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Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:16 am
by Tex1961
0296C9CD-19BD-4FBB-92CD-C09535AF0FDA.jpeg
Might try my hand at ice skating

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:36 am
by Paladin
Some of my pipes are frozen. Glad I've got PEX water lines... about to be crawling under the house to check em.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:45 am
by Ruark
We live near Comfort, about 20 miles NW of San Antonio.

Haven't seen weather like this since I lived in Amarillo. Got down to 5 degrees last night. Now it's 8:40 a.m. and it's 7, high today in the mid 20s. Single digits tonight, middle 30s tomorrow. Nighttime lows in the teens through Friday. Can you believe Sunday and Monday it shoots back up into the 70s??!!!

Pipe froze out at the water well house night before last. Got a heating pad (like you put on a sore back) and wrapped it, got it thawed out in a couple of hours. Sealed the pump house with expanding foam, turned on a little electric heater. Leaving faucets slightly running in the house. I just hope we don't overload the septic!!

Clear blue sky and sunny, but still too cold for anything to melt. 6 inches of snow on the subdivision street in front of our place.

Got a big pizza pan and put some bird seed in it, and sat it out in the yard. It's swarming with hungry birds now.

Be glad when this is over! Everybody be safe.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:49 am
by seph
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/ercot-i ... nter-storm

Customers experiencing an ERCOT-directed outage will remain out until conditions improve to serve critical loads and protect the overall reliability of the grid.
"The situation continues to worsen across Texas and here in Austin," said Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent in a news release. "Austin Energy implemented required outages early Monday morning, doing our part to help stabilize the ERCOT grid. The required outages are more extensive than anyone expected and do not allow us to bring affected customers back online at this time.
So, instead of rolling outages, let's just leave those freezing.

34% of Travis county is out if power all mainly due to the choosen ones deciding who to turn off the power too.

https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:43 am
by 03Lightningrocks
seph wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:49 am https://www.fox7austin.com/news/ercot-i ... nter-storm

Customers experiencing an ERCOT-directed outage will remain out until conditions improve to serve critical loads and protect the overall reliability of the grid.
"The situation continues to worsen across Texas and here in Austin," said Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent in a news release. "Austin Energy implemented required outages early Monday morning, doing our part to help stabilize the ERCOT grid. The required outages are more extensive than anyone expected and do not allow us to bring affected customers back online at this time.
So, instead of rolling outages, let's just leave those freezing.

34% of Travis county is out if power all mainly due to the choosen ones deciding who to turn off the power too.

https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas
My daughter lives maybe 5 minutes from me. Their power has been off since 1:30 am. This is nuts! They are still waiting for power.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:48 am
by SigM4
03Lightningrocks wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:43 am
seph wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:49 am https://www.fox7austin.com/news/ercot-i ... nter-storm

Customers experiencing an ERCOT-directed outage will remain out until conditions improve to serve critical loads and protect the overall reliability of the grid.
"The situation continues to worsen across Texas and here in Austin," said Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent in a news release. "Austin Energy implemented required outages early Monday morning, doing our part to help stabilize the ERCOT grid. The required outages are more extensive than anyone expected and do not allow us to bring affected customers back online at this time.
So, instead of rolling outages, let's just leave those freezing.

34% of Travis county is out if power all mainly due to the choosen ones deciding who to turn off the power too.

https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas
My daughter lives maybe 5 minutes from me. Their power has been off since 1:30 am. This is nuts! They are still waiting for power.
Same here. No ETA at this point. Coldest part of the house just hit 50°. About to load up the kids and dogs and head to my parents house. I don’t look forward to being on the road right now.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:07 am
by 03Lightningrocks
SigM4 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:48 am
03Lightningrocks wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:43 am
seph wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:49 am https://www.fox7austin.com/news/ercot-i ... nter-storm

Customers experiencing an ERCOT-directed outage will remain out until conditions improve to serve critical loads and protect the overall reliability of the grid.
"The situation continues to worsen across Texas and here in Austin," said Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent in a news release. "Austin Energy implemented required outages early Monday morning, doing our part to help stabilize the ERCOT grid. The required outages are more extensive than anyone expected and do not allow us to bring affected customers back online at this time.
So, instead of rolling outages, let's just leave those freezing.

34% of Travis county is out if power all mainly due to the choosen ones deciding who to turn off the power too.

https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas
My daughter lives maybe 5 minutes from me. Their power has been off since 1:30 am. This is nuts! They are still waiting for power.
Same here. No ETA at this point. Coldest part of the house just hit 50°. About to load up the kids and dogs and head to my parents house. I don’t look forward to being on the road right now.
Be safe on the roads.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 12:25 pm
by rtschl
This is what "green" energy gets us. Time to start building more nuclear power plants:

https://twitter.com/lukelegate/status/1 ... 3072208896

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 1:34 pm
by puma guy
SigM4 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:48 am
03Lightningrocks wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:43 am
seph wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:49 am https://www.fox7austin.com/news/ercot-i ... nter-storm

Customers experiencing an ERCOT-directed outage will remain out until conditions improve to serve critical loads and protect the overall reliability of the grid.
"The situation continues to worsen across Texas and here in Austin," said Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent in a news release. "Austin Energy implemented required outages early Monday morning, doing our part to help stabilize the ERCOT grid. The required outages are more extensive than anyone expected and do not allow us to bring affected customers back online at this time.
So, instead of rolling outages, let's just leave those freezing.

34% of Travis county is out if power all mainly due to the choosen ones deciding who to turn off the power too.

https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas
My daughter lives maybe 5 minutes from me. Their power has been off since 1:30 am. This is nuts! They are still waiting for power.
Same here. No ETA at this point. Coldest part of the house just hit 50°. About to load up the kids and dogs and head to my parents house. I don’t look forward to being on the road right now.
Just be sure to empty your 'fridge and freezer onto the patio before you leave. :biggrinjester:

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:55 pm
by seph
Austin is being told to now expect power to be back on today.

Live excess power generation right now in Texas : Operating Reserves: 2,870 MW.

Remember 1 mv powers roughly 200 homes. That's almost a million homes that could have power right now. Over 2.8 million out of power, so that could chop a third and then go back to rolling Blackouts instead of letting people freeze.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 3:08 pm
by 03Lightningrocks
My daughters power came on at 1:30. Mine has been off now for 3 hours! I’m sitting in my truck getting warm. It’s already 55 in my house! From what I understand the outages are not necessarily rolling. They are killing grids to stay down by 36%. Here is link to guy explains it all! Pure idiocy!

https://www.facebook.com/SaveMeSteve/vi ... 072322975/

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 6:08 pm
by powerboatr
we had LOTS of surges and flickers Saturday evening, then sunday morning the power surges drove all my stuff crazy. Both of my Heat pumps locked out for 5 minutes after each event, and by the time the heat pumps restarted, BAM we got another series of the ON OFF ON OFF ON dim events ON OFF brown ON OFF . SO of course the garage with rv got COLD down to the 50s. Thats how many times it happened before power guys fixed it.
power company had 200 or so reported in our area. turns out it was a line transformer with a tree branch smacking the line. At least thats the story the power company told me

i have all the electronics on USB back up power because of the surges we get very often.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 6:20 pm
by RoyGBiv
03Lightningrocks wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 7:39 am
SigM4 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 7:31 am I just got in from about 45 mins of shoveling the driveway. Never would have thought that I would need to bring the snow shovel with us when we moved back from MO. Oh well.

As long as you’re dressed appropriately it’s not too bad outside right now, very little wind. Having spent several winters in WY earlier in my adult life I’m fully aware and prepared for what Mother Nature can do.
I have a better plan that doesn't include shoveling the drive way. My plan is to stay home until this mess goes back up North. :biggrinjester:
You and I are on the same plan. I call it "The Saturday it will melt plan".

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 7:10 pm
by flechero
We just got power back a few min ago... woke up to 51 degrees in the house!!! :shock:

Groceries are on the patio here too.... will be carrying it all back inside if power stays on another hour or so.

Re: Stay Warm and Safe the Next Few Days

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 7:14 pm
by 03Lightningrocks
flechero wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 7:10 pm We just got power back a few min ago... woke up to 51 degrees in the house!!! :shock:

Groceries are on the patio here too.... will be carrying it all back inside if power stays on another hour or so.
Yep. Plano is sending out emergency calls telling us this could last through Tuesday with the power outages. Mine just came back on after six and a half hours off. I am feverishly recharging all my devices. LOL. It was 53 in my house when it came back on. I may start burning furniture in my fire place.