the power outages at our house and at the facility. It was extremely scary. Where we were at we didn’t have extended power outages, but we did have rolling ones. I’m 48 and I’ve lived in Texas my entire life. I’ve never seen a storm like that one.
In the Hill Country, we lost power AND water for days. Boiled water for days. We ended up scooping snow to get water to flush toilets and, when that ran out, had to use a pickaxe to break through the 1 foot thick of ice in the community pool to get more. Born and raised in Texas and I have never, in my 54 years, experienced a weather event like this here. Hurricanes, yes. Blizzards, no. If it wasn't for my experience living in Michigan for 10 years, I wouldn't have had the knowledge to safely combat it. My heart goes out to those folks who suffered such tragedy.
I lived through that freeze in Houston. I had no power for 5 days and my elderly parents were with me. I had no generator so we hundled together under every blanket I owned and wearing 4 layers of pants and sweaters. We had our dogs wearing their coats too. We had no water during all this and I had a waterline break over my garage ceiling. It was horrible and I felt so bad for my parents who had come to my house because they had lost power a day before I did. We survived and learned. Now I keep matches and way more water than I ever did before that. All the water I keep helped during the 5 days of no power during Hurricane Beryl in July!
We lived through this while living in San Antonio. I've lived in Michigan for many years; for me this was nothing big as I've gone through winter vortexes before this. When the freeze happened, I'd just gotten out of the hospital after getting an infection from an amputation he week before. I had a medical device on that had to be keep powered on full time. We had the rolling blackouts and were frantically searching for a place where I could power my device. Thankfully, my sister's house wasn't affected by the outage and we ended up staying with her for a week until power was restored.
At the time, I rolled my eyes because I lived many years up in Michigan and had been through a few winter vortexes and extreme winter weather. Texans just aren't built for freezing temperatures and don't know how to drive on icy roads. They were ill prepared for what happened.
Went through it with my son, we put blankets in the windows and doors. We had had lots of big pillows around us on the sofa with about 5 blankets, 2 jars of peanut butter and 3 gallons of water (kept of the sofa with us) that we rationed. The rolling black outs were long enough to drop the temp inside the house enough to see your breath. Soon as the power came on it only lasted about 45min before shutting off again. So we would fire up the stove (which was only about 10ft from the sofa) to max and run a space heater on max. once the oven beeped and had reached full temp we would open it and let the heat out into the house to help the space heater which made it warm enough to use the bathroom (even though we couldn't flush because running a slight stream in the faucets wasn't enough to keep them from this much freeze). We'd also call into close family and friends and check in and let them know we are still alive and check on them as well. So thanks to the 45min of power every 3 hours and decent insulation + blankets and some peanut butter, we made it through! What made me tear up was when I saw on social media all the food and supply trucks and people on the highways for miles coming into Texas from all directions to help us get back on our feet when it was over with the tagline, "We'reComingTexas!"
I live in a building for disabled folks and luckily we did not lose power during this time. I was able to make sure our sidewalks were clear of snow and ice for those in chairs or walking impaired, but we could not get out for anything. People in our are were without power for a week or more, many more in the state were without power for up to a month or more. It was a hell of a time for many, many folks.
I'm a 7th-generation Texan living in the northwest Austin/Cedar Park area. Somehow I got lucky - my house is on the same power grid as a fire station/emergency medical services hub, which doesn't usually lose power in a blackout. However, all of my family and friends froze for days and had no water. They had to melt snow to flush the toilets. I felt so guilty, knowing how miserable everyone else was - while I was sleeping in a warm house with water. The roads were too treacherous for them to drive to my house. I remember turning down the heat to around 60 F (15-ish C) to help conserve power. I was very very lucky.
My sister and I both showed up to help our parents take care of three elderly grandparents. We had to borrow a generator from my dad's friend, then get my electrician uncle to rework a connection outside to attach it. But fuel was limited, so every 2-3 hours, we would run the generator for half an hour to run my grandfather's oxygen.
I can't believe it took 3 visit for paramedics to enter the premises with no response on a wellness check. That is just crazy. Justice for Chico as well!
I'm from the Texas panhandle. Up here we're a little more used to the cold and snow than some of our southern counterparts but even still this was super brutal. My electricity was only out for a few hours but it was enough it froze the water lines under my mobile home. The heater couldn't keep up and we had no running water in the house for 4-5 days. What made this worse was that our horses' water tanks keep freezing over. We had to go out every 1-2 hours to break holes in the surface so they could drink. By the time it was over the holes were 8-10 inches deep in the ice. Its also the only time I can remember that my eyelashes literally froze together from my eyes watering in the wind.
I started Monday with power. My roommate and I heard about how bad it was going to get and did a deep clean of our bathtubs. We then filled them with clean water. That evening we lost power. The next morning we drove to find food. I went to Lowe’s and bought all the jerky I could find. All refrigerated food was put in coolers and stored outside. Sleeping on the couch under every blanket I owned and with my dog. We hung blankets over sections of the room to shrink the space we needed to heat. Luckily I own cast iron skillets so we could cook in the fireplace. But we didn’t have a lot of wood so burned unwanted furniture, board games, and broken tree limbs from outside. Cell towers were overloaded, we had a battery powered radio that played nonstop so we could get updates. I read, and read, and slept. Couldn’t make it to emergency centers, couldn’t call for help, couldn’t check in with people. We would sit in our cars (not in the garage) to get some warmth and charge devices. Power came back Thursday night. Luckily our pipes didn’t burst, but we had to boil water for a few days.
I was born and raised in Brownsville,Texas, which is in the south of Texas. I had never seen snow before in my life until 2021. My family and I had no idea it would be as bad as it was, I was doing online school because of Covid. It was super insane the electricity and water felt non existed, because everything was out for about 5 days. I remember feeling super terrified because that was my first time seeing snow and also because of the fact that I was 15 at the time. After the power and water came back all the food we had in the fridge was no longer good to eat so we had to throw it all out even though at the time we didn't have a lot of money to buy more.
I live in west Texas. That year I was in basic training for the army in South Carolina during the winter. We were allowed to contact relatives due to the state of emergency to check in on family. My daughter was still there. Luckily my city only experienced rolling blackouts. But to my knowledge there were no deaths in my city. But I do recall the drill sergeants asking everyone who was from Texas to go to the barracks to get our cellphones out of storage to contact our families.
I was told it was one of the worst winters in years
I too live in West Texas Permian Basin. Luckily we just the blackouts and frozen pipes but it was still unbearably cold. My house was fighting for its life during those 5 days.
Luckily we were one of the few with power so we made food for our neighbors and let them use are washer and dryer till they got their water and electricity back. My grandma taught me to give when you have. I wasn’t gonna let my neighbors suffer like that just thank god we all survived.
I live in LBK but I like to believe we were more equipped in west Texas than the rest of the state since we do get snow at least once a year but it was still miserable.
I went through the Snowcopalypse. We had no running water (but pipes didn't freeze, thank God). The lights would come on for a few minutes so that at least I had time to get my electric blanket primed, so I could only bundle up under blankets when power went out again. My mother was in a nursing home at the time, so she stayed comfortable and safe. My brothers in Houston and Arlington, respectively, went through the same thing, more or less. Older Houston homes' water pipes did break, and because those pipes are usually in the attic, that meant ruined ceilings.
Oh, and when the first snow came along, it was just "Huh. Snow. In central Texas!" Then the freezing rain came and covered the snow with a sheet of ice that must have been three inches deep, and giant icicles formed around our carport. It was awful, to say the least.
I remember this so well, I wasn't in Texas, but West Virginia. Our power was out for 2 weeks & my family of 6 all stayed in one room for a week until it got so cold that we had to leave for a hotel. So many people didn't have the ability to do that & it was devastating. Many homeless people & elderly who lived alone suffered from this. It was one of the worst storms I've been alive to see.
we went without power for like four days. i've lived in Colorado for a decade so i wasn't too worried. We had camping supplies and kerosene ready. have my dad's survival kit to thank for that. but funny thing was that the only place with heat and power was a Buccee's nearby. lol if you know, you know. But i remember checking in with neighbors who were burning old furniture for heat. For those that weren't accustomed to it, it was devastating.
I was in North Texas. Luckily, at my location, the power would come on once every couple hours for about 45 minutes & I would cook during that time. Water eventually shut off too but I'd had the forethought to collect a bunch of water (filtered & unfiltered) before that happened. Most of the day I just laid in bed with my dogs, wearing warm clothes, under all my covers. It was a 3 day ordeal. As a contrast, my sister's house never lost power and my parents house lost power for 5 days. Honestly, having rice & beans in storage is what saved me as I didn't have to worry about trying to go shopping. And my sweet neighbor knocked on my door to hand out a couple of cooked porch chops, it was nice to see the neighborly care. My sister says the reason they had power is because they live near a fire station, so that block had priority & did not get shut down.
I lived and worked through this. I am a RN and have a friend who was on her way to work and was trapped in that pile up . The hospital I was working in, lost power and heat. The ER was so cold, patients were coming to me in the ICU with hypothermic temperatures. We couldn’t flush the toilets, so you can imagine how nasty that was. The patients were having to 💩 in bio hazard bags. Plus, it was the middle of Covid and I was working in a Covid ICU. No running water to wash your hands or wash the patients. It was terrible. At home, the rolling blackouts would give me power for 45 minutes before shutting off for a hour. It did this for days. It was all around awful.
I was in Austin when it happened at work, I was huddled behind the front desk of a hotel with every blanket we could steal from housekeeping trying to stay warm
I live in Houston Texas and can confirm it sucked, roads were closed, business shuttered, and cities shut down. Housed had no power, people were doing all they could to stay warm. My wife was pregnant with our 3rd, and we were all huddled on a air mattress Infront of our fireplace, which we were thankful to have.
One thing everyone needs to realize about texas, especially the large cities like San Antonio, Austin, Houston and Dallas are built around the typical texas weather, which is hot. So when it comes to dealing with snow and icy roads we don't have the equipment inplace to deal with such large scale cold weather. In houston for example, we have less than 10 salt-trucks for the entire city/surrounding area.
Yep, I & family went through this! Funny part is, being from IL, that amount of snow/cold was like nothing, as far as personally... but the no power was sucky!
Ah yeah this is now remembered as Snowmaggeddon. And my folks lost power for days. I live near a hospital that didn't lose power so we had a dog, and 9 people in my 1 bed 1 bath apartment. Thankfully my family is originally from Ohio (far north side of the states) we were able to manage roads to check on their house to make sure pipes didn't bust and the roof cave in.
I’m a Texan, and I can tell you it was terrible. My daughter’s attic pipes broke and the ceilings in several areas fell in from water damage. It took forever to get all of it fixed. The car wrecks were everywhere. Black ice was to blame. Our state senator escaped the freezing weather by going with his family to Cancun, Mexico. He caught a lot of crap for doing that, so he flew back, saying he was just getting his family settled. Riiight. Texans were pissed, and with good reason. The grid still isn’t up to par, so this could happen again.
People should respect 1st responders, police, fire departments and Texas Strong! So many people lost so much. Praying for all of you.❤
Hurricane season here in South Florida began in June, and there have only been a couple, one hit the Gulf of Mexico and the other veered north and went towards Bermuda. The hardest part of the season begins this month and lasts until November. In my county on the coast, we were hit with two category 5 storms in one season plus 3 others that year.