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Texas is a big state with it’s fair share of affluent people. I’m sure some of them had the resources to vacation away from the big freeze. But being affluent and in the public eye can be a downer especially for a United States Senator. So embarrassing.
Hah! I am not in Texas. I am in Oregon and due to an ice storm, which took down so many trees that electricity outages were so wide spread that crews were brought in from other states, I was out of electricity for seven days. My pipes are safe from ice, so I could have left after the electricity went out, only because I have studs on the car tires. However, I didn't realize how long the electricity would be out. I have a wood stove so I was warm, a gas range so I could cook, and a generator to keep the freezer and refrigerator going. I had to be there to keep the generator running or lose a freezer full of food. Had I known how long the power would be out I would have tried to find someone I know that still had electricity to put it in their freezer or say to heck with it and let it spoil.
I did learn from friends looking for a hotel that everything nearby was booked. The coast would have been an option, although I suspect most places would have been booked, but we kept expecting the power would go back on soon because we had never been without for so long.
There are a lot of reasons people don't leave even when they have the means to do so. I think a big factor is not knowing how long there's going to be a problem. No point in leaving just to find out you can return home a few hours later.
What surprised me about Texas is having pipes so suspectable to freezing.
One big difference - where we live (Michigan) the power goes out when we have a big storm. It happens pretty often. However we are prepared for it. Lots of people have generators, and everyone has back up heat sources. Most of us cook with gas, so worst case, you can light your oven, open the door and let it heat your house somewhat. Many or maybe most businesses have generators, or at least enough of them we can still get food and services. We also have plows and salt trucks and know how to use them, and we know how to handle driving in the snow relatively safely (plus we have winterized cars, and often snow tires).
Heck a decade or so ago, the entire NE USA grid went down for up to four days. It happens. Everyone got by. Why? Because most people and businesses were prepared for power outages. They happen nearly every year sometimes multiple times a year. One year, we had power out six times, sometimes for several days.
So the issue as I see it was not so much that the power went out. Power goes out. It happens. The issue Texans encountered is they were not prepared for power to go out. It also seems like everyone is all electric, no one seems to use natural gas for heat, cooking, or water heaters. The few generators are powered by gasoline or diesel with only a few hours of fuel available. People died because they lacked education as to the dangers of bringing a barbecue or a generator or other combustion source inside a house. Why do they not know these common knowledge things? Because it never happens there. They never had a reason to bring a barbecue inside their house. (Ok - the copious amounts of alcohol Texans are famous for consuming may have had something to do with it as well. However even drunk Michiganders know that you do not bring combustion items inside a house (still a few do it every now and then, but most of them are dead, so not many are left to do it)).
The real problem may be that the Texas power is too reliable. Since it does not go out often enough, no one was prepared for it to go out. No preparation, no alternatives, no education.
Texas needs a less reliable power grid. Toughen those Texans up and teach them to live without power.
I have natural gas for heat. But the furnace that actually generates the heat is electric. So, useless. My water heater is also gas. But it's also useless when we don't actually have any water. Hospitals didn't even have water. And two hospitals in Austin have boilers for heat. Guess what boilers require? Water. So two hospitals, just in Austin, that had no water and no heat. Lots of people on the coast have generators because of hurricanes. They are not big enough to heat an entire house for 5 days. But the coast is a very small part of a very large state anyway.
I haven't heard of anyone who died because they brought a combustion source inside a house. I've heard of two people who froze to death in their house and one man who died while trying to charge his oxygen machine in his car. He wasn't drunk. He was a veteran who was desperately trying to stay alive. My neighbor's dad is in the hospital and expected to die because he couldn't get his dialysis. Oh, yeah, the dialysis clinics lost power too. A coworker's son has asthma. He had an attack and she couldn't give him another breathing treatment because, no power. Luckily, and ambulance was able to get to them. We have rolling blackouts from time to time, usually over the summer. That's what we were told to expect. That's what we prepared for. People weren't living it up. They were burning furniture for heat and hoping their baby didn't freeze to death. Your post is incredibly privileged, insensitive, and out of touch.
Texas is a big state with it’s fair share of affluent people. I’m sure some of them had the resources to vacation away from the big freeze. But being affluent and in the public eye can be a downer especially for a United States Senator. So embarrassing.
By the time people realized how bad the situation was, most airports were closed, roads were impassible (if you could even get out of the driveway), and gas stations didn't have power, so you couldn't fuel up. Texas is big. Chances are it will require more than one tank to get to someplace that had power. And you're assuming those places, if someone could get to them, weren't full.
Oh, yeah, the price gauging was fun. A hotel here in Austin raised their prices to $999 a night. It's a crappy hotel that usually goes for less than $75. It's illegal, and the attorney general will probably have something to say about it, but that doesn't help anyone a week ago.
I have natural gas for heat. But the furnace that actually generates the heat is electric. So, useless. My water heater is also gas. But it's also useless when we don't actually have any water. Hospitals didn't even have water. And two hospitals in Austin have boilers for heat. Guess what boilers require? Water. So two hospitals, just in Austin, that had no water and no heat. Lots of people on the coast have generators because of hurricanes. They are not big enough to heat an entire house for 5 days. But the coast is a very small part of a very large state anyway.
I haven't heard of anyone who died because they brought a combustion source inside a house. I've heard of two people who froze to death in their house and one man who died while trying to charge his oxygen machine in his car. He wasn't drunk. He was a veteran who was desperately trying to stay alive. My neighbor's dad is in the hospital and expected to die because he couldn't get his dialysis. Oh, yeah, the dialysis clinics lost power too. A coworker's son has asthma. He had an attack and she couldn't give him another breathing treatment because, no power. Luckily, and ambulance was able to get to them. We have rolling blackouts from time to time, usually over the summer. That's what we were told to expect. That's what we prepared for. People weren't living it up. They were burning furniture for heat and hoping their baby didn't freeze to death. Your post is incredibly privileged, insensitive, and out of touch.
Point is if more people heated and water heated with gas, they would not have had such a power shortage. The problem arose because demand soared at the same time supply dipped. People turned up their thermostats plugged in electric heaters and ran their pool pumps 24/7. If gas was in more widespread use, the demand would not have grown so fast as to shut down some of the grids.
Cooking with gas is still available without electricity (but you do have to have a match) and you can use your oven to warm your house. Thus, it is doubly unfortunate that so few people use natural gas rather than electric for heating, cooking and water heat. Being an oil state, it is also surprising. Gas should be available in abundance.
While we were there, two homes were reported where people died from combustion fumes. One brought a barbecue inside the house or apartment, the others a generator.
[Moderator cut -- don't make personal remarks] I love Texans. A large part of my family are Texans. I spend a lot of time there. By the way, I was there during the power outages. Not really out of touch. I was running around to grocery stores, hauling in firewood, clearing the walks with a blowtorch, filling bath tub with water between outages. Not really out of touch - sorry. I know it was bad. I also know Texans were not prepared for a substantial power outage. I could see that.
I am simply stating fact. Texans were unprepared. I am not faulting them, or blaming them. There is no way to refute that Texans were not prepared for this. They weren't. Power outages do not happen enough for them to have any reason to prepare for them or to learn how to address them safely. As we move more and more toward the use of electricity in place of fossil fuels, everyone will need to learn how to handle power outages. They will be more common everywhere. Texans need to accept there are things they need to know and do not know and learn from their neighbors.
There is no excuse for a hospital to not have a generator with sufficient fuel for a week (they should have enough for a month). There is no excuse for local government to not have a plan to ensure hospital and emergency vehicle grids have a fail-safe.
It is horribly sad that someone was asphyxiated in their car. That should not have happened and goes back to the education problem. You do not run a car inside a building or otherwise enclosed, or sit in one while running if it has an exhaust leak. Never. I thought pretty much everyone knew that. That is sad. We get those once in a while too but it is rare. We more often get people leaving their kids in their cars when it is too hot. Just like Texans lack preparation and education for power outages and cold, we are not well prepared or well educated for dealing with heat.
In the future, you will see a lot more Texans with a kero heater or propane heater standing by. A lot more generators with an adequate stockpile of fuel (if they do not use natural gas), a lot more attention to ensuring there is enough food and beer for several days available. More stores and gas stations will have generators as well. When this happens again, Texans will be more prepared. The next time - even more so.
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 02-24-2021 at 11:01 AM..
Point is if more people heated and water heated with gas, they would not have had such a power shortage. The problem arose because demand soared at the same time supply dipped. People turned up their thermostats plugged in electric heaters and ran their pool pumps 24/7. If gas was in more widespread use, the demand would not have grown so fast as to shut down some of the grids.
Cooking with gas is still available without electricity (but you do have to have a match) and you can use your oven to warm your house. Thus, it is doubly unfortunate that so few people use natural gas rather than electric for heating, cooking and water heat. Being an oil state, it is also surprising. Gas should be available in abundance.
While we were there, two homes were reported where people died from combustion fumes. One brought a barbecue inside the house or apartment, the others a generator.
[Moderator cut -- don't make personal remarks] I love Texans. A large part of my family are Texans. I spend a lot of time there. By the way, I was there during the power outages. Not really out of touch. I was running around to grocery stores, hauling in firewood, clearing the walks with a blowtorch, filling bath tub with water between outages. Not really out of touch - sorry. I know it was bad. I also know Texans were not prepared for a substantial power outage. I could see that.
I am simply stating fact. Texans were unprepared. I am not faulting them, or blaming them. There is no way to refute that Texans were not prepared for this. They weren't. Power outages do not happen enough for them to have any reason to prepare for them or to learn how to address them safely. As we move more and more toward the use of electricity in place of fossil fuels, everyone will need to learn how to handle power outages. They will be more common everywhere. Texans need to accept there are things they need to know and do not know and learn from their neighbors.
There is no excuse for a hospital to not have a generator with sufficient fuel for a week (they should have enough for a month). There is no excuse for local government to not have a plan to ensure hospital and emergency vehicle grids have a fail-safe.
It is horribly sad that someone was asphyxiated in their car. That should not have happened and goes back to the education problem. You do not run a car inside a building or otherwise enclosed, or sit in one while running if it has an exhaust leak. Never. I thought pretty much everyone knew that. That is sad. We get those once in a while too but it is rare. We more often get people leaving their kids in their cars when it is too hot. Just like Texans lack preparation and education for power outages and cold, we are not well prepared or well educated for dealing with heat.
In the future, you will see a lot more Texans with a kero heater or propane heater standing by. A lot more generators with an adequate stockpile of fuel (if they do not use natural gas), a lot more attention to ensuring there is enough food and beer for several days available. More stores and gas stations will have generators as well. When this happens again, Texans will be more prepared. The next time - even more so.
I have natural gas, and I'm not an idiot. I know you can use a match to light a gas stove. But that doesn't change the fact that my gas furnace won't operate unless I have electricity. People weren't running their pool pumps and trying to heat their house to 80 degrees. Even if people were only trying to heat their house to 50 degrees, the grid still wouldn't have been able to keep up with that demand. So the 2.5 million people who lost power and also had gas furnaces were in the same boat.
Two homes - out of 4 million people without power - who brought a combustion device into their home because they were desperate. Yet somehow you translated that to everyone being drunk and doing it.
I am not from Texas. I am from the northeast. I am no stranger to 2 feet of snow and frigid temperatures for long periods of time. Never, ever, have I been through anything like Texas experienced last week. I feel absolutely no allegiance to the state at all. Blame Texas all you want - I agree with you on that. Texas is responsible for this. As in the state. Texans, the people, are not. They were (with the exceptions of the whopping two houses you pointed out) not reckless. They did the best with what they had. The veteran I mentioned that died in his car did not die of asphyxiation. He died because he could not charge his oxygen tank fast enough from the car power. The car was outside.
We do lose power. I don't know why you think we don't. Pretty much every summer, which is when our demand tends to increase. But they are able to roll the blackouts, which is what we were told they would do last week. No problem. We lose power for a few hours, then it comes on for a few, rinse and repeat. That's what we were prepared for. We were prepared for limbs falling on power lines and losing power in the neighborhood for a while because of it. That's a lot different than the entire state losing power. If my power is out because of a tree falling on some lines, I can go stay with a friend across town who has power. Can't do that if the closest place with power is 500 miles away.
BTW, there are parts of Texas that are on the national grid. Those parts never lost power. The state absolutely, positively had the ability to prevent this from happening, but our for-profit system chose money over keeping the power on. Blame them. Blame the state. But stop blaming the people. The people were prepared for what we were told was going to happen, and probably then some. They weren't a bunch of drunk morons with BBQ grills in their living rooms like you insinuate.
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 02-24-2021 at 11:07 AM..
Reason: Removed personal remarks.
OP, the difference between having pipes burst when you're home, vs. when you're away, is that if you're home, you can do something about them!. You know--before major damage gets done due to the gushing water. (Not to mention--the resulting high water bill).
Another reason, possibly; unsure if hotels around the Yucatan have reliable wifi, or unable to afford the hotels that do. (For the people who would need to work while away.)
Also: flights cost a lot more, usually, when booked on the spur the moment. And...what about the kids? Would it become a whole-family vacation, so more than two airfares?
When you stop and think about it, the question is more complex than it might seem on the surface.
Oddly enough, I was seconds from clicking purchase on tix to Cancun when our power clicked on after a 30 hour outage. I was looking at Southwest so I wouldn't have met Ted on the plane but might have at the Cancun airport. One reason I hesitated is fear of broken pipes while gone but another is because I wasn't sure if we could pack, lock things up, and make the flight. It was 3pm for a 6pm flight. One way cost - $111.
We left very briefly, and came back when the power was VERY briefly back on. By the time the power went off again, within hours, the roads were too icy to leave again.
I will say, a neighbor who left at the first sign of trouble now has a ruined house. The pipes froze and burst and her entire downstairs is flooded, she discovered on their return yesterday.
For me, enduring 6 days of freezing cold in the dark where our well-insulated house stayed at 43 degrees but we were able to keep pipes warm with putting blankets around pots full of hot water, boiled on a propane camping stove was worth it.
At the end of the week, my house is whole. If we'd have left, maybe my house would be ruined like hers was.
We left for a motel Monday and I could barely sleep thinking that water could be gushing at home and we might return to find the house encased in ice. I might well bugger out next time I see something like this coming but I'll shut off the water main and power breakers first.
I wouldn't call it bugging out. The airports were open. Texas is bordered by New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. A quick plane trip to New Orleans or Tulsa or Albuquerque was possible. Get a hotel room by the airport on the other end. One doesn't have to be wealthy to do that.
All Houston airports were shut down all Monday and until late Tuesday.
Huh? Overseas? This has nothing to do with Biden. A Texan could have flown over to New Orleans, Tulsa, etc. Vacation time not needed as they would use wifi at the other location.
The weather was freezing in those locations as well and while they weren't having state-wide issues on a Texas scale they had plenty of power outages. You might be jumping to the same situation. We also considered a drive to Florida but worried about the condition of interstates in places.
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