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2020-21 Winter weather; bring it on

Parliament

By Parliament
in Daily Texan

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SubliminalHorn
SubliminalHorn

Power back on. 109 hours. I almost want to cry a little 

Machinator
Machinator
BradInATX
BradInATX

I've actually been turning my heat up a degree every time a new Surly member loses power on this thread. It's a nice balmy 94 in here.

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ztejas

ztejas 43244

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Podrick's Magic Cock said:

It has to be BS.  My parents over by Parmer/Mopac have never lost power or water.  We're going over later to take showers. 

It is. Dad in 78736 has water. Mom in 78746 has water. I know people in 78751 with water - on Duval just south of Koenig.

Basically - fuck that guy.

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J-Mart

J-Mart 60

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Well, a friend of ours managed to get over and check on a neighbor. Elderly, Chinese, isolated, not much English.

He’s dead, frozen to death in his own home.

There are more. Many more.

Fucking Christ.

Awful. This is why I keep checking on my parents. At least they can keep a fire going in the house. 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 104465

Posted
Posted
Awful. This is why I keep checking on my parents. At least they can keep a fire going in the house. 

We checked on all the neighbors we could get to. At least our elderly neighbors next door have a gas fireplace - they were able to keep life-saving warmth sitting in front of it.

But there’s also a story of an older Hispanic man in DFW. Froze to death in his chair, next to his wife. One of my wife’s colleagues found a frozen body on the streets downtown. There are going to be so many more.

I watched Harvey unfold, people desperately fighting for their lives, fleeing to their attics, and it killed me. Seeing this....where it was not just an act of God, but an utter failure of our entire system....I’m heartbroken, and I’m enraged.

My fellow Texans froze to death in their own homes. I will never forget or forgive that.
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South Austin

South Austin 52037

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Well, a friend of ours managed to get over and check on a neighbor. Elderly, Chinese, isolated, not much English.

He’s dead, frozen to death in his own home.

There are more. Many more.

Fucking Christ.

That's fucking terrible.  I hope I don't hear many more of those stories, but I'm sure I will.

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Deej

Deej 76510

Posted
Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Horn_Spanker said:

Without water, I've been shoveling ice into every pot we have to melt and use to flush the toilets.  I'm the only one on my street doing this?  How are my neighbors flushing?

 

Maybe it was on this thread, or maybe it was somewhere else, but I saw someone post putting a garbage bag in the toilet bowl. They were shitting in that and putting it out in the garbage. Not a bad idea. I was melting snow in a big pot on the stove top to fill the tank. The bag would have been much easier.

Edited by Deej
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TonyTexas

TonyTexas 10478

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, drt said:

Dude I just filled our city trash cans. No idea how long this will last. Better safe than sorry

 

1 minute ago, Deej said:

Maybe it was on this thread, or maybe it was somewhere else, but I saw someone post putting a garbage bad in the toilet bowl. They were shitting in that and putting it out in the garbage. Not a bad idea. I was melting snow in a big pot on the stove top to fill the tank. The bag would have been much easier.

Hope these 2 worlds aren’t colliding 

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Captainant

Captainant 27311

Posted
Posted
Just now, crash_davis said:

HOLY SHIT. 183 Costco line was about 100 yards long. The line in the video is ridiculous. This shit is not sustainable. I bet most people in line are after water.

Fuck this state leadership.

Welcome to the free market, bitches. The weak will perish, only the strong will survive. 

 

Or something like that, right?

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MNLonghornFUKM

MNLonghornFUKM 8799

Posted
Posted
Basically we’re seeing the “I have mine, fuck everyone else” philosophy writ large.  It’s sad to see and in pockets I see people helping each other but honestly it’s hard to not hate the government when it fails this miserably, across the board.

It’s pretty much the biggest ass showing by the higher ups I’ve ever seen. This entire thing couldn’t be scripted this time last week. I hope the damage of life and structural is low but I’m afraid the structural is going to be catastrophic. This is one of the most bizarre thing I’ve ever witnessed from afar. At least the colds moving out for the entire country and this thread can maybe get back to plebs from different states whining about blizzards. It’s 20 degrees and sunny. Tshirt weather
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Captainant

Captainant 27311

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, crash_davis said:

Politics in now pretty much vote for your team no matter what. As such, these same assholes who allowed this shit will get re-elected. There will be no accountability. 

We deserve the leadership we vote for.

The real kick in the pants is the state lege finally advancing bills that require utility winterization. 

Since 2011 only one party would author those bills, only to be killed by those in the other party taking in those sweet sweet petro-bucks. 

It's all shit, all the way down. And they'll act like it wasn't their fault

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crash_davis

crash_davis 23078

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The real kick in the pants is the state lege finally advancing bills that require utility winterization. 

Since 2011 only one party would author those bills, only to be killed by those in the other party taking in those sweet sweet petro-bucks. 

It's all shit, all the way down. And they'll act like it wasn't their fault

is this true? where can i find sources? I want to blast this shit.

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F250

F250 28659

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The real kick in the pants is the state lege finally advancing bills that require utility winterization. 

Even if they require it they will need to put a serious bite into penalties for enforcement. I doubt that ever happens. I could see some winterizing requirements with a slap on the wrist for those that fail to meet those requirements.

 

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Captainant

Captainant 27311

Posted
Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

is this true? where can i find sources? I want to blast this shit.

Here's some sourcing:

Quote

In 2011, the Texas Legislature passed a bill, signed by Perry, that required the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas to analyze "the ability of electric generators to respond to abnormal weather conditions," which included making recommendations to improve emergency plans that would ensure continuity of electric service.

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NEWS
Dallas County Judge Says Gov. Abbott 'Consciously Chose' Regulations That Led to Power Crisis
BY KATHERINE FUNG ON 2/18/21 AT 1:26 PM EST
NEWS GREG ABBOTT TEXAS RICK PERRY POWER OUTAGE
As the power crisis in Texas continues to leave many without heat during a winter storm, Governor Greg Abbott has tried to shift fault onto renewable energy sources. But Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins says Abbott himself is largely to blame.


"The fold of this lies squarely on [former Governor] Rick Perry and the current governor, Greg Abbott," Jenkins told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on Thursday. "They and their team passed the regulations to tell people whether or not they need to winterize. They chose not to tell companies to winterize—that need to winterize—which in a regulatory environment for a commodity is telling people not to winterize."

Jenkins added, "They consciously chose to do rock-bottom prices for large commercial enterprises. I'm not saying that's necessarily saying that's a bad choice. But the bad choice was to do that, so much that it was at the expense of reliability for residential customers and all of us in extreme weather."

In 2011, the Texas Legislature passed a bill, signed by Perry, that required the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas to analyze "the ability of electric generators to respond to abnormal weather conditions," which included making recommendations to improve emergency plans that would ensure continuity of electric service.

But Jenkins said the PUC, whose members are directly appointed by Abbott, failed to require the weatherization measures in the bill. Winterizing natural gas power plants, wind turbines and other energy infrastructure can be done through upgrades that include insulating pipelines.

"[Abbott and Perry] are now trying to blame it on a company called ERCOT that Governor Abbott hired," he said. "They could easily fire that company and hire another one. But if they don't take responsibility and fix this by putting winterization guidelines for gas lines that are frozen underground, and for energy generators that haven't worked because they're not winterized, this will happen again. The fault lies with those two individuals alone."

And the new legislation being advanced now:

Quote

According to a news release, the first bill will “require the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) to enact comprehensive rules requiring each energy operator to fully weatherize and maintain each coal, gas, nuclear, and wind plant to protect from severe weather conditions.”

“This must not be a suggestion or request for a study or report, but a mandate that such weather protections be in place to guard against the freezing consequences Texans are currently experiencing,” Allison said.

The other piece of legislation Allison is working on would require the PUC to require energy providers to enact procedures for requiring public school facilities in emergency priority categories for grid and distribution purposes. Essentially it means schools would provide food, shelter, transportation and other services in a crisis.

Allison said he will file the bills in the Texas House soon.

I'll refrain from further discussion of legislation and policy in DT though, don't want to upset anyone in these already fraught times

Edit: this KHOU story is a pretty good primer as well

Edited by Captainant
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MNLonghornFUKM

MNLonghornFUKM 8799

Posted
Posted
I picked what they had at the neighborhood store and they didn't have much. They had Italian meatballs in the meat section, ragu but not spaghetti so I bought Fideo(vermaceli) and will give it a go. I might like it better to be honest. 

This’ll get laughed out of town by the 1%ers...we eat Ragu all of the time
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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 104465

Posted
Posted
Even if they require it they will need to put a serious bite into penalties for enforcement. I doubt that ever happens. I could see some winterizing requirements with a slap on the wrist for those that fail to meet those requirements.
 

Yep.

My old man is a lifelong NG and pipeline man. He literally helped draft the federal NG pipeline regs.

Here are some thoughts he shared:

“Gov Abbot: Do not blame ERCOT for the power failure, it sits squarely on your shoulders and those of your wealthy cronies for not making the recommendations of the power failure investigation in 2011 mandatory. The cause of the 2021 catastrophe is no different than the previous one, except for magnitude. You do not need another useless investigation, you just need to put teeth in the last one. Recommendations to greedy power and gas transmission companies is like telling a teenager not to speed when he drives his 700hp muscle car. Recomended practices have a nice ring to them, but they mean nothing when they are not implemented because they have no force of law or fines for failure to implement them. The industry is riddled with RPs that are never implemented. There are a lot of bad actors in these industries. They only comply when they are hit hard in the pocketbook. Recommended practices are there for the purpose of being ignored by Republican business men. RPs are like telling Ted Cruz not to R&R in Cancun when Texas is in crisis. Just give us a break and force the companies to do the right thing, The carrot is a failure, you need a Big Stick if you want to prevent a recurrence.”

My old man was a regulator most of my childhood. His goal wasn’t citations, it was getting operators into safety compliance. He had one of the lowest rates of fines/penalties, but some of the highest compliance, because he’d note a deficiency, tel the operator he had X time to fix it. And if it wasn’t fixed when he came back, he’d hit them with the penalty for the full period of noncompliance. Do that a couple of times to some bad actors, get a reputation, and operators start doing what you tell them.

We won’t do that here, though. The donor class will never allow it. You’ll get no meaningful reform, and like it.
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Shoxthemonkey

Shoxthemonkey 1976

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

I've been looking for an ass to beat.

You are closer so I'll wait in line. I'm amazed at how agitated I have been through this whole ordeal. My daughter had knee surgery in Kyle a week ago so I was already a little on edge or whatever but knowing she was without power and water kinda pushed me over that edge. From all accounts my Eagle Scout son-in-law did a yeoman job taking care of her and the pets while keeping the household intact but I still would like to kick someone's ass. Some of you that were without power forever must be ready to cut some throats. I can't imagine.

On a brighter note, I will likely be traveling down next Friday to see her. If plumbing supplies get hard to find down there I will be more than happy to get and deliver parts for anybody that reaches out. Amazon is probably quicker but the offer is there if needed.

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Pimphand

Pimphand 5587

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, South Austin said:

So I still have water with decent pressure.  I took my first shower since Tuesday, but have not done any laundry or dishes, so my house is starting to look like a college apartment. 

For those of us with water, can we expect to keep it, or will we be fucked along with everyone else in the next day or so?

Unless I'm wrong I think if you have H2O pressure now you should continue to do so.  It's the people with issues that are on their downstream trunks that require repairs that are going to be playing the waiting game.  Please take this with a lot of salt because I think we've also learned anything is possible with this ordeal.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89362

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, South Austin said:

So I still have water with decent pressure.  I took my first shower since Tuesday, but have not done any laundry or dishes, so my house is starting to look like a college apartment. 

For those of us with water, can we expect to keep it, or will we be fucked along with everyone else in the next day or so?

I'm in your area, south of you, and we still don't have water, but streets within 5 blocks do.  I'm guessing you are good to go, but I'd keep a bathtub filled just in case.  Or something.  Just don't let the little kids play around with it.

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