Watching the fallout from the weather in Texas - lessons to be learned.

[03A3Sporter]

To the point of "lessons to be learned ",
I think a simple gas powered generator for emergency home use is incredibly cheap insurance against a lot of discomfort.
That and a decent knowledge of it's care and feeding.

This is truth and most folks I had as neighbors back home had a back up generator on natural gas or propane with an ATS to prevent those times of discomfort. Having said that though if you do not come from an area that has the potential for extreme weather events on a regular basis it has been my observation people tend to live for today and not think about it until it happens.

Prior to moving here I never witnessed a place that panics over an inch of snow like people in the Willamette Valley do. My first light dusting experience here I was able to watch people panic buy the Safeway out and leave cars scattered all up and down Eola cause no one can drive when a little snow or ice hits the road .. No never mind they drive 70 in torrential downpours with regularity.

As I said earlier people tend to prepare for what they know not the unknown or unlikely to happen .

In fact in risk management what happened in this year would have fell in the impact assessment , unlikely to happen with a high level of impact if it does.

People can't prepare for everything no matter how hard you try , and as such we tend to prepare for those things which have the most probable chance of occurring given the location we live in.

 

[Catfishmoon]

While I feel bad for any of the individuals suffering from this power outage, it does appear self-inflicted by decisions made previously. They decided not to spend the capital necessary to prevent a power outage during an unlikely event (the current cold weather).
Seems no different to me than the states on the West Coast deciding not to spend all of the extra money necessary to protect infrastucture from a powerful once in 500 year earthquake... Or not spending the money for dikes along the Mississippi River in case of a 100 year flood... Texas gambled and lost.

This situation does remind me of all the threads on this forum bemoaning the shortage of ammunition... Some spent the funds on a non-sexy idea like preparing for the possibilty of an emergency, others just hoped the emergency would not happen during their lifetime or be a only a minor inconvenience .

 

[3MTA3]

The political aspect of Texas not being on it's own vs the federal power grid is moot, or didn't any of you notice that Oregon's power grid failed virtually everywhere that was part of the ice storm? Please tell me how Oregon being part of the Federal grid was a benefit?

All infrastructure is designed to be hardened for the conditions encountered the vast majority of the time. The Texas grid is designed to withstand continual very hot weather. That normal Texas weather would shut down the grid in Oregon within a few days at best. Almost no infrastructure anywhere is designed for hundred year events.

We can all try the finger pointing game, play red vs blue, etc., but it won't help you the next time this happens and it WILL happen.

As for lessons learned, we can start at home and then consider Texas.
Oregon - IMO over the years outages have become more frequent. We had a series of similar ice storms in the 80's or 90's and only a few communities lost power. It seems my power, just two miles away has gone out more times over the last year than all the other years combined. We can look at policies and play finger pointing games, but the reality is that we need to be prepared for more frequent and longer outages.

I lost a lot of refrigerated food this time. Loss of communications due to loss of electricity and the two inches of ice on my vehicles was uncomfortable. I was glad we had an alternate source of heat. Keeping the Mrs from going nuts since she was disconnected from social networks and entertainment also became a high priority.

What I learned:

• I need a backup generator and fuel at least to power the fridge and freezer and to recharge phones and power radio equipment. In my next house this will be a built in unit, likely a multi fuel Onan, but don't want to make that investment here. Will wait a few months to see if some bought due to the storm wind up on Craigslist.
• I need to keep more batteries on hand, especially D cells for lanterns and radios. Had plenty on stock for flashlights, scopes, etc., but completely spaced lantern needs. Will also buy a couple more LED lanterns.
• I need to make sure that the weed burner is accessible if a winter storm is predicted. I had salt and shovel ready, but my weed burner was behind a layer of ice I couldn't get to until enough had melted that it was a moot point. A weed burner would have quickly cleared my 20 degree driveway and provided a means to access my vehicles.
• I will never own another house with a sloped driveway.
• My dry and canned supplies and other contingencies were more than adequate.
• I'm considering some low voltage LED emergency lighting for the future.
• Grateful that I have a gas stove for cooking, otherwise it would have been very inconvenient, especially since my CampChef stove was right next to the weed burner I couldn't access and my BBQ uses pellets and requires electricity. I don't think it would have been useful at 20 degrees regardless.
• Cell service the first few days sucked since everybody was calling each other and/or using their cells for Internet access.
• Biggest lesson learned is that my neighbors as a group are awesome. People went door to door checking on each other and making sure that people had what they needed. I'm thinking about a "care" kit I could provide to a neighbor that is unprepared or perhaps hit harder than others. For example had a falling tree cause additional damage.

Texas lessons learned:

• Lots of water disruptions due to failed well pumping mechanisms. If you have a well, then backup power is essential. The cold can usually be dealt with, but lack of water is a killer. Evin city systems in areas that don't have gravity fed water are susceptible. If this is you then you need a back up plan.
• If you don't already have water stored for catastrophic events, do it now. Plan for 2 gallons of water per person per day for the length you think you will need to survive. A typical family of four for even two weeks needs 2 gallons x 4 people x 14 days = 114 gallons. And that's just for two weeks. One gallon jugs are probably not going to be the solution, so look for larger containers. Add additional water to keep toilets working, just pour directly into the tank as needed.
• If you don't already have a water filtration system in the event you need to source water from Mother Nature then get one. I have a Big Berkey stuffed with the finer black filters, so if I had to use a creek or river I'm covered. I also keep Sawyer squeeze filters in my vehicles. Both system can be reverse flushed to clean them when they get clogged. Three days without water and you will be in critical shape.
• You are responsible for your own health and safety. Very large events mean that very large numbers of people are on their own.

 

[albin25]

Wind works... IF it's windy when you need it and IF it isn't broken. The turbines may not have all froze up if they had been actually "turbine-ing", but it was calm before the big freeze hit and they were stationary.

Solar works... IF it's sunny when you need it and IF it isn't covered. The solar panels...pretty much screwed by cloud and snow

so, not so great if "emergency" is cold/calm/snowy weather related.

Time is also a big factor in emergency preparedness ....
- severe Texas cold spells?.. usually last 1, maybe 2 days = handle-able.... especially if it effects only 1/2 of the State (like a Hurricane does).
- this severe Texas cold spell?... plus LOTS of snow that lasting a over a week and effecting the entire State? including the parts where 90% of the population have never even SEEN snow or felt real cold?... hold on to yer lug nuts!

We're talking about a place where most people have never, ever, experienced the joy of their glasses fogging up.... and that unfortunately even includes the people in charge of preparedness (they may in the future want to consider hiring someone from North Dakota).
My daughter (in Texas) actually had to inform some friends what "DEF." was for on their cars air conditioner controls , (apparently they usually don't call it a "HEATER" down there)

 

[03A3Sporter]

Wind works... IF it's windy when you need it and IF it isn't broken. The turbines may not have all froze up if they had been actually "turbine-ing", but it was calm before the big freeze hit and they were stationary.

Solar works... IF it's sunny when you need it and IF it isn't covered. The solar panels...pretty much screwed by cloud and snow

so, not so great if "emergency" is cold/calm/snowy weather related.

Time is also a big factor in emergency preparedness ....
- severe Texas cold spell?.. usually last 1 maybe 2 days = handle-able.... especially if it effects only 1/2 of the State (like a Hurricane does).
- severe Texas cold spell?... plus LOTS of snow that lasting a over a week and effecting the entire State? including the parts where 90% of the population have never even SEEN snow or felt real cold?... hold on to yer lug nuts!

We're talking about a place where most people have never, ever, experienced the joy of their glasses fogging up.... and that unfortunately even includes the people in charge of preparedness (they may in the future want to consider hiring someone from North Dakota).
My daughter (in Texas) actually had to inform some friends what "DEF." was for on their cars air conditioner controls , (apparently they usually don't call it a "HEATER" down there)

Truth

 

[powersbj]

The power grid is under massive strain the source or the power is sorta irrelevant. Its being hit with an event the way way outside its design. IMHO people need to put on their big boy pants and deal. Or accept paying massive rates for a power system that won't be used 99.9% of the time.

 

[Catfishmoon]

The political aspect of Texas not being on it's own vs the federal power grid is moot, or didn't any of you notice that Oregon's power grid failed virtually everywhere that was part of the ice storm? Please tell me how Oregon being part of the Federal grid was a benefit?

Seems like an "apples to oranges" comparison... In Oregon the power outage was not due to in-state production facilities beng inoperable of prodution of electricity, which it is in Texas.
Oregon had one problem, the transmission of electricity while the grid was inoperable. Once the grid was again operable electricity could have been brought in from 1000's of miles away (it would not have mattered if in-state production was offline)..

Texas has two problems, production failure and their grid not being connected to a wider system. Even if their grid was functioning at 100 percent ability, because they are not connected to a wider grid, they are limited to their own production in-state.

Almost no infrastructure anywhere is designed for hundred year events.

I would disagree... Clearly much infrastucture built along the West Coast has taken into consideration a 100 year earthquake and flood control on the Mississippi River is designed to mitigate if not totally control the damage of a 100 year flood.

New Seattle tunnel designed to ride out catastrophic 9.0 quake, DOT says

SEATTLE – The new Highway 99 tunnel opening in early February has been constructed to withstand a powerful once-in-2,500-years earthquake of roughly 9. 0 magnitude off the Washington coast, state Department of Transportation officials said Monday. And that, in its most basic terms, is why the...

komonews.com

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New Orleans District > Missions > Mississippi River Flood Control > Mississippi River & Tributaries

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[03A3Sporter]

Seems like an "apples to oranges" comparison... In Oregon the power outage was not due to in-state production facilities beng inoperable of prodution of electricity, which it is in Texas.
Oregon had one problem, the transmission of electricity while the grid was inoperable. Once the grid was again operable electricity could have been brought in from 1000's of miles away (it would not have mattered if in-state production was offline)..

Texas has two problems, production failure and their grid not being connected to a wider system. Even if their grid was functioning at 100 percent ability, because they are not connected to a wider grid, they are limited to their own production in-state.



I would disagree... Clearly much infrastucture built along the West Coast has taken into consideration a 100 year earthquake and flood control on the Mississippi River is designed to mitigate if not totally control the damage of a 100 year flood.

You are still incorrect in your assessments . As I said before you can't compare the two . Let me ask do you actually have a back ground in business continuity of operations ? Do you actually understand how business plans for 100 year events or what a 100 year event and how they are calculated ?

Again what happened in Texas was a statistical outlier when you look at a century of weather date for the region. No 100 year engineering model will reasonably accommodate things like that.

Also consider this Texas produces and exports more energy than Oregon and Washington combined year round. I really do not think there is a lesson for Texas to learn from the PNW

 

[cigars]

Green energy has its place. It's not ready for prime time yet. Last Thursday before we had our little event I topped off all of our vehicles with gas. That's about 70 gallons on tap that could keep my generator running for weeks if necessary.
Frozen wind mills, ugh. Hopefully the good people of Texas get a break quickly.

 

[dfisher1981]

The hits from Texas just keep on coming: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/0...13676421&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Whoever looks at that and sees a "model" for the rest of the nation needs to lay off the crack pipe.

Magness said on Wednesday that if operators had not acted in that moment, the state could have suffered blackouts that "could have occurred for months," and left Texas in an "indeterminately long" crisis.

That's the president of ERCOT, who manages the electrical grid for Texas.

 

[Sandaholic]

5 ERCOT board members don't live in Texas, one from Canada

 

[blaster1145]

Tell that to Alaska, Greenland and any of the Scandinavian countries with green energy. No, this was totally a failure resulting from the Texas state government not wanting to tell their power companies to prepare for cold weather (i.e., deregulating). Isn't it odd that the power grids regulated by the federal government don't seem to have these issues? The rest of the South (the Eastern Grid) isn't seeing this. El Paso, served by the Western (federal grid), is doing just fine. For some reason only the Texas grid is crippled by this unusual cold weather.

Right, because government regulation is the answer.

Sometimes I also say things. And when folks respond by saying, "Dude you're an bubblegum clown," I retrace my steps and figure out where I went wrong. Just sayin.

 

[blaster1145]

And bubblegum clown ain't what I meant! A S S CLOWN. I deserve it sometimes.

 

[WWShooter]

Right, because government regulation is the answer.

Sometimes I also say things. And when folks respond by saying, "Dude you're an bubblegum clown," I retrace my steps and figure out where I went wrong. Just sayin.

A surprisingly fact free post. In this case, it appears that government regulation was exactly the correct answer. The market didn't call for winterization unless everyone did, there were one or more hold outs, as a result no one winterized because to do would have been a competitive disadvantage, so Texas 2010!

Your turn, but bring facts or analysis rather than sound bites.

 

[blaster1145]

A surprisingly fact free post. In this case, it appears that government regulation was exactly the correct answer. The market didn't call for winterization unless everyone did, there were one or more hold outs, as a result no one winterized because to do would have been a competitive disadvantage, so Texas 2010!

Your turn, but bring facts or analysis rather than sound bites.

No sir! Trashing the idiotic notion of 'green energy' the moment it appeared on the horizon is the effing answer.

 

[blaster1145]

Fact free my bubblegum!

 

[WWShooter]

No sir! Trashing the idiotic notion of 'green energy' the moment it appeared on the horizon is the effing answer.

Still fact free. Got data to back up your position? That's going to be hard because, as you know, it's a hot topic.

But if your mind is made up in the absence of any actual data concerning green energy, and the assumption that there will not be further technological advances, so be it. Go hitch up the team to head out to the general store in town and buy the Mrs. a bolt of calico she can sew up into a dress or two.

 

[blaster1145]

Yeah. I do have data. And although I can only speak for myself, I suspect that many others on this forum have a similar data set. I have a lifetime of lived data which says before you tools started pushing chaos, guilt fabrication, color nonsense, and everything else in an effort to worm out culture from the inside.... things were more or less good, stable and predictable. You want to take a crack at US? Ok. Fine. Go for it. We are going to beat you. It may take a decade. But we are going to beat you. All of you. Because you've got nothing but BS. You as an individual can take a run at this forum, insidiously spread contempt, whatever. It's 'blah, blah, blah' to me. Go right ahead. It doesn't matter, because people know better.

Just in case you didn't hear it the first time... WE ARE GOING TO BEAT YOU!

 

[blaster1145]

Calico is pretty nice, tho. Especially on a God fearing woman in the spring.

 

[bgdawgrr]

Serious question - what would be the better solution for a solar system for a house? The thing that boggles my mind is that a lot of the solar setups down here do *not* include a battery bank, so when the grid goes down, you're still without power because the way its connected, you don't disconnect from the grid and the systems shut off so they don't feed power into the lines. Makes no damn sense to me to sink tens of thousands into a solar power system, only to lose power when the grid goes down. My grandparents and great aunt both got roped into such systems, the pitch they got was "it doesn't cost any more than your power bill would" - which, okay, I could understand *if* the system met or exceeded your power demands *and* worked when the grid was offline. You're trading one utility cost for another, and increasing the resale value of your home at the same time.

What we'd like is to have a system that still provides power when the grid goes down, which would more likely happen due to a major wind storm / hurricane than another freak snow storm. With the solar setup the price would be fixed and not subject to increases, so that's a bene. The increase in home value is another bene. The con is that if you buy the system vs long term lease, you're responsible when those units break or age-out.

A generator is also in our future for emergency needs, because even with solar, the sun doesn't shine all the time and so the panels wouldn't be in peak production constantly.

Solution is doable but expensive. Take note, I am not an expert.
1. Easiest is add a battery bank.
2. Add an AC coupled system. With existing system, it would be manual and I believe you may need charge controllers and battery back up, but less batteries (and less storage).
3. There are newer inverters that can disconnect from the grid and power up a secure power supply. Think of it as the same as having a disconnect and generator connection, only the solar panels are your generator. You would have a live outlet with a couple thousand watts of available power....when it's daylight.

Love to hear if others have