2-15 & 2-16 No Power

 

Snowed In

 We have been without power for 55 hours so the blog is a bit behind

 

Monday 2/15/21

We woke up to a cold house, it was 58 degrees inside and we had no power. The temperature outside was 8 degrees and we probably had 5-6 inches of snow. The power went out last night at 11:30. The power company has about 1.2 million people without power.

ERCOT, who controls the power throughout Texas says due to below freezing temperatures the electricity generating companies had to shut down power plants. This forced electricity providers to shut off power to a certain areas so that the grid wasn't overloaded. Ercot said these outages would roll from one area to another with no one being without power for very long. Something went wrong and now some people have been without power for over 24 hours, they are being told that they don't know when it will be restored. Meanwhile the temperatures are going to be in the teens and not out of the 20s for a few days. People are freezing and trying to make sure their pipes don't freeze.

We spent the whole day trying to keep warm. Without power we can only access the internet via our phone or a hotspot we use when we travel. We had to charge the phone by plugging it in to the truck. Due to no power everyone in the area has to use mobile devices so those systems were overloaded and would barely work. Larry got up and checked to make sure things appeared to be ok and to check the weather report. While checking on the weather he saw a squirrel trying to find some bird feed. It dug through the snow on the porch and found a little. Afterwards he hopped across the yard to the oak tree and dug around to find some more. Larry decided it was too cold in the living room so he climbed back in bed.

We stayed in bed until 10:00 with a lot of blankets because it was warmer there then in the living room. When we got up we put on our ski bibs with a pair of pants under them, ski socks and hats and stayed under a blanket most of the day. Because we didn't have any power I really couldn't cook but thank goodness we have a propane grill, that way I could barbecue. There was a lot of snow on the porch, Larry swept it off so I could get to the grill and feed the birds. We didn't hang the feeder but we did put out a few bowls. It didn't take long before the birds came. Our neighbors also were shoveling snow off their drives.

 

Larry posing for me

Look at all the snow

Neighbor's dog watching her dad moving the snow

Larry sweeping off the back porch

We spent the day bundled up. I cooked chili for lunch and seasoned pork for dinner. Louise called to see how we were. I ended up doing 25,000 steps using a flashlight. In between doing steps I did some Sudoku games. We survived the day. Ercot was saying the power would be back on tomorrow.

Tuesday 2/16/21

By this morning the power was still off and they were now saying later in the day it would be back on. Tonight we were expecting snow and ice. This morning it was 54 degrees inside the house and outside it was 12 degrees. The high for the day was 22 degrees. We did not want to continue waiting on Ercot to get the electricity back on but we didn't have a lot of options. Larry looked at hotels and apparently most were filled and some didn't have power, we could try to get to Round Rock and stay with Larry's sister but the roads had a lot of snow and ice, Larry decided to see if we could get the Minnie out of storage, this would allow us to run the generator and use our small heaters. 

I cooked lunch on the grill and we went to get the Minnie. The roads were pretty bad but we took our time and everyone else was doing the same. The gate at our storage center was looked so Larry had to unlock it, its usually unlocked. Before getting the Minnie out we started the generator just to make sure it would run, it runs on gasoline from the motorhome and it should last a couple of days. It took a couple of tries before it started. There was a bunch of snow in front of our storage unit and when Larry tried to drive through it he got stuck, couldn't go forward or back, we had to dig snow out from in front of the tires using a pan and our hands. He tried to move it again but it was still stuck. We were finally able to get it out. Larry locked the gate and we slowly made it home.

The driveway was very slick so Larry had a bit of trouble getting the Minnie where he wanted it. He then put the car back in the garage, since there is no power we had to manually lift the garage door. We wanted to plug in a few thing inside the house so we got a couple of extension cords, there is an outlet on the outside of the Minnie where we could plug in two extension cords. On the end of the two extension cords we put a three way so we could plug in three items. Larry plugged in the heater that was blowing air on the wall where there is an outside hose bib and he plugged in the light that was on the wall where there is another hose bib. He also strung an extension cord through the house to plug in in the refrigerator. Then we setup the two small heaters inside the Minnie to warm it up, we also turned on the refrigerator. Now Larry had to clear a path through the snow from the house to the Minnie. We're all set to keep warm and keep an eye on the house.

This morning they were saying we would have power today, unfortunately by the end of the day they were saying we might not get power until Friday. To top all of this we are going to get an ice storm tonight. With ice on the roads we will be stuck and although the Minnie is full of fuel the generator will probably run out sometime Thursday. We normally only use the generator for very short periods, only one time did we run it overnight so we really are guessing as to how long the fuel may last.

 

The Minnie all setup

A pathway to the house 

 

Today I ended up doing 26,000 steps. I did some Sudoku. I played the Daily Challenges and the Event: Easy Street of 15 games. It took me 39 minutes and 25 seconds, which put me in 20th place in my group. Most of all we're trying to keep warm.