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Rye Miles #13621

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I hope you're all doing okay. I got a friend in Texas that has been having rolling blackouts every couple hours! Yikes!!

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I'm in the Ft. Worth area. People all around us lose power for an hour at a time or 12 hours. Doesn't seem to be any particular schedule. Oddly enough, we haven't lost power at all yet. It's 1 degree now outside. I told my daughter that the satellites that turn of the power can't see me because I'm wearing my tinfoil hat :-)

Horace

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23 minutes ago, Horace Patootie, SASS #35798 said:

I'm in the Ft. Worth area. People all around us lose power for an hour at a time or 12 hours. Doesn't seem to be any particular schedule. Oddly enough, we haven't lost power at all yet. It's 1 degree now outside. I told my daughter that the satellites that turn of the power can't see me because I'm wearing my tinfoil hat :-)

Horace

That's where my friend lives and his power has been going on and off in two or three hour cycles.

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I live about 150 miles west of Ft. Worth, we've had no problem. Poor Abilene has all 3 water treatment plants down, no water at all. Clyde has its own water system thankfully. No power blackouts at our house (so far)

JHC

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43 minutes ago, Capt. James H. Callahan said:

I live about 150 miles west of Ft. Worth, we've had no problem. Poor Abilene has all 3 water treatment plants down, no water at all. Clyde has its own water system thankfully. No power blackouts at our house (so far)

JHC

 

I'm pretty shocked they don't have Emergency Diesel Generators.

All our plants, water and sewage, have back up Gensets, but I suppose here in Canada this sort of thing can happen more often.

How about the hospitals? Back-up Gensets there??

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7 minutes ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

 

I'm pretty shocked they don't have Emergency Diesel Generators.

All our plants, water and sewage, have back up Gensets, but I suppose here in Canada this sort of thing can happen more often.

How about the hospitals? Back-up Gensets there??

They have backup generators, probably not full power. Heard last night they had no water at all. Not used to it being this cold, let alone for over a week. Not as prepared as Canada for sure. I was talking about the hospitals, I guess the water plants don't have backup, or at least not enough.

JHC

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This is just not the sort of thing that happens here in Texas very often, so we are not prepared for it. The last one was in 1989 where we live (Ft. Worth area)

so that is why we are not prepared for it. Yesterday, I did look online at the generator installations available. Also, since our water supply facilities are down, 

we have to boil water for necessary use and restrict our water use otherwise.

Horace

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Rolling blackouts here east of Dallas.  Have 3 friends that have been without power since Sunday. Another lost his last night.

One co-worker was totally unprepared. No heaters for his water troughs. low on hay, tractor battery toast. Not sure how he is going to make it.  Last I heard his above ground pool froze enough that it busted.

 

Roads here are a mess so I am staying in the house. Have to keep the faucets on the outside walls dripping or they freeze.

 

Good news is it will be 15 degrees warmer tonight that it was last night. Don't sound like much but it makes a huge difference. 

 

 

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Just notified that our city (Keller) water tanks are empty. All water is what is in the lines. We have bathtubs full plus buckets. Bottled water for drinking(my wife always keeps this on hand) and pots of boiled water also. After this episode, we will concentrate on being better prepared.

Horace

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10 hours ago, Perro Del Diablo said:

doing OK some blackouts due to wind mills frozen cant go anywhere roads are horrible and texans have no clue how to drive in this stuff :lol:

 

Windmills? For power? 

Power outages are rare in my area. Rolling blackouts are not a thing. Most of our power grid is supplied by hydropower. And we do have a couple of nuclear providers. 

 

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44 minutes ago, Whiskey Business said:

 

Windmills? For power? 

Power outages are rare in my area. Rolling blackouts are not a thing. Most of our power grid is supplied by hydropower. And we do have a couple of nuclear providers. 

 

 

Up until this the State government was bragging on them.

 

Now they are demanding to know why there isn't enough electricity to go around in the winter when there was enough for the 100+ days last summer.

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How can those bird cuisinarts be good for the environment?

 

Not to mention, people are forced to run generators and wood burning fireplaces to keep from freezing.

 

Guessing payola at play to hire some idiot savants to design this system.

 

Technology is a good thing. But, hey, let's party like it is 1899.

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We are 80 miles east of Dallas. Most of out town is without power. 

The town has pretty much shut down. Schools closed 

We have not lost power. We still have water. 

We feel fortunate. We are praying for our friends who are suffering because of this unusually cold weather.

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So far so good, but the city says we'll be out of water in a few hours. The 10" main line FROM the water plant is frozen. They're calling for voluneers who have pear burners (rancher burn the thorns off prickly pears for animal feed) or propane powered heaters to try to thaw it. Another problem is you can't find propane. We're better off than lots of folks, our water heater and central heater are natural gas. Of course if the power goes out we'll still be SOL but at least we can keep it warm and not be as big a drain on the grid long as the juice is on.

JHC

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3 minutes ago, Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663 said:

Texas power companies are going to have a lot of explaining to do...real soon!

Yep. The outfit that manages the grid is known as ERCOT. Not sure if it's governmental or what. Must be a bunch of Demoncrats, does seem like they've bungled things.

JHC

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"Rolling blackouts" is a mis-nomer for what is happening in central Texas. Power is being shut down in huge swaths across the larger cities knocking out power to large percentage of populations for many hours.  In my are of Austin our power went off at 2:07am Monday morning and didnt come back on till 2:13 am Wednesday morning. That is 48 hours with no heat or light. Now the real number. At the top end of the outage about 42% of the electric customers in Austin were under power outage lasting from 48 to 60 hours.  The other areas of town did have "rolling" outage lasting from 30 - 60 minutes for most of the last two days. 

I have a generator that I ran for two days running a couple space heaters and the fridge. Temp went down to 25 inside the house and 13 outside before I trudged out through 6" of snow and brought the genny up to house and rigged the wiring to run the heaters. Lows here in central Austin dropped to 5 degrees Monday morning and 3 degrees Tuesday. Today it is a veritable heat wave low last night was 20 degrees, We got a ice storm last night and picked up 1/2 inch of ice on everything. Another one is just hitting here. The bad part is I am down to 4 gallons of gas if the power goes out again and there is 1/2 of ice on top of the snow covered roads. (Austin doesnt have snow plows for use to plow the streets.  The State does but only for the hiways and state roads.  Driving to get gas Monday on 6 inches of snow was not bad, but Tuesday morning the snow had been driven on and compacted and refroze overnight.  Interesting 5 mile round trip to the only gas station nearby that had electricity( cant run gas pumps without electricity).

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Find it interesting that some metro sections of the state have never lost power. Despite the mandate for rolling blackouts state wide.

 

Wonder who lives there with enough pull to keep their power on while others are being subjected to the rolling blackouts and more than a few have been without for days.

 

 

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Outskirts of Waco, power off and on every few hours.  Just found out tankless water heaters do freeze up and hair dryers don’t do much good in this weather. Oh well, wife still snuggles.

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14 minutes ago, Henry T Harrison said:

Boy did my whole house generator sound sweet when it fired up this afternoon for it’s weekly exercise 

Weekly tests exercise? I wondered how often you have to do that. I'm thinking about getting a Generac.

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2 minutes ago, Rye Miles #13621 said:

Weekly tests exercise? I wondered how often you have to do that. I'm thinking about getting a Generac.

Had one when we lived on the NC Coast. It ran 15 minutes every Monday morning.  It was a great asset.  

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48 minutes ago, Rye Miles #13621 said:

Weekly tests exercise? I wondered how often you have to do that. I'm thinking about getting a Generac.

It starts itself every Wednesday afternoon and runs for about ten minutes it charges the battery and keeps everything lubed. It also lets you know everything is working. Mine is a Generac and runs on natural gas 

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