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Texas deep freeze carnage thread

immamac

By immamac
in Daily Texan

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CHIEF
CHIEF

I am beat. My friend Chris, that I get my oysters and crawfish from, came home to a flooded yard, and water coming out from around exterior doors. Two story house built in the late 80's. He put the wo

Post Oak
Post Oak

After 73 hours    

Eastwood
Eastwood

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swraith

swraith 336

Posted
Posted
I'll be honest.....I didn't think anything could kill prickly pear.  But as I drive around and see the carnage....I was clearly wrong.  They all look to be toast.  Like....all of them.  It's going to be fascinating next hunting season to be in a landscape where all the prickly pear is dead, and has to start over.
I'm also wondering how many trees are going to die.  Oaks etc. -- big natives -- should make it.  But I think a lot of ornamentals and invasives will die.  Cedars, of course, other than broken limbs from the weight of the snow, ARE FUCKING FINE.  NOTHING CAN KILL THEM.  EVIL NEVER DIES.

Was out at Inks Lake state park this past weekend with the family. I can tell you that the fields of prickly pear cactus out there appeared mostly fine. A few had some damage...but the cactus out there looked better than many of the ones in Austin.
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B00M

B00M 6278

Posted
Posted (edited)

Perhaps a stupid question. There's no apparent damage to our plumbing or water heater but we definitely have to turn the knobs in both showers further toward "hot" than we did pre-storm to achieve the same temperature. Does this suggest there's a slow leak somewhere in the hot lines or damage to the old water heater or something else? 

Edited by B00M
Maybe slow leak at gas meter outside house? I looked at the water meter for only a few minutes but didn't see movement. Will give it an hour test today.
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Captainant

Captainant 27308

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, B00M said:

Perhaps a stupid question. There's no apparent damage to our plumbing or water heater but we definitely have to turn the knobs in both showers further toward "hot" than we did pre-storm to achieve the same temperature. Does this suggest there's a slow leak somewhere in the hot lines or damage to the old water heater or something else? 

I know there's a shitload more sediment and dissolved solids in the water in Houston that's still getting cleared out. If it doesn't get better, you may want to remove shower heads and aerators and flush them out, maybe soak em in some vinegar or CLR

Im planning on flushing out my tankless water heater soonish

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deadshank

deadshank 24651

Posted
Posted
13 minutes ago, B00M said:

Perhaps a stupid question. There's no apparent damage to our plumbing or water heater but we definitely have to turn the knobs in both showers further toward "hot" than we did pre-storm to achieve the same temperature. Does this suggest there's a slow leak somewhere in the hot lines or damage to the old water heater or something else? 

Make sure to use a match at the gas meter.  
 

 

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Shaggybevo

Shaggybevo 353

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59 minutes ago, B00M said:

Perhaps a stupid question. There's no apparent damage to our plumbing or water heater but we definitely have to turn the knobs in both showers further toward "hot" than we did pre-storm to achieve the same temperature. Does this suggest there's a slow leak somewhere in the hot lines or damage to the old water heater or something else? 

The water heater has a temperature thermostat.  Check the thermostat - it may be set at a lower temperature than before.

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luke duke

luke duke 6379

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So wife is hearing drips in first floor ceiling now.  House never got below 65. Water was dribbled and run in solid spurts.  Everything was ok so I left Texas for 6 weeks, now shit falling apart.  What. The. Actual. Fuck. 


Should have checked the meter for flow after things thawed out.
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B00M

B00M 6278

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, B00M said:

Perhaps a stupid question. There's no apparent damage to our plumbing or water heater but we definitely have to turn the knobs in both showers further toward "hot" than we did pre-storm to achieve the same temperature. Does this suggest there's a slow leak somewhere in the hot lines or damage to the old water heater or something else? 

30 minutes and the water meter didn't move. Poked around the gas meter and thought I got a couple subtle whiffs. Wife confirmed as if my nose barely works. I couldn't find it with soapy water, but Texas Gas had a tech out here in 15 minutes. After a couple minutes of poking, his sniffing wand picked up about 5 ppm, and he's repairing it now.

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19118

Posted
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18 hours ago, Armybrat said:

My front yard is xeriscaped with gravel and normally looks like this below. It isn’t difficult to blow out the usual tree sticks & leaves that fall in normal times, but this next cleanup will be a PITA.

 

2ED0A48A-526D-4A39-B829-B3587F0DA226.jpeg

You need a better HOA. No way a gravel front yard should be allowed in civilized society. 

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Judge Roybeanbag

Judge Roybeanbag 11796

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, swraith said:


Was out at Inks Lake state park this past weekend with the family. I can tell you that the fields of prickly pear cactus out there appeared mostly fine. A few had some damage...but the cactus out there looked better than many of the ones in Austin.

I think the reason for that was the same as my place in the hill country west of town - they got a heavy coat of ice a few days before the hard freeze that never melted.  Maybe it protected them.  

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Judge Roybeanbag

Judge Roybeanbag 11796

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, B00M said:

Perhaps a stupid question. There's no apparent damage to our plumbing or water heater but we definitely have to turn the knobs in both showers further toward "hot" than we did pre-storm to achieve the same temperature. Does this suggest there's a slow leak somewhere in the hot lines or damage to the old water heater or something else? 

You may have tried this already but pull the shower heads and clean them out - there may be gunk in there that broke loose from the pipes.  There was in all of ours - lime/calcium deposits. 

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40678

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44 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

You need a better HOA. No way a gravel front yard should be allowed in civilized society. 

Got the idea from several other neighbors and also from friends’ homes in Las Vegas. Don’t have to waste water on any kind of grass, and the yard was mostly dead before the xeriscaping was installed.

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B00M

B00M 6278

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44 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Got the idea from several other neighbors and also from friends’ homes in Las Vegas. Don’t have to waste water on any kind of grass, and the yard was mostly dead before the xeriscaping was installed.

Do you have to use roundup non stop or is your weed barrier still in tact? Everytime i think about doing that I fuck around and revive our St Aug.

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40678

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Not one single weed or blade of St. Augustine has ever sprouted up in the gravel, nor the mulch bed, in the 5 years since my son “weed-eated” the remaining grass, sprayed on a vinegar solution, then put down the fabric barrier before spreading the river rock. No Roundup has ever been applied in my yard.

Edited by Armybrat
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RPM

RPM 26185

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Posted

Well I discovered some weather related damage. My windshield cracked dead center at the top and spread in opposite directions. It has to be related to driving in -9° with the defrost on high in a blizzard.

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Captainant

Captainant 27308

Posted
Posted

The power companies going bankrupt counts as carnage right?

ERCOT overcharged power companies $16 billion for electricity during winter freeze

Quote

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas made a $16 billion error in pricing during the week of the winter storm that caused power outages across the state, according to a filing by its market monitor.

Potomac Economics, the independent market monitor for the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which oversees ERCOT, wrote in a letter to the Public Utility Commission that ERCOT kept market prices for power too high for nearly two more days after widespread outages ended late Feb. 17. It should have reset the prices the following day.

That decision to keep prices high, the market monitor described, resulted in $16 billion in additional costs to Texas power companies. The news of the overcharging was first reported by Bloomberg.

In Texas, wholesale power prices are determined by supply and demand: When demand is high, ERCOT allows prices to go up. The grid operator was directed by the PUC during the storm to set wholesale power prices at $9,000 per megawatt hour — the maximum price. Raising prices is intended to incentivize power generators in the state to add more power to the grid. Companies then buy power from the wholesale market to deliver to consumers, which they are contractually obligated to do.

Because ERCOT failed to bring prices back down on time, companies had to buy power in the market at inflated prices.

RELATED: CenterPoint looking into billing issue that alerted customers they owe over $200K

The error will likely result in higher levels of defaults, wrote Carrie Bivens, a vice president of Potomac Economics, the firm that monitors the grid operator. She said the PUC should direct ERCOT to remove the pricing intervention that occurred after outages ended, and allowing them to remain would result in “substantial and unjustified” economic harm.

Retail power providers have been in financial distress across Texas since the storm, as many were forced to buy power on the wholesale market at extremely high prices.

Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc., Texas’ largest power cooperative, has already filed for bankruptcy protection after incurring $2.1 billion in combined charges owed to ERCOT, according to court documents filed on Monday.

Many retail power providers complained in filings to regulators that generators of electricity, which were unable to produce enough power during the storm, profited and left retail companies scrambling.

“The ERCOT market was not designed to deal with an emergency of this scale,” wrote Patrick Woodson, CEO of ATG Clean Energy Holdings, a retail power provider based in Austin, to the Public Utility Commission. The pricing failure, he wrote, “has pushed the entire market to the brink of collapse."

Sounds like a market-based approach is just not built to deal well with emergency situations. Whodathunkit.

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XYZ

XYZ 2154

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On 3/2/2021 at 1:23 PM, RPM said:

 It has to be related to driving in -9° with the defrost on high in a blizzard.

I don’t know. If that were the case, people in the north would be cracking windshields all winter long.

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B00M

B00M 6278

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On 3/2/2021 at 11:14 AM, B00M said:

30 minutes and the water meter didn't move. Poked around the gas meter and thought I got a couple subtle whiffs. Wife confirmed as if my nose barely works. I couldn't find it with soapy water, but Texas Gas had a tech out here in 15 minutes. After a couple minutes of poking, his sniffing wand picked up about 5 ppm, and he's repairing it now.

This totally fixed the issue by the way. The barely detectable gas leak was making water take longer to get hot and required more hot water flow to achieve the desired temp. 

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fattyflattie

fattyflattie 4636

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12 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

I have, but only if there is already a rock chip. Earlier this winter, i sat at a stoplight and watched a crash go all the way across my windshield. Started at a rock chip.

Same.  In fact, I have a work truck up here in VA.  When I left a few weeks ago, small cracks.  Big storms came thru and now they are across the entire windshield.  Several of them.    

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dingleberryswitzer

dingleberryswitzer 2724

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On 3/2/2021 at 12:36 AM, swraith said:


Was out at Inks Lake state park this past weekend with the family. I can tell you that the fields of prickly pear cactus out there appeared mostly fine. A few had some damage...but the cactus out there looked better than many of the ones in Austin.

Some prickly pear around my hood is still alive and well acting like nothing Happened.  Others are starting to rot and smell.  

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Heisenberg

Heisenberg 162

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I’ve got to get a new garage ceiling (it’s sheetrock/drywall).  I’ve had a really hard time locating a sheetrock/drywall contractor.

if anyone knows of a contractor that they can recommend for this, I would sure appreciate it.  Location is The Woodlands, TX 77382.

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Hate

Hate 20102

Posted
Posted
On 3/15/2021 at 5:54 AM, Heisenberg said:

I’ve got to get a new garage ceiling (it’s sheetrock/drywall).  I’ve had a really hard time locating a sheetrock/drywall contractor.

if anyone knows of a contractor that they can recommend for this, I would sure appreciate it.  Location is The Woodlands, TX 77382.

If you haven’t found anyone yet, check your PMs.

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Captainant

Captainant 27308

Posted
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$1 million lawsuit filed against Austin Energy, ERCOT for winter storm death

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The daughter of a woman who died during February’s winter storms is suing Austin’s power company and the state’s electric grid administrator.

Colinda Meza filed a lawsuit against Austin Energy and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that says her mother, Connie Mae Richey, died from “a frozen urinary catheter that resulted from the sustained power outages” in Austin during the 2021 storm that dropped temperatures into single digits throughout Texas.

The lawsuit also says when the power went out Feb. 15, Austin Energy said the outages would last “no more than 40 minutes at a time.” The outages didn’t rotate, and Meza’s home was without power for four days, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit is asking for $1 million for “gross negligence and wrongful death for exemplary damages.”

KXAN has asked the City of Austin and ERCOT for comments on the lawsuit.

A representative from ERCOT said it is unable to comment on pending litigation.

The City of Austin has not responded.

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bolverk

bolverk 29359

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Posted

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just released its preliminary findings on the outages with recommended actions.

Quote

“This is a wake-up call for all of us. There was a similar inquiry after Texas experienced extreme cold weather in 2011, but those recommendations were not acted on,” FERC Chairman Rich Glick said. “We can’t allow this to happen again. This time, we must take these recommendations seriously, and act decisively, to ensure the bulk power system doesn’t fail the next time extreme weather hits. I cannot, and will not, allow this to become yet another report that serves no purpose other than to gather dust on the shelf.”

Quote

Today’s assessment points to freezing of generator components and fuel issues as the top two major causes of generator outages, derates or failures to start. The identified causes in the preliminary report affected generating units across all fuel types.  Of the 1,045 generating units affected, 57 percent were natural gas-fired units that primarily faced fuel-supply challenges.

Press release: https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-nerc-staff-review-2021-winter-freeze-recommend-standards-improvements

Report: https://www.ferc.gov/february-2021-cold-weather-grid-operations-preliminary-findings-and-recommendations

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texasdago

texasdago 7550

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31 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just released its preliminary findings on the outages with recommended actions.

Press release: https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-nerc-staff-review-2021-winter-freeze-recommend-standards-improvements

Report: https://www.ferc.gov/february-2021-cold-weather-grid-operations-preliminary-findings-and-recommendations

"but but... wind!?!"

 

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Posted

Our strategy:  "Blame lack of wind power.  If the wind picks up, it drops the wind chill and more people freeze to death.  Either way?  Profit."  

The new PUC Head was brought on to try to help fix this mess.  He's a sharp cat, known him a long time.  He's just waiting for somebody to fuck things up for him though as we get closer to the 2022 primaries.  /noCR       He's a party loyalist but he knows deep down inside that there is no way we won't make this worse before it gets better.  The border wall will be the most energy secure place in our state, don't worry.  The rest of you?  Go shit in the snow.  

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