Quarantine Journals - Snow week, energy crisis, holy moly, Part II
We woke up once again freezing our butts off.
It is kind of nuts how quickly the temperature drops the minute the power goes out again. I guess it makes sense that our houses were not designed to keep heat in... this is Texas, after all.
10:55AM - 18 hours into blackout number two for us. Still no power. We had a glimpse of what it looks like for about 45 minutes this morning. It was 0 degrees outside.
Weatherford has been without power for 33 hours and counting.
Weatherford has been without power for 33 hours and counting.
My dad is freezing. He is staying in bed under several blankets all day long. They have not had a glimpse of power this entire time. It is nearly 40 degrees in his house.
I brought everyone into my bedroom and toweled off the doors. It will be easier to keep us warm in one room, and so far seems to be going well. I have a lot of candles going, and the body heat is much easier to raise the temperature here rather than in the living room. The firewood is long gone, but it wasn't enough to keep that big wide open space warm anyway. I posted asking if anyone had any firewood to spare, but no luck yet.
12:40PM - The power came back on, we scrambled to make a warm lunch and heat the house up again. The power went back off around 2:00PM. Right as the power went off again, we received a call from Coppell ISD canceling school for the entire week.
My dad mentioned firewood... I assumed they would have already exhausted this avenue and had been caught up trying to keep my family warm and fed. I called his neighbor to see if they had some wood. They didn't have much, but said they could spare a few pieces and would deliver it within the hour. I had electricity at the time, so I also jumped in the facebook groups. I had been looking in Coppell with NO luck, but it was also impossible with the spotty service to see much of anything. I was able to find firewood in Weatherford quick. The guy said he could deliver in two hours. Bill (neighbor) delivered his in the meantime. $220 for 210 pieces (half cord), but it was worth every penny.
His power finally came on right before the delivery, and he got about an hour of warmth before it shut off again. He's got the fireplace going now, though, and says the house is at 58 degrees.
I'm sad we won't be going out into the snow today. It's too cold in here and I don't want them to freeze their butts off without being able to come in and properly warm up.
Kim (old neighbor) commented on one of our posts that she had firewood and that her husband could drop it off. They left us about 20 small pieces or so, thank goodness! The power came back on while we were talking, but only long enough for another warm meal, and then it was gone. We no longer eat at normal meal times... just whenever we have power, we make something and eat. Otherwise, we throw whatever we can together. I didn't want to open the fridge since we haven't had power in so long, so I opened up shelf stable almond milk and I am storing it in the garage. It is frozen now.
From Judge Clay Jenkins:
Electric Reliability Council of Texas has requested 1000 megawatts be removed from the customer grid. Oncor now has 250k households without power. That number will go up as they implement the order. Shed will now be 16k megawatts. If you have power, please help those who don't.
We had power for dinner time, but it cut out around 7 or so. We decided to share a bedroom tonight to keep it even warmer. Every time we have electricity, I have been running the space heater in my bedroom. It's actually uncomfortably warm at the moment, but I know that won't last long. Brought all of Oliver's stuff in and trying to get them settled, when the power comes back on. UGH. Now they are crazy. Hard to know if I should run the heat hot to prepare for an outage or just be comfortable. I err on the side of caution and let it get pretty toasty. The rest of the house is only 64, but our bedroom must be 70. Richard is too warm. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess. We go to bed and lose electricity for most of the night. It comes on and off but never for too long.
It is kind of nuts how quickly the temperature drops the minute the power goes out again. I guess it makes sense that our houses were not designed to keep heat in... this is Texas, after all.
Did I mention our shower is frozen up?
Texas wholesale electric prices spike more than 10,000% amid outages.
It's unclear how high our bills will be, what relief will be available and who will qualify for that relief. Delaying laundry and the running of large appliances until Sunday helps you and others.
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