It was a ROUGH week!

It started at 1::30 Monday morning with a text from the power company that rolling blackouts were going to occur.  Then a minute later my phone started ringing with power outages at a tower sites.  Then the Chief called to say the studios were on genny power and could I go take a look because several things didn't recover.  I live just a few minutes whereas everyone else is at least 40 minutes away.  Sure enough, roads were not that bad, about two to three inches of snow, but studios and a couple towers were on genny power.  So many calls later to try and convince Oncor, (grid manager) that we were a priority customer, we still couldn't get studio power back.  Ended up on that genny for 81 hours straight.  Days turned into night and vice versa.  Streets became packed ice, sprinkler pipes began to freeze, then feeder lines and mains.  All this time I had power at my house for a couple hours then it was off for 10-12 hours.  I had the sense to go out Friday and stock up on food, including fixins for Chili so one of the times I had power I immediately started a huge pot and got it to the edible point before I lost power again.  Ate Chili for three days!  Thursday night I got power back at home around 6 and so did the studio.  Back in to reset all the crap that cant take a power bump.  Got home about 8.  Tuesday Morning when I went in the temp was -1 in Dallas!  Crazy.  I had my winter coat and hat but no good winter gloves.  Had to wear work gloves from Lowes.

So after the power comes back and the people start warming up the houses then the water leaks REALLY start.  Fort Worth had something like 800 water main breaks.  They are still working on them.  Millions under boil water orders.  Many without water at all.  Arlington, (a very large city) had no water at all for a while.  Their distribution totally collapsed under the leaks and frozen pipes.  I had very low pressure for a couple days, (could put my finger in the tap to stop the flow) probably 10 lbs pressure at the most.  But at least I had water.

Lots of people homeless due to water damage.  Oh the stores, most didn't have power so they had to toss ALL of their frozen goods, dairy, meats, cheeses, etc.  Shelves are bare again, just like the days after covid shutdown.  I kept my fridge closed most of the time and didn't lose anything.

Most people here have the water heater in their garage, so those are the pipes that froze.  Plus they shallow bury everything, and allow pipes in outside walls.  More trouble.  Take a lesson from Michigan and don' do that!  Most houses don't even have natural gas, so no stove for heat, no hot water, no furnace if you had a small genny.  Just a big giant mess of a perfect storm.  I feel bad for these people.  I know one guy who lives in a large 8 story apt building, the entire building is on a huge genny.  He had power and water the whole time, but said his lights flickered a lot!  Damn the inconvenience!

I don't know if Texas will connect to the national grid or not, they should but then the federal regulations come in, maybe not such a bad thing.  It will be interesting to see how they re-regulate the industry here.

Some people had their bills tied to wholesale prices and got really screwed.  1 Mega watt went from something like $5.00 to $9000.00, and one guy they keep showing on TV, logged in to see his bill, $17,000.00 for three days of use!  That power re-seller told all its customers to switch providers.

I pay $.09 a KW hour fixed, but I just got the weekly summary and even with limited power the heating drove it up about 40 bucks. 

I just vegged out all weekend, Sunday was back to warmth again and 74 degrees.  What a change.