Sending prayers your way. Just saw photos on our local news of icicles hanging on a ceiling fan in someone’s apartment.

In my part of TX, we dipped below freezing the evening of the 9th, and with the exception of a couple of hours, have stayed below freezing all that time--- and won't be above freezing until Fri the 19th. In my part, we might get snow once or twice in a winter, but the winter weather doesn't really last more than 24-48 hours at a stretch. We're not really used to this kind of duration--- and the people to the south of us are definitely not used to this kind of weather, because it's at freezing all the way down to the border.

Brother in Dallas had a pipe burst. Parents in Houston are in rolling blackouts with no water. Sister in Galveston says water has been cut off to the island.

So far, I have one garage apartment that had to temporarily relocate to the local motel (rolling blackouts did not combine well with an all-electric unit). The other garage apartment is doing well. One 3/2 is having rolling blackouts. A different 3/2 reports their plumbing in perfect condition, yay, and no electrical outages. (No one else has reported in yet... I'll stop holding my breath by Saturday, when stuff gets a chance to thaw. :P ) People keep getting stuck in the intersection by my house. We helped the ones we could. One of them, unbeknownst to us, was on their way to take my tenant to the grocery store. :)

Lots of vehicle accidents. Lots of fires. Some difficulty with elderly people on oxygen trying to get through the rolling blackouts. No mail trucks getting through, and no grocery trucks getting through.

Local milk guy who supplies the local day cares had about 80 gallons that were going to go to waste, since all the local day cares were closed. I bought a gallon from him, and sponsored another five gallons to the local rehab shelter.

I am so sorry you all are having this. I'm pretty sure an explosion on the sun last week caused this. It blew all it's matter right at the N. Pole. Auroras were coming straight down. Someone took a photo of them.

Freezing blades on wind turbines-- hey folks when a propeller is on a plane-- it has heater boots glued permanent to the blade. Pilot sees icing he turns on the boots which heat the blades-- and WAlHA! No ice. NO ONE SAW THIS COMING? On wind blades?

TX get 20% of it's power from wind and solar.

Myob,

Thank you so much for your prayers!

Our county has been without water for 4 days and most everyone has been on a rotating 20 minutes with power and 20 minutes without power schedule since Sunday.

It’s a terrible situation and due to the icy roads, people are trapped at home. Ambulances were not running yesterday and it is now snowing again.

Like Deanna, several of our guests have moved to a hotel or with family, but they moved well before the situation became dire.

In addition to all the residential woes, a large local hospital has now been without water for two days! Mercifully, they still have power.

This makes me realize how spoiled I am. For millions of people worldwide, no water and spotty electricity are a daily reality.

Thank you again for your prayers!

All the best!

Renne

It's not primarily the wind generation that is the problem which is running 6% down from the normal 11%. The main problem is that natural gas pump stations are frozen across much of the state which has severely limited the natural gas supply. The governor directed the limited supply to home heating and away from electrical generation. Not a new problem, 25 years ago the same thing happened and they didn't insulate up the gas distribution system like they were tasked with.

Here's a good read on what happens during an emergency when customers go with a budget electrical supplier in a deregulated world. Ouch.

Do you all have generators, inverters, or back up heat system down there in the storage unit that you can use now? Up North, we have these items at the ready as these issue can and will happen?

Germany is going through the same hell as Texas maybe worse. Germany had 42% of its electric energy through wind and solar by 2019. 49GW of photovoltaic cells and 30,000 wind turbines in Germany. They had to back off because the consumer cost started getting unaffordable. Like the US they have a aging grid as well.

I am going to repost a statement I was ridiculed for 2 weeks ago on this site Here:

"Renewables are not ready, neither is the grid. The grid infrastructure is not ready and is not being replaced at the rate it is aging out. Currently production of energy is at a controlled rate and requires microsecond response times to shunt energy where needed, and is carefully coordinated with energy production. Complex computer programs handle the microsecond transfers. There is essentially no grid storage ability and renewables will require storage. Storing daylight energy to fuel the night and wind energy is wild by definition and requires storage capacity to utilize. This is due to the physics of wind energy. When wind speed goes from 20mph to 40mph you do not get double the energy, you get 8 times the energy as wind energy varies by the cube of the wind speed. To utilize wind energy, you need to be able to store the peaks.

The best way to start is by curbing usage first. I love renewables and have lived with a hybrid wind/solar system and a battery bank for 15 years. ... It was an act of love as I will never recoup the cost. Energy from renewables is heavily dependent on nature. What do you do when it is midwinter and there is no sun or wind?

Prepare the grid first! This will be the next grant frenzy for corporations eating from the trough and make energy MUCH more expensive. --216.23.xxx.xx"

REnewables as they are doing it now is untenable. Upgrade the grid first. Would you run a Shanghai Maglev on 1840 rails? Germany and Texas are at least demonstrating eloquently where the Green New Deal will take us. We need storage capacity. If 1million Texas homes has Tesla Powerwall2 systems able to cooperate with the energy companies and store excess energy at times of surplus about 13,7000 MW of energy could be stored and availabe.

I am horrified by the power outages caused by poor planning in Texas and now as well in Germany, and the UK. Get at least a generator or next winter you might be both cold and hungry.

I am planning on adding a second wind turbine to my farm this year. Bigger than my 1.5Kw Bergey. The excess wind energy will be driven through electric resistance heaters in winter and a line will go to my mothers house.

Ray, I think the last time we lost power for an extended period of time from an ice storm was... 2009? 2010? Something like that. It just-so-happened that I'd decided to go bring the baby down to visit their grandparents in the Houston/Galveston area, leaving DH behind to go to work. And while we were gone, he was without power (and maybe also water?) for 3? 4? 5? days.

Lana, I think your state is asking FEMA for generators. When our Repub governor asked the Clinton administration for anything, it did not arrive. In fact they attacked our vehicle inspection procedures with expensive results. Long story. My vote would be for people to add a wood stove to their home and a nice shed with a cord of dry wood added to every year for a situation like this.

Scientists say our sun will be cooler than it has been for a couple of cycles. I am going to get my chimneys checked here to see if I can use the fireplaces. If you get a chance google NASA Solar Minimum Solar Maximum. Two photos of the surface of the sun. The one for Solar Minimum looks plain gray like the moon. Solar Max has fire coming out of it all over. They said from the 1950s on the sun has been in a very overheated state which was not normal for it and it has gone back to a lower energy.