So many people are without power and the outages haven't been caused by ice covered power lines or falling trees. They've been caused by power companies shutting people off to prevent the entire power grid from collapsing. I never even realized that Texas wasn't even part of a national power grid. We're stuck when something like this happens because we can't buy extra electricity from warmer parts of the country. Usually this isn't a problem, but when the entire state is under a winter weather advisory, there just isn't enough energy to go around. I really wasn't expecting this, but I wasn't expecting Covid either. It makes you wonder what is going to happen next.
We still have power and I don't think any pipes have frozen, so we are among the lucky ones. Things can change quickly though, so I don't think anyone is taking their situation for granted. There's another storm headed our way that could be even worse than the first one. This time sleet and freezing rain are in the forecast and that is often a lot worse than snow. Most of our Winter power outages in the past have been caused by ice covered trees and power lines. That could easily happen again.
There is so much conflicting information about how to cope with cold weather. Some say both the hot and cold water lines should be set on drip. Others say the hot water should be shut off entirely. There is a controversy about a drip versus a thin continuous stream of water too. I keep hearing that it takes a lot more energy to raise the temperature on cold days than to cool the temperature in hot days. This doesn't make sense. Our gas furnace uses way less electricity than the big air conditioner compressor out in the back yard. All I know is that my electric bill is way higher in July than it ever is in February.
We're setting our thermostat lower and turning off lights when we leave the room. I'm not sure how much this helps though. We have a very small house and use much less energy than most of this extravagant city. Probably the biggest culprits are the huge office towers downtown that light up the sky every night from miles away.
Dawn has sensibly decided to stay inside, but Janet and I are still taking daily walks. Each day the walks get a little shorter. We only walked 3 1/2 miles today, but that was plenty. The terrain seemed icier today since a lot of the dry power snow on top of everything has blown away. Underneath this snow is ice and it's pretty slick. I'm still amazed at how many people are out driving. Some of these people are probably essential workers, but others are just fools who are going to wind up in a ditch soon enough. Our own cars aren't going anywhere. We start then every day to keep things working properly, but they never leave the driveway.
I hope the sleet and ice forecasters are predicting tonight doesn't amount to much. After tomorrow, things will start to get better. They say by Saturday the temperature might even climb above freezing.
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