Jimmy Carter said in the 70s that you just need to put on another sweater.  This has and will always be the the liberal way.

I live in the Permian. I am all for gas plants, we burn off so much might as well put it to use.

You're in my AO.....

We lost power for over 24 hours.  Came on at 2:30 AM today.  House was 51 degrees inside.  Shit got real yo......


CMOS

"Rolling"....bovine excrement!  Only had about 15 to 30 minutes at a time last 36 hours at least.  And only 3 or 4 times now.  

Can anyone explain why we have shut down the reliable energy production  for something that doesn't work when so desperately needed?  

0200 2/15 to 1030 2/16 no power in the southern end of Cypress in NW Houston.

Ended up down to about 42 degrees on the thermostat upstairs in the house. Was starting to get worried. Furnace ran for almost 2 hours to bring us back to 70 in case we lose it again.  Thankfully had gas and kept all the interior faucets dripping so no loss of water inside or for the water softener in the garage. Got two outside spigots that are deadheaded and are likely frozen but just going to leave them until it warms up and see what I need to deal with.

Glad when we were house shopping back when I had some weird desire in the back of my head to still have a fireplace., even if it sucks, better than nothing.  

Hope yall farther north are making it ok.

yeah...  I get it.   The peaker over by me had not been running.   I'm assuming it either froze or was decommissioned.   But it sure seems like a lot of infrastructure has been neglected.   Fortunately the state's solar isn't to the duckback stage.   But not from a lack of trying by AE and CPS.

I think the claim that ERCOT and Oncor are without fault is probably premature.   There will be an autopsy. That we saw this coming for so many days and were still left in the dark is the problem.  

Yeah,  I'm a solar guy.   But all the systems I'm involved with are in the PNW.  I'm not a fan of big solar farms either.

We've had utility porter for about 6 hours total since Sunday night.   3 of those hours were this morning.   We're prepared, warm and fine,  but many of my neighbors are not.  The non - answers from the utilities is pissng me off.  And I assert that their initial claim of rolling blackouts confirms their lack of awareness.

ETA:  adding insult to injury,  both Frontier Comm and Verizon Wireless have been impotent during this event.   I had to leave my home to get working data on the cell phone.   And Frontier is just dead,  even on my backup power.  Their CO is dead - backup generator is not running.

It got cold enough in my attic to freeze and burst water pipes that were dripping. I guess they were not dripping enough. It is raining indoors now.

Yeah cell/data around us was non-existent. Either backup failed or the towers were so completely overwhelmed they gridlocked. Or some combination of both. Couldn’t even get a text or voice call out or in.

Once we got just south of 290 yesterday we got usable signal.

Good luck man. What area are you in?

Many carriers stopped putting backup gens at cell towers a while back.  They opted for roll up plug in connections then failed to maintain their fleet of mobile generators, assuming they could get them to the sites.  With something on this scale not much they're going to do.




I suspect there will be plenty of blame to go around, if you want to look at long term root cause then Ercot has some culpability as they should have been screaming about a lack of capacity on the grid.  

This wiki page is informative when you see all the PV and Wind being added - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Texas

Went from 0730 Monday to 1430 Tuesday without power - feel much better now.

Green energy can .....

We've been without power off and on in Cibolo since 9pm last night.

Power has been out at in this Lake Limestone subdivision since Thursday, except for a 6 hour period yesterday.


I'm just wearing my cold weather outdoor gear, running the truck inverter to power all my little devices to entertain myself (and work).  Little buddy heater in the one heatable small bedroom of the house.



My only real hardship is...  i really really want a shower.  And coffee.  But that's just 'cause i'm too lazy to start a fire.  

Holy crap that’s messed up. Good luck bud

For those that are unfamiliar with it, and don't have backup generators or something similar, look into Goal Zeros products.

They are a bit pricey, but incredibly useful even when not in situations like this. You can always wire them into your home as backup, but we have a few of the mid range units we use for all sorts of shit.

Super conveinent.

Thanks.  But...  with the gear I carry I could camp in this weather, if it came down to it.  I have a roof over my head.  I'm out of the wind.  I have a comfortable chair to sit in.

The interior water pipes aren't frozen and the toilet flushes!  Heaven.

If I had a girl to share the bed with it'd be perfect.  Well...  except for the no shower part.  

I do miss the flushing part

Our local nuke plant down here in the Houston area when tits up so that killed our power for 38 hours. Bitter cold. Finally came on around 2 pm today. Worse part was the cell towers went down as well so that sucked as we had no or very little comms.

Katy TX area.

I've heard parts of the grid go on standby for the winter because there is not nearly the load demand as during the summer. This hit and it all went to hell. Plus a nuke plant when tits up as well.

Someone explain to me how a nuclear plant gets hit by this weather.

Plano

I have another fireplace in the office area

We will close it off and get that room hot as no hope of restoration anytime soon

Complete rando from frozen northern Iowa here. If any of our Texas arfcommers know of someone that needs a meal or will have problems getting back on their feet, pm me and I’ll see what I can scrape up on PayPal or door dash.

I don’t know what else I can do to help from 700 miles away but this entire situation sucks ass.

Could have originated outside the plant itself. If you start dropping T-lines that could quite possibly back up into the plant.

If it’s an under frequency event that’s when major problems happen.

That’s very generous, thank you.

The news reported last night when I had about 3 hours of power that downtown Ft Worth was lit up while small surrounding towns like mine are dark.

19 hours now on this outage, 17 yesterday.

If we don't get a couple hours tonight I wonder how low it will go in my house.

Thanks. I've learned more about power generation and transmission than I've ever wanted to know.

No problem. I’m a substation electrician ask away. There are quite a few people in the industry on this site.

I saw where Dallas was rather well lit. Remember we are all in this together

Heads need to roll on this one...we were on almost 36 hours with no power....it is about 42 deg in the house, almost all our fish are dead (tank temps dropped to 60 deg and below)...dogs dont seem to care, but its damned cold in here.

Power just came back, but we'll see for how long...hopefully it will last the night, and allow the house to warm up to 70 to make sure we can keep some temp if it goes out again...

Pipes seem good, wrapped the outside hose bibs, they seem fine, seem to have one pipe frozen up, to the toilet on the master suite downstairs (we use as a guest room)...it is on an outside wall, and the pipe necessarily comes through inside the outside wall, no way to access, and when I flushed it this morning ti check it, no fill...the sinks, shower and tub in there all work good, so it just seems to be that one...

Hopefully tonights storm doesn't do more damage to lines, etc...Scheels has been closed since Sunday due to the weather, doubt it will be open tomorrow considering...

We went out this morning to get some coffee and hot breakfast, and went out a few hours ago to get some hot Pho...

If we can make it through with power for a while, I'll be happy with how we weathered it...but already plan on getting a Kero-Sun type heater with a 5 gallon can of kerosene to store, and a camp stove and a few other things (hitting the camping section at Scheels!) to store away...

Honestly never thought we'd see extended weather like this in Texas, so didn't really bring any of our heaters from up north...

That being said, FONCOR, FERCOT, and FAbbot for this....they knew it was coming, and did nothing to somewhat prepare, and their "rolling blackout" bullshit was just that. Saw the head ERCOT guy on the news, and he just spewed corporate BS about how well they were prepared...yeah thats why so many people have been without power for 24 plus hours, with no "rolling". Hope ONCOR gets hit with a huge class action suit...they need to pay for everyones losses due to their BS...

Prayers out for all the Texas guys to come through this crap as best as possible...they say possible 60's by Sunday...fingers crossed...

PS I wonder how many ERCOT and ONCOR Exec's families have been sitting in the dark and cold?

IM is full message me if I can help, we're in the same hood.

We have power here in Cibolo, don't know for how long though. Been off and on all day. If anyone in the area needs help don't hesitate to PM me. I'll do what I can to make it happen.

Early Monday our power cut out around 2am.  Came back on after an hour or so then went out at 10am.  It did not come back on until ~1pm today, so around 27 hours without power.  It only got down to 52* in the house but it certainly feels cold just sitting in the dark.  I'm really hoping it doesn't go out, or at least not for a while.

During all of this we had water but not hot water.  We were letting all faucets trickle.  I discovered this afternoon that the inlet pipe to the tankless water heater had swelled and broke but it was still frozen so water wasn't spraying everywhere.  I turned the water to the house off and now get to wait for a plumber to come out.

Centerpoint is catering to the libs in Harris County. WTF only 11%  without power while the surrounding counties are taking the brunt of the "blackouts".

Power came back on around 11am.  I cranked the heater up to 80 because it was 41 in my house.

Internet was out until about 30mins ago and the cell towers have been shitty all day.

Now we have low water pressure and a boil order for Pearland....

For one, it's in a place that rarely gets below freezing for more than a few hours and even less often hard freezes. I have family that work there and remember hearing a lot of areas aren't climate controlled. Plus they use a massive water reservoir for cooling instead of cooling towers and those pipes are exposed. Best guess is some important stuff froze.

they called people in pretty quick once they determined the lock down crew werent enough

Subnet is out of power and out of firewood.  Pipes freezing and internet is down.  He's up in north east DFW area I believe.  Does anyone have his number?  I can bring supplies to him.

If he needs a place to stay. I'm in Wylie...if our power stays on, we should be fairly warm again in a few hours...

PM me if I can help...IIRC he's in Melissa? So not terribly far...

Thanks man

Hanging tight right now

Yeah I was thinking Princeton or Melissa.  Somewhere up that way.  I'll pass the offer on to him if I can get a hold of him.

Crazy...almost 24hrs to the minute...house was 51...
Furnace finally caught up but still no water pressure...will not be surprised if the lights go out again

My power went off at 7pm. Supposedly it’s only going to get down to 30 tonight according to my phone...not that bad.

Water pressure has went to crap. Had to adjust all of my faucets to drip at the rate I want. I’m sure the pressure will come back while I sleep and I’ll waste a bunch of water

I want to see people on the chopping block and in prison over this shit

It seems to be 3 hrs. on and 3 hrs. off in my neighborhood in Mesquite, Texas

Sorry for the double post.

It's not a "Problem" of people being cold & miserable...  

It's an OPPORTUNITY for sweater market expansion!

Well...that was shorter than expected....off at 7, back on at 9

And we just lost power again at 9pm wtf

No Sex like DIRTY Sex ....