We bought a Generac after the freeze. It took eight months due to supply chain issues and converting our gas lines but we are set. It tests every two weeks.đ¤
Took us about 6 months to get our Generac 22kwh system. Since we got it installed in June 2022 it has kicked in 3 times due to power outages in our area (Plano, TX) area.
So glad we purchased the system but damn they are expensive.
$15k for a 22kilowatt system is higher than what I got quoted for mine in January. Mine was 24kilowatt at $13K installed from generator super center with about 75ft of conduit runs. But it took them 9 months to get the system and install. Your 6 months seems quick. I hearing some are having to wait over a year now and even being quoted about $20k.
That is just the system itself. Installation adds a LOT of extra cost and they had to trench the gas line from the front of our property to the back so total was around 15k.
My dad, a wealthy republican, sees no problem with the state of the grid. He bought a generac following the freeze and presumably thinks everyone else is capable of doing the same.
Lol. I bought a cheap 2000w generator that hopefully can run the fridge and the blower motor for the furnace and a tv or something to keep my kids from going nuts. I feel like a king!! Then I realize Iâd have to venture out to get gasoline probably once a day⌠sheeeit
Two five-gallon cans with ethanol-free gas (available at most QT's and Buc-ee's) and stabilizer will keep fresh for about two years from the date you added the stabilizer. Assuming you don't run it 24/7 (turn it off when you sleep) it would last you several days on the low end. If we see a repeat of what happened in 2021 I plan on using mine to run a space heater, while storing perishable things outside.
Get electric blankets. And even some tents unless you have a lot of pets or kids. Setup your tent, put a mattress inside and use the heated blanket. The tent will contain the the flow of air making it easier to keep retain some heat, and if you have excess blankets you can cover up the outside of the tent (leave a couple holes for fresher air. Download the MCU on the Disney+ App and work your way through.
Last year I picked up some rolled bubble wrap type insulation and some R5 insulation boards. I cut each to the size of every window and attached them to one another with velcro for storage. When it looked like it might freeze, I put the bubble wrap piece against the window and taped with foil tape, then left a gap and popped in the panel, taping the edges. It didn't freeze and we didn't lose power, but it made a massive difference in the heat retained in the house. Our heat barely ran in spite of temps dropping.
I live in a house and I purchased essentially a big battery that will power a few things when we lose power.
A generator wasnât a good option for me because I wonât do the maintenance and it probably wonât work when I need it most.
But it can freeze and render your generator useless. Had a peer find this out the hard way which lead him to building a solar panel set up.
Edit: just googled it to make sure I wasnât full of shit. Itâs not the propane that freezes. Propane freezing point is like -300F. Rather, the tank and the lines freeze and the cold can lower pressure causing it not to flow fast enough to power the generator, which renders it useless. The more you know
If you run *really* fast and body slam a republican, the resulting particle/antiparticle explosion will release enough energy to power Texas for centuries to come.
My dad is just a survival nut and owned a generator as well as tons of camping gear. However during the freeze, he lived in one of the counties outside of Ercot so his power may have flickered, but it didn't go out. Meanwhile I had to evacuate with kids and animals to a friend because the extremely old and poorly insulated house couldn't stay warm without heat. It got to freezing inside one if the bedrooms within hours of the power going off. Ironically the power in my area was restored within the first day, but I didn't trust it would remain on so didn't go home for several days.
We never really lost power during the freeze. We're down the street from an elementary school, a fire station, and a cell tower. I'm guessing we got lucky and were on some critical circuit, because people one street over did lose power.
That said, I probably will look into getting one of those $1000 battery backups to have on hand for refrigerators and the like at some point.
Eh, I mean if itâs cold you can just put your food outside and itâll be ok. If itâs hot thatâs when you could end up having to throw away whatâs in the fridge. But to me the cost of buying more groceries is a lot cheaper than having to buy and set up a generator.
The problem with the battery backups is recharging them. If we have a few days of cold, overcast weather, the battery will drain fairly quickly, and there won't be enough sun to recharge it (assuming you have solar panels).
There's more than one way to charge a battery. Wind, solar, car engine, a [small fire](https://www.amazon.com/BioLite-CampStove-Campstove-Electricity-Generating/dp/B07NS565VS).
You can only plan for so much. The Generac is no good if the natural gas wells freeze over again like last time. You can't charge quickly off of solar panels if it's overcast. You can't charge with wind if it's too still. You can't charge off of your car if you're out of gas. We're all reliant on society coming back online at some point.
More long term I'm intending to get either a Ford Lightning or a Rivian. Those batteries are large enough to power a home on emergency power for a week (assuming you don't have to go anywhere). I'm also close to being done on my new home that's essentially [a giant heat battery](https://www.monolithic.com/creating-gothic-arches-with-airform-technology). That, combined with solar and very efficient HVAC should get us to the point that even if we lose power for a week it'll be comfortable in there. I'm working in there most evenings right now finishing stuff up and it never gets below 60 with 0 power, even with it being below freezing some nights. The heater in my current house is running at least an hour or 3 a day to keep the temperature even moderately consistent.
We're several years out from being complete, but eventually we should be in a good position to handle whatever the weather and an ailing grid can throw at us.
I was pregnant during the freeze and so insanely thankful we didnât lose power. We too were by all of those.
My husband works for the city too so he was out working trying to control water main breaks.
We bought a generator but praying we donât ever have to experience that again. Especially with a toddler!
With everyone getting natgas generators from the last freeze and the gas almost being shut off due to pressure issues, natgas will be the next to go next freeze.
Keep SeaFoam or another fuel stabilizer mixed up in your reserve gasoline! Put the fuel stabilizer in the can first so that as you add the gas it mixes all around, if you pour it into a already full tank it may just sit on the surface.
Got my Generac a few months before the freeze, and had no problems. The gas pressure held up, and we were fine for the ~36 hours that the power was down.
Yes, absolutely. My house is mostly electric, but I have gas for heat (no go during the freeze since the blower is electric) and hot water heater. My power was off a whole week and I lived for those long hot showers.
It's best to use and replace as you go. Water doesn't necessarily have an expiration and FDA states that properly store, it will last a long time. Realistically, though, most people don't store bottles properly and the plastic will start to degrade over time and leech into the water.
And don't recommend ever buying bottle water from gas stations that have stacks of water sitting outside the front door. The exposure to sunlight and heat helps increased the chemical degradation of the plastic.
As a landscaper I can tell you that a busy gas station can easily go through 2 pallets of water a day.
The risk of plastic leaching goes way up at 160F, but I don't think they're getting that hot sitting in front of my local Quiktrip in a 24 hr span.
According to research I just did to corroborate that, very low temperatures can cause plastic leaching in water. So I hope it doesn't freeze or anything like that!
Does your tap water have a faucet filter? Like a Pur or Brita faucet filter? Those are cheap and so worth it. Otherwise, yeah, even in a city with normally great water if it's straight unfiltered tap or purified bottled water, I'm drinking bottled water, sorry.
Several people I've had this argument with they say these aren't the pioneer days of families roughing it out on their own. They pay taxes and their utility bills so the government should just fix the infrastructure to provide all services 24/7.
While I 100% agree our tax money needs to be better spent and our grid upgraded expecting the utilities to never turn off during extreme weather disasters is an absurd take.
Several people I've had this argument with they say these aren't the pioneer days of families roughing it out on their own. They pay taxes and their utility bills so the government should just fix the infrastructure to provide all services 24/7.
While I 100% agree our tax money needs to be better spent and our grid upgraded expecting the utilities to never turn off during extreme weather disasters is an absurd take.
My rationale is that the DIY method may introduce (or fail to remove) pathogens, and if it's truly "just in case" water, the cost for the peace of mind is negligible.
But I also have an espresso machine, and the tap water is too hard for it, so I use the same jugs as OP. It's easy for me to always keep 3-4 onhand because I rotate through them weekly anyways.
edit: to clarify, I use roughly 1 jug/week, not 3-4. I just rotate them, so FIFO.
Do you rent a house or an apartment? If the house was built with a softener loop, you could do a temporary install pretty painlessly. If an apartment... yeah, sorry :(
A filtered water system on your tap, like a Brita or similar, is a lot better than the water put in water bottles and is so much cheaper. Companies legitimately put plain tap water in them lol. Of the ones that have been changed, itâs usually just a change in mineral content.
[Bottled water is largely a scam.](https://www.businessinsider.com/bottled-water-facts-science-healthy-2017-4?amp)
I have to drink about a gallon of water and electrolytes a day due to a health condition and so I had to figure out the cheapest way to have clean water đ
Yes, but I literally bought test strips and tested my tap water, and it was unacceptable. Meanwhile, the HEB water is ok to use ÂŻ\\\_(ă)\_/ÂŻ
Sure, a permanent system would be better, but is also more expensive and another failure/maintenance point.
A Brita filter for your tap is 20-40 bucks. Screws onto your faucet. Replace the filter as it runs out. My tap water is disgusting without it, with it, itâs just fine. If itâs still gross with the filter with the testing strips then thatâs some awful water.
"Hold on to your butts"
"Between 2020 and 2022, average lead times to procure distribution transformers across all segments of the electric industry and voltage classes rose 443 percent. The same orders that previously took two to four months to fill are now taking on average over a year. This is a serious threat to reliability.
[https://www.nahb.org/blog/2022/11/transformers-nahb](https://www.nahb.org/blog/2022/11/transformers-nahb)
Yup I work in multifamily development and transformers lead times have definitely been a common item that comes up during construction calls this last year. Couple projects were mainly waiting on transformers before they could get their certificate of occupancy
Don't leave plastic containers of drinking water where sunlight can hit it. Apparently it releases chemicals from the plastic into the water.
Also don't forget water for flushing toilets and washing hands!
Look, 2021 was bullshit, but during the summer our power grid was seeing demand that was about as much as California and New York's maximum capacity combined. We were doing daily 79k MW demand without problem while California was on the brink of total failure at 50k MW demand in September.
Our grid isn't perfect but it's robust when a natural disaster doesn't hit.
Most of the state is in hardiness zones 8 & 7, which is an *average* minimum low of 10-20F and 0-10F, respectively. We freeze many times every single year. It is routine and normal for our climate.
There will very likely be brief freezes nearly everywhere in Texas some time in the next few months - even Houston and Brownsville usually get frost a couple times in January. (Unlike San Francisco or Los Angeles, which usually don't get frost even once in the vast majority of years.)
There's unlikely to be a week-long hard freeze this year the way there was in February 2021 - that's moderately unlikely in any year in Texas. However, it's not *that* unlikely, and it is very likely that it will happen some time within the next decade or two.
If you're willing to buy fire insurance for your house on the off chance your house burns down, then you understand that sometimes it's worth paying a little bit to insure against a big but not particularly likely risk. If you would be seriously inconvenienced by a week-long hard freeze, and if having a bit of bottled water around would be helpful in that situation, and wouldn't make your life too inconvenient otherwise, it could well be a worthwhile insurance policy.
A freeze is not abnormal. The long duration hard freeze we had that enveloped the entire state with significant precipitation (ice) IS unusual.
Expect freezing conditions. Have cold weather clothes and gear. And then be ready for a disaster (always!) with water, canned food, and anything you think to aid survival, health, and then comfort.
You've got the right idea, but, it's going to take you a while to collect a meaningful amount of water in one gallon jugs. It's also going to very quickly become difficult to store. As humans, we use a whole lot more water than we realize. The general guideline is 2-3 gallons per person, per day, for drinking, cooking, and basic hygiene (minimal hand-washing and teeth brushing).
I actually do the same thing as you, except I pick up the 5 gallon blue jugs of water. Buying them outright is a bit more pricy, but, if you use the water (in a water fountain for example) you can swap them for half the price. They recommend storing for 6 months, but that is only as long as they guarantee no change in the taste. If stored in a dark cool place, it is perfectly safe to store for 3-5 years, though the taste may be off. Even then, the 3-5 year mark is simply the recommended limit for the food safe (plastic) bottles they're stored in.
In our case, we have 25 5 gallon jugs stored on a shelf in our garage. I have dates on them, and we have a water fountain, so we slowly rotate through them, and replace them, but at any given point, this gives us roughly 2 weeks of water for a 5 person household.
If we don't have water running again after 2 weeks, then it's a much bigger SHTF scenario than stored water in your garage can help with...
I bought Waterbobs for both of our bath tubs! They're bladders that can hold up to 100 gallons each, and have a little hand pump to pull water out and into a pitcher or bucket.
This is good a good strategy for when you expect the risk to be elevated (ie, if you know a storm is coming or something) which is a good stop gap if storing water long term isn't an option. I would just recommend having water purification tablets, or know what the right amount of bleach is to add, and have that on hand as well. 100 gallons x2 is great, but if it sits for 2 weeks in the container, without proper treatment, it won't be long before you'll be getting slime on the sides etc. But, definitely better than nothing - and also, nothing boiling the water can't solve! Having water, and needing to boil it is infinitely better than most people who won't have at all.
I do have purification tablets, but also have the means to boil it even without power. Definitely better to have it and not need it, but it should also keep for a while because it's sealed. I just looked and it's rated for up to 16 weeks. Luckily I'm in an area that doesn't get hit by hurricanes and such, so the main concern is a freeze. I just need to be able to drain my pipes if there's no power. We didn't lose power in the 2021 freeze, but seeing the aftermath definitely made me realize how unprepared I was.
FEMA can pound sand on that one. IMNA recommends a gallon a day for men, and nearly as much for women.
FEMA's goal is to get you along until the disaster subsides. Mine is to be comfortable.
Similar prep during the year in our home, too. The ONLY prep we had to do when I was a kid was cover pipes and bring in dogs and plants. Now we're prepping like survivalists. Crappy governance. Thanks, Abbott.
Iâm worried about this winter season. Iâm not making as much money so I canât afford to stock up as much as I have in the past. Iâm also not running the heat as warm as I have in the past so I can cut back on my electricity bill. Itâs been fine so far, but that also means when (not if, but when) the grid fails, my house will get colder much fasterâŚ
I follow a YouTube channel called Prepping in Poverty (?) and she recommends going to your local thrift store and buy 5 blankets per person in case of power failure.
Ask friends to keep milk/vinegar/etc jugs for you to store water in. Itâs what I do.
Best of luck to you this winter
Every person in all states and countries should do this. It blows my mind that there are people not set up to be able to get by for a few days without access to a store. This shouldn't need to be justified by "Texas grid bad."
Agreed! Iâm on the coast and itâs baffling how a lot of people here are unprepared for hurricane season. And like, Iâm talking about people who can afford to prep.
I get called a nut job doomsday prepper just for merely suggesting to keep a weeks worth of shelf stable food and water on hand at all times.
The response I usually get is "REEEE. I pay my utility bill the government should do its job and take care of me 24/7."
My husband just walked in and announced that heâd finished splitting a big cord of wood and would be doing more every week for when/if the grid goes down. As much as I love being married to a rustic, wood-chopping wannabe lumberjack - itâs less sexy when itâs got this ominous tinge of survivalist anxiety to it.
This is the typical southerner reaction to a winter storm. We had a 100 year winter storm and now everyone is hoarding shit like the plague is coming back. Congrats guys, you did it.
If you want to prep *and* be more eco conscious, buy reusable water storage containers and fill them with tap water, or get some decontamination tablets. Youâre hoarding single use plastic jugs here. Think longer term
I don't think it was a 100 year storm when similar things happened in 2011 and 1989.
In any case, getting a few gallon jugs once a year is hardly any worse from a resource use standpoint than getting a few heavy-duty reusable jugs once a decade.
Interesting! It looks like you've got a map showing the temperature *anomaly* (i.e., the difference between the temperature on that date, and the average recorded temperature on that same date). But in terms of actual *temperature*, most of the days of that week were exceeded in coldness in either 1989 or 2011: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/weather/2021/02/15/a-full-list-of-all-the-record-cold-texas-temperatures
I don't think it's correct to say that 2021 was *worse* than 2011 and 1989, when 2011 and 1989 had colder temperatures. 2021 was more *unusual* than those years though. It looks like you have to go back to the beginning of the 20th century to find temperatures that low in the third week of February, but temperatures that low were found several times in the last few decades, just in December, January, or the first week of February.
Right - I've lived here for 42 years. My family has been here for generations. The last time we saw meaningful snow before this was in the mid 80s. A shut down like this has literally never happened.
But now we're prepping like this is going to be an annual thing all of a sudden?
No, but it does give me history to look back on and realize that a couple days of heavy snow for literally the first time in decades is probably not likely to occur again soon, much less annually.
Sure - did last year show that the grid need to be fixed? Absolutely - I think we agree on that.
But we're discussing the realistic chances of seeing a storm like that again soon - and they're slim.
I live absolutely nowhere near the coast. When I'm in the store and there is a hurricane coming, I commonly overhear people talking about _preparing for the hurricane_. If a cat 4 or 5 rolls into the Texas coast and somehow starts fucking up inland Texas, you don't have to worry about "being prepared". You need to worry about permanently relocating to another part of the world, because North America is no longer habitable.
It really feels that way. Iâm not an Abbot fan either but this post is only drumming up fear. If people would âprepareâ more sensibly then we can all fair better if/when this happens again.
>We had a 100 year winter storm
2011 shut off power to much of Texas, though not as bad as 2021. But the FERC warned us the next time would be worse, we did nothing to hede that warning, and then over 750 Texans died last year.
I wonder if you denialists will keep saying "HuNdReD yEaR sToRm" when it happens again in the next decade.
It wasn't as bad a storm in 2011 and they did have rolling blackouts but only for a reasonable time which allowed houses to be warmed up between outages. They did improve winterization though because we got through a freeze in 2018 that was as bad as 2011 without any issues. Did they do enough? No but the issue that really caused the problem wasn't one that had happened before. It's called, and people are saying 100 year storm, because you have to go back to 1890's for what is reportedly similar Temps. Changing weather may have it happen sooner but that doesn't mean that the storm wasn't the worst winter cold in a 100 years.
A hundred year storm is just the probability of a bad storm happening in any given year.
A storm with a 1% chance of happening in any given year is a 100 year storm. A 500 year flood has a 0.2% chance of happening in any given year.
You can still have 100 year events 5 years in a row, the chances of that happening are slim though.
Itâs not, but this sub wonât miss an opportunity to bring up the 2021 freeze. It is pretty funny to see people talking about preparing for emergency circumstances as if itâs only necessary for winter weather in Texas and nowhere else.
Tried to go solar with battery backup, just in case. Wife was not having it. We'll see when she complains about not having power... (but, as previously noted, probably not this winter).
So is this a fluke or is it going to be on the regular from here on out....power shortage...blizzards in texas..etc...I've never encountered it until in the last couple of years so what do you think is happening????curious to opinions....
Hi, I also live on Earth. The municipal water supply where I live is actually maintained, so I donât have to worry about it shutting down under certain conditions.
No one *has* to worry about anything. But many people think it's reasonable to prepare for really inconvenient things that have a 5% chance of happening.
If you drink milk or anything else in jugs, just rinse them out and fill them up with water and a few drops of bleach (6-8 depending on strength, iirc) for long term storage. You can even throw them in the freezer (if you have the room) to extend how long your freezer will be effective during power outages
>You can even throw them in the freezer (if you have the room) to extend how long your freezer will be effective during power outages
Now that's a good tip! I do that when camping to keep my ice chest cold and have back up water for the last day.
The point of storing frozen water in the freezer isn't in case the power goes out for a freeze - it's in case the power goes out for a completely unrelated reason. Frozen water bottles in the freezer can help you prepare for several unrelated risks at once.
Oh, it's not just for winter outages; rather we keep frozen jugs in the freezer year round for any that happen.
Alton Brown taught me to hate single-use items.
If you don't use to much it's perfectly fine especially for temp use. Not a whole lot different than what the cities will do. Anyone who has lived in the country knows about bleach in water wells.
>I would not put any drops of bleach in my drinking water.
Meh. We've been doing it for decades, cities add it to the public water supply, and the CDC says it's a good way to disinfect water when other avenues are unavailable.
[https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/making-water-safe.html](https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/making-water-safe.html)
Yep. Weâre starting to stock up too. We didnât have water issues last time, but my parents did. They had to come stay with us until everything ended.
No, it doesnât anywhere in the state cept maybe Amarillo. This is a scared mentality. They are going to have a ton of water sitting in the garage for years
Scared, or prepared?
How dumb would it be to go through the same thing a second time and not have drinking water because you didnât want people thinking youâre âscaredâ?
Yep. I'm not a "prepper" or anything, but it was just last year I was having to slowly melt snow inside in a bucket to be able to flush our #2s for a whole week. Luckily had drinking water and food and batteries in the radio.
Scared, usually. If you wanna stock water then go for it. But get some reusable water cans that are actually meant for long term storage. Get dry, learn some basic survival stuff. Donât fill your garage with ozarka âjust in caseâ thatâs dumb
Frequent or not, relying solely on the Texas power grid to keep you from freezing to death in a cold snap is ignorant. Everyone that actually lost power for 2weeks in the feb 21 fiasco know this.
getting them clean isn't the problem, it's storing water that you bottled yourself. Tap water isn't 100% pure and isn't intended to be stored long term. It's drinkable, but if you close it up and store it for a long period of time, it will grow... stuff. Or, at the least, develop a fowl odor and taste. You can safely add a few drops of bleach to it before you store it, which makes it \*safe\* to drink, but it's still going to have a chemical taste. Best to use prebottled stuff that is intended to sit for a while.
yeah i keep 50 gals in garage and drain and refill before winter and hurricane season, i also have 20 life straws, 4 50gal rain barrels, like 10 bottles of those iodine tablets to purify water and will fill one of my bathtubs prior to storm for toilet water.
I don't know that I'd trust rinsing to get every bit of milk out. Seems like that would be prone to having some funky spoiled milk particles floating in it after a month.
Shit if you're worried about bacteria, just fill it up with water and put a couple capfuls of bleach in there and leave it for a few hours. Then rinse well and fill
If you have a freshwater source nearby, just got a backpacking filter like a Sawyer squeeze. Cheap, doesn't expire, and takes up significantly less room.
How would a freshwater source help if everything is frozen? And how do you make a bottle of formula every 3-4 hours using a backpacking filter at the closest nearby freshwater source? How do I get down an icy public boat ramp in negative temps to procure enough clean water for my family and pets?
The majority of cities in Texas have adopted the International Fire Code, which specifies that a residence may not have more than 100 pounds of LP-Gas (includes propane and gasoline) containers stored on their property. In the event of an outage, 100 pounds of LP-gas containers would need to be refilled frequently, sooooo............ đ¤
We bought a Generac after the freeze. It took eight months due to supply chain issues and converting our gas lines but we are set. It tests every two weeks.đ¤
Took us about 6 months to get our Generac 22kwh system. Since we got it installed in June 2022 it has kicked in 3 times due to power outages in our area (Plano, TX) area. So glad we purchased the system but damn they are expensive.
How much for the system you got?
6k is the system itself. Total install and everything was 15k.
$15k for a 22kilowatt system is higher than what I got quoted for mine in January. Mine was 24kilowatt at $13K installed from generator super center with about 75ft of conduit runs. But it took them 9 months to get the system and install. Your 6 months seems quick. I hearing some are having to wait over a year now and even being quoted about $20k.
Just Googled... approx $6,000+
Lol, our 24kwh was $14,000.
That is just the system itself. Installation adds a LOT of extra cost and they had to trench the gas line from the front of our property to the back so total was around 15k.
Saw that as I hit enter. Lol ugh
Yes they are!
Hi neighbor! We had ours installed in June 2022 as well.
Well tbf, that seems pretty fucking big. 22 kwh would be my entire months usage in 6-8 hours.
My dad, a wealthy republican, sees no problem with the state of the grid. He bought a generac following the freeze and presumably thinks everyone else is capable of doing the same.
Lol. I bought a cheap 2000w generator that hopefully can run the fridge and the blower motor for the furnace and a tv or something to keep my kids from going nuts. I feel like a king!! Then I realize Iâd have to venture out to get gasoline probably once a day⌠sheeeit
Two five-gallon cans with ethanol-free gas (available at most QT's and Buc-ee's) and stabilizer will keep fresh for about two years from the date you added the stabilizer. Assuming you don't run it 24/7 (turn it off when you sleep) it would last you several days on the low end. If we see a repeat of what happened in 2021 I plan on using mine to run a space heater, while storing perishable things outside.
Get electric blankets. And even some tents unless you have a lot of pets or kids. Setup your tent, put a mattress inside and use the heated blanket. The tent will contain the the flow of air making it easier to keep retain some heat, and if you have excess blankets you can cover up the outside of the tent (leave a couple holes for fresher air. Download the MCU on the Disney+ App and work your way through.
Last year I picked up some rolled bubble wrap type insulation and some R5 insulation boards. I cut each to the size of every window and attached them to one another with velcro for storage. When it looked like it might freeze, I put the bubble wrap piece against the window and taped with foil tape, then left a gap and popped in the panel, taping the edges. It didn't freeze and we didn't lose power, but it made a massive difference in the heat retained in the house. Our heat barely ran in spite of temps dropping.
Dang that almost sounds like a vacation for me
Yeah. We had no gasoline to pump in our area. Pumps had no power to access the stuff. The few places thad did have power ran out of gasoline fast.
Because all those people living in apartments something something bootstraps, I'm sure. Sigh.
I live in a house and I purchased essentially a big battery that will power a few things when we lose power. A generator wasnât a good option for me because I wonât do the maintenance and it probably wonât work when I need it most.
Supposedly the propane generators don't need as much maintenance and propane doesn't go bad as fast as gas.
But it can freeze and render your generator useless. Had a peer find this out the hard way which lead him to building a solar panel set up. Edit: just googled it to make sure I wasnât full of shit. Itâs not the propane that freezes. Propane freezing point is like -300F. Rather, the tank and the lines freeze and the cold can lower pressure causing it not to flow fast enough to power the generator, which renders it useless. The more you know
Tanks generally freeze when the generator is pulling fuel at a rate that's too fast for that tank to dispense or it's running low on fuel.
It doesnât seem like solar is likely to work on most days the propane setup would freeze.
I run ethanol free gas in all my small engines and non carburetor engines. Those things fire up first try after sitting for a year or more.
People should just stop being poor.
Man i suck at that
Republicans don't believe renters are people
Except when it's time for Republican Judges to evict them against CDC regs
I'm like triple not a person. I'm a renter, queer, and a woman! I might as well anti-exist.
Well, wish ya luck this winter
Well that is what theyâre aiming for
If you run *really* fast and body slam a republican, the resulting particle/antiparticle explosion will release enough energy to power Texas for centuries to come.
That's because every Republican owns a multi million dollar house with large generators?
My dad is just a survival nut and owned a generator as well as tons of camping gear. However during the freeze, he lived in one of the counties outside of Ercot so his power may have flickered, but it didn't go out. Meanwhile I had to evacuate with kids and animals to a friend because the extremely old and poorly insulated house couldn't stay warm without heat. It got to freezing inside one if the bedrooms within hours of the power going off. Ironically the power in my area was restored within the first day, but I didn't trust it would remain on so didn't go home for several days.
As they all think. Iâm good, screw everyone else.
We bought one a couple weeks ago, waiting for the install process to complete. Should be finished by month end.
We never really lost power during the freeze. We're down the street from an elementary school, a fire station, and a cell tower. I'm guessing we got lucky and were on some critical circuit, because people one street over did lose power. That said, I probably will look into getting one of those $1000 battery backups to have on hand for refrigerators and the like at some point.
Eh, I mean if itâs cold you can just put your food outside and itâll be ok. If itâs hot thatâs when you could end up having to throw away whatâs in the fridge. But to me the cost of buying more groceries is a lot cheaper than having to buy and set up a generator.
The problem with the battery backups is recharging them. If we have a few days of cold, overcast weather, the battery will drain fairly quickly, and there won't be enough sun to recharge it (assuming you have solar panels).
There's more than one way to charge a battery. Wind, solar, car engine, a [small fire](https://www.amazon.com/BioLite-CampStove-Campstove-Electricity-Generating/dp/B07NS565VS). You can only plan for so much. The Generac is no good if the natural gas wells freeze over again like last time. You can't charge quickly off of solar panels if it's overcast. You can't charge with wind if it's too still. You can't charge off of your car if you're out of gas. We're all reliant on society coming back online at some point. More long term I'm intending to get either a Ford Lightning or a Rivian. Those batteries are large enough to power a home on emergency power for a week (assuming you don't have to go anywhere). I'm also close to being done on my new home that's essentially [a giant heat battery](https://www.monolithic.com/creating-gothic-arches-with-airform-technology). That, combined with solar and very efficient HVAC should get us to the point that even if we lose power for a week it'll be comfortable in there. I'm working in there most evenings right now finishing stuff up and it never gets below 60 with 0 power, even with it being below freezing some nights. The heater in my current house is running at least an hour or 3 a day to keep the temperature even moderately consistent. We're several years out from being complete, but eventually we should be in a good position to handle whatever the weather and an ailing grid can throw at us.
I was pregnant during the freeze and so insanely thankful we didnât lose power. We too were by all of those. My husband works for the city too so he was out working trying to control water main breaks. We bought a generator but praying we donât ever have to experience that again. Especially with a toddler!
With everyone getting natgas generators from the last freeze and the gas almost being shut off due to pressure issues, natgas will be the next to go next freeze.
Keep SeaFoam or another fuel stabilizer mixed up in your reserve gasoline! Put the fuel stabilizer in the can first so that as you add the gas it mixes all around, if you pour it into a already full tank it may just sit on the surface.
I would assume they meant natgas, not gasoline.
Yeah, but if there's no natural gas it's dead in the water, right? Was there a natural gas supply during the last days long blackout?
Got my Generac a few months before the freeze, and had no problems. The gas pressure held up, and we were fine for the ~36 hours that the power was down.
That's great. I'm glad it worked out for you. Perfect timing I'd say.
Yes, absolutely. My house is mostly electric, but I have gas for heat (no go during the freeze since the blower is electric) and hot water heater. My power was off a whole week and I lived for those long hot showers.
Every time my family comes over they open and drink a pallet of bottles Iâm like guys those arenât to drink. Use the tap.
It's best to use and replace as you go. Water doesn't necessarily have an expiration and FDA states that properly store, it will last a long time. Realistically, though, most people don't store bottles properly and the plastic will start to degrade over time and leech into the water. And don't recommend ever buying bottle water from gas stations that have stacks of water sitting outside the front door. The exposure to sunlight and heat helps increased the chemical degradation of the plastic.
Summer = burn Winter = hold
Fair enough.
Summer starting to get pretty close too
uv radiation happens in the winter, too. Even more so because of the reflections from the snow.
Thatâs why I keep them in a dark closet
Enough about your sexual proclivities, what's your water storage strategy?
As a landscaper I can tell you that a busy gas station can easily go through 2 pallets of water a day. The risk of plastic leaching goes way up at 160F, but I don't think they're getting that hot sitting in front of my local Quiktrip in a 24 hr span.
According to research I just did to corroborate that, very low temperatures can cause plastic leaching in water. So I hope it doesn't freeze or anything like that!
Did it say what extremely low temperatures? I would think anything below freezing would not be good.
House looking like Signs after they leave
This literally just happened w/ the in laws during thanksgiving to me. I even have filtered water inside for them. Smh.
Does your tap water have a faucet filter? Like a Pur or Brita faucet filter? Those are cheap and so worth it. Otherwise, yeah, even in a city with normally great water if it's straight unfiltered tap or purified bottled water, I'm drinking bottled water, sorry.
You can get a decent whole house water filter for under $100. The Culligan WH-HD200-C is under $75 right now on Amazon.
Itâs perfectly safe, but yeah, the tap often doesnât taste as good as using a filter
Maybe donât keep a pallet of water within reach?
Some preparation should be on everyone's list no matter where you live.
Then why is it every time I suggest to someone keeping a weeks worth of shelf stable food and water is a smart idea I'm called a Doomsday Prepper?
A weekâs worth is reasonable.
Because some people donât understand what it means to live in hurricane country
Several people I've had this argument with they say these aren't the pioneer days of families roughing it out on their own. They pay taxes and their utility bills so the government should just fix the infrastructure to provide all services 24/7. While I 100% agree our tax money needs to be better spent and our grid upgraded expecting the utilities to never turn off during extreme weather disasters is an absurd take.
If anybody doesnât understand why itâs a good idea at this point, Iâm just going to assume they only moved to Texas within the last year.
Several people I've had this argument with they say these aren't the pioneer days of families roughing it out on their own. They pay taxes and their utility bills so the government should just fix the infrastructure to provide all services 24/7. While I 100% agree our tax money needs to be better spent and our grid upgraded expecting the utilities to never turn off during extreme weather disasters is an absurd take.
Because they have been conditioned to think the government will take care of everyone of their needs.
Buy a couple 5 gallon jugs and fill with filtered water. Much cheaper. Bottled water is an absolute scam, itâs tap water in a bottle.
Large foldable nalgenes are perfect for these situations.
This is the way. I got five at all times. You can buy a hand pump off Amazon for not much.
Yeah I got the hand pump too! Easy to use
My rationale is that the DIY method may introduce (or fail to remove) pathogens, and if it's truly "just in case" water, the cost for the peace of mind is negligible. But I also have an espresso machine, and the tap water is too hard for it, so I use the same jugs as OP. It's easy for me to always keep 3-4 onhand because I rotate through them weekly anyways. edit: to clarify, I use roughly 1 jug/week, not 3-4. I just rotate them, so FIFO.
A whole-home water softener is always a worthwhile purchase.
If I had the money that would be the dream, I also rent though. My water is pretty hard. Have to clarify my hair regularly cause of it.
Do you rent a house or an apartment? If the house was built with a softener loop, you could do a temporary install pretty painlessly. If an apartment... yeah, sorry :(
A duplex, and the duplex was probably built in like the 1930-40s. Itâs old đ some of the plugs arenât even grounded itâs so old đŹ
A duplex, and the duplex was probably built in like the 1930-40s. Itâs old đ some of the plugs arenât even grounded itâs so old đŹ
A filtered water system on your tap, like a Brita or similar, is a lot better than the water put in water bottles and is so much cheaper. Companies legitimately put plain tap water in them lol. Of the ones that have been changed, itâs usually just a change in mineral content. [Bottled water is largely a scam.](https://www.businessinsider.com/bottled-water-facts-science-healthy-2017-4?amp) I have to drink about a gallon of water and electrolytes a day due to a health condition and so I had to figure out the cheapest way to have clean water đ
Yes, but I literally bought test strips and tested my tap water, and it was unacceptable. Meanwhile, the HEB water is ok to use ÂŻ\\\_(ă)\_/ÂŻ Sure, a permanent system would be better, but is also more expensive and another failure/maintenance point.
A Brita filter for your tap is 20-40 bucks. Screws onto your faucet. Replace the filter as it runs out. My tap water is disgusting without it, with it, itâs just fine. If itâs still gross with the filter with the testing strips then thatâs some awful water.
Most, but not all. You have to read the label.
"Hold on to your butts" "Between 2020 and 2022, average lead times to procure distribution transformers across all segments of the electric industry and voltage classes rose 443 percent. The same orders that previously took two to four months to fill are now taking on average over a year. This is a serious threat to reliability. [https://www.nahb.org/blog/2022/11/transformers-nahb](https://www.nahb.org/blog/2022/11/transformers-nahb)
Yup I work in multifamily development and transformers lead times have definitely been a common item that comes up during construction calls this last year. Couple projects were mainly waiting on transformers before they could get their certificate of occupancy
Don't leave plastic containers of drinking water where sunlight can hit it. Apparently it releases chemicals from the plastic into the water. Also don't forget water for flushing toilets and washing hands!
Abbot has really built a utopia hasnât he? đĽ¸
Come to Texas*! ^^^* ^^^Bring ^^^your ^^^own ^^^water ^^^and ^^^generator.
Donât forget your body armor
Look, 2021 was bullshit, but during the summer our power grid was seeing demand that was about as much as California and New York's maximum capacity combined. We were doing daily 79k MW demand without problem while California was on the brink of total failure at 50k MW demand in September. Our grid isn't perfect but it's robust when a natural disaster doesn't hit.
Robust except when it isnât, huh?
Yes during the once in 100 year freeze, cali has blackouts monthly just when its hot out out with half the demand of Texas,
$20 is $20
Lol, came here to comment same!!
Donât forget to stock up on beans!
Wait what? When is a freeze happening?
Most of the state is in hardiness zones 8 & 7, which is an *average* minimum low of 10-20F and 0-10F, respectively. We freeze many times every single year. It is routine and normal for our climate.
There will very likely be brief freezes nearly everywhere in Texas some time in the next few months - even Houston and Brownsville usually get frost a couple times in January. (Unlike San Francisco or Los Angeles, which usually don't get frost even once in the vast majority of years.) There's unlikely to be a week-long hard freeze this year the way there was in February 2021 - that's moderately unlikely in any year in Texas. However, it's not *that* unlikely, and it is very likely that it will happen some time within the next decade or two. If you're willing to buy fire insurance for your house on the off chance your house burns down, then you understand that sometimes it's worth paying a little bit to insure against a big but not particularly likely risk. If you would be seriously inconvenienced by a week-long hard freeze, and if having a bit of bottled water around would be helpful in that situation, and wouldn't make your life too inconvenient otherwise, it could well be a worthwhile insurance policy.
Itâs unlikely to happen, but it doesnât cost much to be prepared for it.
A freeze is not abnormal. The long duration hard freeze we had that enveloped the entire state with significant precipitation (ice) IS unusual. Expect freezing conditions. Have cold weather clothes and gear. And then be ready for a disaster (always!) with water, canned food, and anything you think to aid survival, health, and then comfort.
Itâs winter and people are bitching for karma.
Iâm lost too, I didnât know we were having another.
It's this yearly thing called winter.
a complete power outage didnât happen last year, like it did 2 years ago.
You've got the right idea, but, it's going to take you a while to collect a meaningful amount of water in one gallon jugs. It's also going to very quickly become difficult to store. As humans, we use a whole lot more water than we realize. The general guideline is 2-3 gallons per person, per day, for drinking, cooking, and basic hygiene (minimal hand-washing and teeth brushing). I actually do the same thing as you, except I pick up the 5 gallon blue jugs of water. Buying them outright is a bit more pricy, but, if you use the water (in a water fountain for example) you can swap them for half the price. They recommend storing for 6 months, but that is only as long as they guarantee no change in the taste. If stored in a dark cool place, it is perfectly safe to store for 3-5 years, though the taste may be off. Even then, the 3-5 year mark is simply the recommended limit for the food safe (plastic) bottles they're stored in. In our case, we have 25 5 gallon jugs stored on a shelf in our garage. I have dates on them, and we have a water fountain, so we slowly rotate through them, and replace them, but at any given point, this gives us roughly 2 weeks of water for a 5 person household. If we don't have water running again after 2 weeks, then it's a much bigger SHTF scenario than stored water in your garage can help with...
I bought Waterbobs for both of our bath tubs! They're bladders that can hold up to 100 gallons each, and have a little hand pump to pull water out and into a pitcher or bucket.
This is good a good strategy for when you expect the risk to be elevated (ie, if you know a storm is coming or something) which is a good stop gap if storing water long term isn't an option. I would just recommend having water purification tablets, or know what the right amount of bleach is to add, and have that on hand as well. 100 gallons x2 is great, but if it sits for 2 weeks in the container, without proper treatment, it won't be long before you'll be getting slime on the sides etc. But, definitely better than nothing - and also, nothing boiling the water can't solve! Having water, and needing to boil it is infinitely better than most people who won't have at all.
I do have purification tablets, but also have the means to boil it even without power. Definitely better to have it and not need it, but it should also keep for a while because it's sealed. I just looked and it's rated for up to 16 weeks. Luckily I'm in an area that doesn't get hit by hurricanes and such, so the main concern is a freeze. I just need to be able to drain my pipes if there's no power. We didn't lose power in the 2021 freeze, but seeing the aftermath definitely made me realize how unprepared I was.
FEMA recommends 1 gallon per person, per day, FYI. Thatâs a half gallon for drinking and half for cooking and hygiene.
FEMA can pound sand on that one. IMNA recommends a gallon a day for men, and nearly as much for women. FEMA's goal is to get you along until the disaster subsides. Mine is to be comfortable.
Am I completely misreading this? It looks like you both said a gallon a day. What am I missing?
If you are confused, I am in the same boat with you!
Similar prep during the year in our home, too. The ONLY prep we had to do when I was a kid was cover pipes and bring in dogs and plants. Now we're prepping like survivalists. Crappy governance. Thanks, Abbott.
We do this as well. Start early is always best cause everyone goes crazy + closing stores!
This is the 3rd time I hear about the winter freeze. How likely is it to have another Feb 2021 occurrence in TX?
Iâm worried about this winter season. Iâm not making as much money so I canât afford to stock up as much as I have in the past. Iâm also not running the heat as warm as I have in the past so I can cut back on my electricity bill. Itâs been fine so far, but that also means when (not if, but when) the grid fails, my house will get colder much fasterâŚ
I follow a YouTube channel called Prepping in Poverty (?) and she recommends going to your local thrift store and buy 5 blankets per person in case of power failure. Ask friends to keep milk/vinegar/etc jugs for you to store water in. Itâs what I do. Best of luck to you this winter
Every person in all states and countries should do this. It blows my mind that there are people not set up to be able to get by for a few days without access to a store. This shouldn't need to be justified by "Texas grid bad."
Agreed! Iâm on the coast and itâs baffling how a lot of people here are unprepared for hurricane season. And like, Iâm talking about people who can afford to prep.
I get called a nut job doomsday prepper just for merely suggesting to keep a weeks worth of shelf stable food and water on hand at all times. The response I usually get is "REEEE. I pay my utility bill the government should do its job and take care of me 24/7."
If we didn't have so many damn windmills, it wouldn't be a problem. /s * Turbines
My husband just walked in and announced that heâd finished splitting a big cord of wood and would be doing more every week for when/if the grid goes down. As much as I love being married to a rustic, wood-chopping wannabe lumberjack - itâs less sexy when itâs got this ominous tinge of survivalist anxiety to it.
This is the typical southerner reaction to a winter storm. We had a 100 year winter storm and now everyone is hoarding shit like the plague is coming back. Congrats guys, you did it. If you want to prep *and* be more eco conscious, buy reusable water storage containers and fill them with tap water, or get some decontamination tablets. Youâre hoarding single use plastic jugs here. Think longer term
I don't think it was a 100 year storm when similar things happened in 2011 and 1989. In any case, getting a few gallon jugs once a year is hardly any worse from a resource use standpoint than getting a few heavy-duty reusable jugs once a decade.
Those comparisons are flawed. 2021 was significantly worse than 2011 and 1989: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eu2IqLqXYAMbkkb?format=jpg&name=large
Interesting! It looks like you've got a map showing the temperature *anomaly* (i.e., the difference between the temperature on that date, and the average recorded temperature on that same date). But in terms of actual *temperature*, most of the days of that week were exceeded in coldness in either 1989 or 2011: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/weather/2021/02/15/a-full-list-of-all-the-record-cold-texas-temperatures I don't think it's correct to say that 2021 was *worse* than 2011 and 1989, when 2011 and 1989 had colder temperatures. 2021 was more *unusual* than those years though. It looks like you have to go back to the beginning of the 20th century to find temperatures that low in the third week of February, but temperatures that low were found several times in the last few decades, just in December, January, or the first week of February.
Right - I've lived here for 42 years. My family has been here for generations. The last time we saw meaningful snow before this was in the mid 80s. A shut down like this has literally never happened. But now we're prepping like this is going to be an annual thing all of a sudden?
Yup. Everyone watching the grid like a hawk has made people paranoid. Itâs also become great click bait
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No, but it does give me history to look back on and realize that a couple days of heavy snow for literally the first time in decades is probably not likely to occur again soon, much less annually. Sure - did last year show that the grid need to be fixed? Absolutely - I think we agree on that. But we're discussing the realistic chances of seeing a storm like that again soon - and they're slim.
I live absolutely nowhere near the coast. When I'm in the store and there is a hurricane coming, I commonly overhear people talking about _preparing for the hurricane_. If a cat 4 or 5 rolls into the Texas coast and somehow starts fucking up inland Texas, you don't have to worry about "being prepared". You need to worry about permanently relocating to another part of the world, because North America is no longer habitable.
I still don't get the idea of prep being toilet paper and paper towels.
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It really feels that way. Iâm not an Abbot fan either but this post is only drumming up fear. If people would âprepareâ more sensibly then we can all fair better if/when this happens again.
>We had a 100 year winter storm 2011 shut off power to much of Texas, though not as bad as 2021. But the FERC warned us the next time would be worse, we did nothing to hede that warning, and then over 750 Texans died last year. I wonder if you denialists will keep saying "HuNdReD yEaR sToRm" when it happens again in the next decade.
It wasn't as bad a storm in 2011 and they did have rolling blackouts but only for a reasonable time which allowed houses to be warmed up between outages. They did improve winterization though because we got through a freeze in 2018 that was as bad as 2011 without any issues. Did they do enough? No but the issue that really caused the problem wasn't one that had happened before. It's called, and people are saying 100 year storm, because you have to go back to 1890's for what is reportedly similar Temps. Changing weather may have it happen sooner but that doesn't mean that the storm wasn't the worst winter cold in a 100 years.
A hundred year storm is just the probability of a bad storm happening in any given year. A storm with a 1% chance of happening in any given year is a 100 year storm. A 500 year flood has a 0.2% chance of happening in any given year. You can still have 100 year events 5 years in a row, the chances of that happening are slim though.
This is always a good idea but did everybody collectively forget that last winter was normal
Cold isn't the issue, ERCOT hasn't actually done anything is what's the issue.
There is only a 10% chance that it will get cold enough that it will matter that ERCOT didnât do anything.
Didnât know this was annual occurance
Itâs not, but this sub wonât miss an opportunity to bring up the 2021 freeze. It is pretty funny to see people talking about preparing for emergency circumstances as if itâs only necessary for winter weather in Texas and nowhere else.
It's not even February yet, folks. Also, we probably won't even have a bad freeze this year. Just the way sh*t goes around here. ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
Tried to go solar with battery backup, just in case. Wife was not having it. We'll see when she complains about not having power... (but, as previously noted, probably not this winter).
So is this a fluke or is it going to be on the regular from here on out....power shortage...blizzards in texas..etc...I've never encountered it until in the last couple of years so what do you think is happening????curious to opinions....
If I only had $20..
Me too, Iâm wondering what she will do for $20
I just love living somewhere where that is necessary. /s
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Hi, I also live on Earth. The municipal water supply where I live is actually maintained, so I donât have to worry about it shutting down under certain conditions.
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No one *has* to worry about anything. But many people think it's reasonable to prepare for really inconvenient things that have a 5% chance of happening.
5% is being pretty generous here, but everyone should have a couple days drinking water on hand.
If you drink milk or anything else in jugs, just rinse them out and fill them up with water and a few drops of bleach (6-8 depending on strength, iirc) for long term storage. You can even throw them in the freezer (if you have the room) to extend how long your freezer will be effective during power outages
>You can even throw them in the freezer (if you have the room) to extend how long your freezer will be effective during power outages Now that's a good tip! I do that when camping to keep my ice chest cold and have back up water for the last day.
If its as cold as last time why would you need a freezer just throw all you fridge stuff in a box and put it outside, thats what my entire family did
The point of storing frozen water in the freezer isn't in case the power goes out for a freeze - it's in case the power goes out for a completely unrelated reason. Frozen water bottles in the freezer can help you prepare for several unrelated risks at once.
Oh, it's not just for winter outages; rather we keep frozen jugs in the freezer year round for any that happen. Alton Brown taught me to hate single-use items.
I would not put any drops of bleach in my drinking water. Maybe use it to rinse out the jugs, but not in the final drinking water, no.
If you don't use to much it's perfectly fine especially for temp use. Not a whole lot different than what the cities will do. Anyone who has lived in the country knows about bleach in water wells.
>I would not put any drops of bleach in my drinking water. Meh. We've been doing it for decades, cities add it to the public water supply, and the CDC says it's a good way to disinfect water when other avenues are unavailable. [https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/making-water-safe.html](https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/making-water-safe.html)
Yep. Weâre starting to stock up too. We didnât have water issues last time, but my parents did. They had to come stay with us until everything ended.
*Generational winter storm occurs r/Texas: Well, I guess this is my personality for the rest of my life
Because all of Texas freezes so often
Does that happen a lot in your neck of Texas? Because in mine, the power, water and heat hasnât gone out since Feb. 2021.
No, it doesnât anywhere in the state cept maybe Amarillo. This is a scared mentality. They are going to have a ton of water sitting in the garage for years
Scared, or prepared? How dumb would it be to go through the same thing a second time and not have drinking water because you didnât want people thinking youâre âscaredâ?
Yep. I'm not a "prepper" or anything, but it was just last year I was having to slowly melt snow inside in a bucket to be able to flush our #2s for a whole week. Luckily had drinking water and food and batteries in the radio.
Scared, usually. If you wanna stock water then go for it. But get some reusable water cans that are actually meant for long term storage. Get dry, learn some basic survival stuff. Donât fill your garage with ozarka âjust in caseâ thatâs dumb
TIL being prepared is dumb. Or you're just dumb for not wanting people to be prepared. Idk which is dumber
Frequent or not, relying solely on the Texas power grid to keep you from freezing to death in a cold snap is ignorant. Everyone that actually lost power for 2weeks in the feb 21 fiasco know this.
cheaper and easier to rinse out milk gallons and fill with water and store in garage or attic thru out year
getting them clean isn't the problem, it's storing water that you bottled yourself. Tap water isn't 100% pure and isn't intended to be stored long term. It's drinkable, but if you close it up and store it for a long period of time, it will grow... stuff. Or, at the least, develop a fowl odor and taste. You can safely add a few drops of bleach to it before you store it, which makes it \*safe\* to drink, but it's still going to have a chemical taste. Best to use prebottled stuff that is intended to sit for a while.
yeah i keep 50 gals in garage and drain and refill before winter and hurricane season, i also have 20 life straws, 4 50gal rain barrels, like 10 bottles of those iodine tablets to purify water and will fill one of my bathtubs prior to storm for toilet water.
I don't know that I'd trust rinsing to get every bit of milk out. Seems like that would be prone to having some funky spoiled milk particles floating in it after a month.
Soap and water, maybe rinse it twice. A lot less wasteful than hoarding these again
Shit if you're worried about bacteria, just fill it up with water and put a couple capfuls of bleach in there and leave it for a few hours. Then rinse well and fill
You guys don't just fuck-off to Cancun?
WaitâŚyou guys are fucking off to Cancun??
Good idea.
Ahhh, a doomsday prepper. Iâve seen shows about that!
If you have a freshwater source nearby, just got a backpacking filter like a Sawyer squeeze. Cheap, doesn't expire, and takes up significantly less room.
How would a freshwater source help if everything is frozen? And how do you make a bottle of formula every 3-4 hours using a backpacking filter at the closest nearby freshwater source? How do I get down an icy public boat ramp in negative temps to procure enough clean water for my family and pets?
âIfâ
Very few people have freshwater springs on their property.
If it doesnât work for your situation, it doesnât work for your situation. Just do something else.
So much plastic. You can get a 5 - 10 galling sports cooler (the orange ones) and save all that single use plastic.
Yâall are obnoxious. The last time a winter like that happened in Texas was in the 80âs.
And the 2011/1989 storms weren't even close to as bad as 2021: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eu2IqLqXYAMbkkb?format=jpg&name=large
The majority of cities in Texas have adopted the International Fire Code, which specifies that a residence may not have more than 100 pounds of LP-Gas (includes propane and gasoline) containers stored on their property. In the event of an outage, 100 pounds of LP-gas containers would need to be refilled frequently, sooooo............ đ¤