Texas Suffers with Historic Winter Storm

February 2021 brought a winter storm of such proportions that the entire state of Texas was (and is) under storm warnings, storm watches, or storm advisories. Living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, I was a little concerned as the storm approached, but had heeded all the advice local newscasts gave as far as preparation and “survival.”

As you may know, Texas isn’t known for cold weather and snow. We haven’t had a white Christmas in years. In February, the average temperature is in the 40° - 50° range.

On day one, as my faucets dripped, and my fireplace roared, I monitored my social media pages and immediately found that a friend of mine was among the first people to lose power. As time went by and his posts continued to document the effects of long-term power outage, I began to get more nervous.

We were being asked to conserve, conserve, conserve. I did what I could as day one turned to day two. My friend and many others across the state were still without power, and things were getting dangerous. I continued to have both water and electricity. After 36 hours with no power, and no new wood for his fireplace, my friend had to leave his house, brave the bad roads (we don’t have a lot of sanding trucks and plows here) and go somewhere where there was power.

Temperatures in the morning were in the single digits and wind chills (and boy did the wind blow!) were up to -15° in some places. Highs were in the teens. Let me reinforce—this is not normal for Texas.

Texas winter storm Day 3 dawned and my local news suggested cooking as much food as possible in advance in case power went out, and I realized I needed to do that. I checked out the fridge, freezer, and pantry, to see what and how much food I would have if I lost power, and put a bunch of eggs on the stove to hard boil.

By my figuring, I had enough food for at least 2 days without power. I got some food out to cook to increase that supply, and filled up a bunch of bottles and containers with water that I hoped to freeze to use as coolant for the fridge and freezer just in case. I used the water I had captured from the dripping faucets to do this. I neglected to charge my phone.

Watching the news, I got more scared, seeing water pouring through roofs, icicles inside people’s homes, police tape around a garage where two people died from carbon monoxide poisoning after trying to stay warm in their car.

Then Fort Worth got a boil water order. But how can they, since so many of them don’t have electricity, I wondered?

I lost power at approximately 8:45 a.m. on Wednesday, day three of the storm.

My water was still working, though the pressure was going down, and I was wondering if that meant my pipes were freezing and only a trickle was getting though. I have a gas fireplace, so I had heat, but had heard calls for conserving that as well and wasn’t sure how long it would last.

I worried and wondered about a lot of things: what to do if the power outage went on for a while. I have lots of blankets, so snuggling up wouldn’t be a problem, but would that be enough?

If I lost the fireplace, without heat, would my pipes freeze, then burst?

If my friends had power if/when I needed to leave, how would I get there? I’m from Florida; driving on icy roads is not something I have experience with, and it terrifies me. Especially after seeing the images of the horrible accident that happened on I35 a few days earlier.

At 2 ½ hours with no electricity, my water pressure was really low and I was getting really nervous, but trying not to panic.

At hour three I consolidated the food in my fridge and freezer to the bottom shelves, and strategically placed ice packs around them. I put the new water bottles I had created outside in a snow bank, hoping that they would freeze and would be available as new ice packs if needed. (This didn’t work and I’m not sure why. Maybe I need to take survival training classes.)

I was afraid to turn off my fireplace, since it needs a spark of electricity to turn on, and I didn’t know if I’d have that.

I was snuggled in a chair in front of the fire with the dog in my lap when my power came back on after only 3 ½ hours. I was very relieved and extremely grateful. I also have to admit that I experienced a little bit of “survivor’s guilt”, having lost power for such a short time, when so many others were still without it.

But I took advantage of it, just in case the rolling blackouts rolled back to me. I cooked the food I wasn’t able to before. I turned on the news for updates. I charged my phone. I checked on my local friends to make sure they were OK and to let them know I had electricity again so they wouldn’t worry about me.

Not being familiar with winter storms, I asked one friend if my low water pressure was normal, and that’s when I found out there was a possible water main break and my city was under a boil water order. Oh joy. (The friend who told me this had no water at the time.)

I immediately started doing that, then remembered I had filled up every container I had with water that I now knew wasn’t safe! I had to use some of my freshly boiled water to clean containers to store new batches of safe water, but it was a good trade, especially since there was no timeline for a water fix.

On top of that, we were asked not to drip our faucets anymore because the huge demand was contributing to the problem. I complied, and frozen pipes became what I was worrying about.

I’d heard about people monitoring their electric bills and finding out that the charge for a single day was $100 or more. I began to worry about that a little, too.

It’s now the morning of day four of this incredible winter storm and it’s still cold, and the roads are still dangerous, but at this moment I have some clean water put up, and because I still have electricity, I have the ability to make more clean, safe water (a recent update tells me that it could take as long as 48 hours for the water to be safe again).

Despite this Texas winter storm, water is still coming out of my faucets, so the pipes aren’t frozen and I haven’t lost water because of the water main break. I also have food to eat, so I’m doing really well.

That’s about all I can ask for at a time like this.