Praying for Texas and everyone without power. Me and a neighbor decided to do vodka shots and go play. Horrible idea. My head is pounding this morning but we had a good time from what I remember.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...c99b02b280.jpg

I can tell you first hand here in the DFW area we will have an epic mess for the next couple of weeks. One gas stations don't have fuel no deliveries all week, (thankfully the boat has a 100 gallons and I can siphon if needed.) , second as we thaw millions of homes will have busted plumbing already seeing this with friends and neighbors, and the water supply is terrible with people running water and busted water mains everywhere. Also groceries and bottle water is wiped-out again no deliveries. It's the worst I have seen in my 41 years of living here.

Is the fuel shortage a product of refinery shutdowns in your area, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-e...-idUSKBN2AF1QV.

Stay safe.

I think that, and no tanker trucks making delivers to the stations. Also still lots of areas with no power.

And my boss just asked to travel to Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago this Sunday for a week! At least is not below 0 for the next week......

https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l...0e0017011e0a47

We got abt 1/2" of ice to start off this event. Trees/branches down everywhere. Power lines pulled down. Roads blocked. Spent the first night (till abt 5AM) melting ice with my torpedo heater, drying and plastic wrapping abt 30 trees we just planted. Prop'ed-up the branches of larger live oaks with 2x4's, large diameter PVC pipe, ladders and whatever else I could find.

Electric space heaters of any type are nowhere to be found. Same for propane/gas heaters.

No kerosene available anywhere. Luckily I learned that the torpedo heater will start and run fine (at single digit temps) on diesel if mixed with gasoline. (4 parts diesel to 1 part gas). This little tidbit of info saved my ass. Was able to keep my insulated shop (where boat is stored) above freezing so far using the torpedo heater and my portable gas generator. Thank God I still had abt 25 gallons of treated boat gas left from de-fueling ops.

Next 2 days temps dropped to single digits. Got abt 6" of snow then another 1/4" of ice on top of the snow. Got text saying rolling blackouts would last no longer than 40 mins. First "rolling blackout" lasted over 13 hrs. House pipes froze, well house froze, septic system froze, pool equip froze, even the in-ground pool froze over abt 1/2" thick. Following blackouts lasted between 4 and 8 hrs. Power company says they can't perform proper rolling blackouts because there were no more "non-critical" circuits they could cut. Some have been w/o power for 50+ hrs.

Even virtual schools closed all week due to sporadic power, internet and cell phone service availability.

All stores that sell propane closed or out of supply. Line to get propane tanks re-filled at local distributor was many hours long. Gave up there and drove an hr away to spend >2 hrs standing in line just to re-fill two 20lb containers . Local grocery store had a line to get in that was over 1/4 mile long. Heard food delivery to stores have also been temporarily halted due to road conditions.

Local news showed many Austin apt complexes (towers) had broken pipes and water flowing from most of the balconies. Had some folks that died of carbon monoxide poisoning trying to stay warm. Elderly folks outside slipping/falling and unable to get up, freezing to death. Busted my butt going down tile steps. Luckily the ~7" thick ice/snow/ice layers absorbed some of the impact to my elbow. At least 6 water main breaks in Austin. Boil water alert until further notice.

Natural gas press dropping very low so folks that had gas heaters froze too. People are beyond pissed after seeing empty parking garages/parking lots, abandoned construction sites and empty office buildings remained powered while everyone else froze. Power Restoration Crews are even being verbally and physically assaulted.

This weekend's thaw will certainly reveal a massive number of broken pipes. Assuming it will be weeks before the plumbers can catch up. What a mess!!

They have always said: "Everything is bigger in TX". Unfortunately this is the one time...

Good luck, hope things get back on track soon!

Evergy in my area just sent an email out saying the power reductions are over, back to normal operations, this is a horrible event but it will generate millions in revenue for a lot of companies having to fix everything, my mom lives in Gainsville TX and lost power a few days ago she's been staying at my sisters about 10 mls away, today she goes home to a party flooded house, the only lucky thing was the water dept was in the area and saw the water running down the drive and shut it off.

I imagine there will be many many boats that were not winterized and have busted blocks. Revenue even for marinas and engine builders.

For sure. Lake Travis has thousands of boats slipped year round. I bet most of them were not properly winterized and lost power for extended periods.
With Merc already having supply issues due to the scamdemic, getting this many new engines will take forever..