2024 Hurricane Season thread of DOOM

[SydneyCarton 48,070]

Just now, HouTex said:

They are fucking themselves by not taking care of their vegetation.  I’ve been throughout the Villages since the storm and there are countless lines down because of fallen trees and very tall bushes. Many still without power.  CP has done a shitty job of trimming/chopping down trees/bushes.  Still, if it was my home or property I’d remove any tree or tall bush that could possibly take out a power line.  And I know several people in the Villages that, for whatever reason, don’t have a generator and they either are staying with friends, got a hotel or left town.  We are all empty nesters so it’s easier to leave.  

shitty implies they've made some effort. Our home backs up to a utility easement that Centperoint and/or the city of Houston are responsbile for maintaining. I've called regularly about untrimmed trees from that area that reach over their powerlines. The derecho knocked a tree halfwy over last month, and I called and called in advance to get them to cut it down WHEN THEY HAD CREWS IN THE AREA. Did they? No. 2 weeks later, that same tree got pushed straight into the power lines by another storm, and we were out of power for another 3 or 4 days. I ended up cutting the tree down at my own expense. 

As of today, out of the past 64 days we have been out of power for 16 of them, and counting. 

[Brisketexan 105,090]

10 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

shitty implies they've made some effort. Our home backs up to a utility easement that Centperoint and/or the city of Houston are responsbile for maintaining. I've called regularly about untrimmed trees from that area that reach over their powerlines. The derecho knocked a tree halfwy over last month, and I called and called in advance to get them to cut it down WHEN THEY HAD CREWS IN THE AREA. Did they? No. 2 weeks later, that same tree got pushed straight into the power lines by another storm, and we were out of power for another 3 or 4 days. I ended up cutting the tree down at my own expense. 

As of today, out of the past 64 days we have been out of power for 16 of them, and counting. 

Centerpoint and state leadership: "48 days of power out of the last 64 is a great success.  We are proud of the level of service we have provided to our valuable customers.  This is another example of how Texas is leading the way!"

[TexasHooch 5,122]

 

[Updawg 2,266]

Centerpoint and state leadership: "48 days of power out of the last 64 is a great success.  We are proud of the level of service we have provided to our valuable customers.  This is another example of how Texas is leading the way!"

75% success rate is good enough.

[Dahobbs 17,529]

7 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

 

bullshit. 

[mbtex 683]

Finally just got power back.

[fattyflattie 4,639]

3 hours ago, Bevo said:

Crazy that they allow insider trading for politicians. Are there funds out there that just follow Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, etc. and just do the same trades? Are their trades known in real time? Do they out perform the market?

Not funds that I know of but there are sites that report it all. It is not real time (2 week lapse iirc), and I’m sure you’d be surprised how often they nail the peak on their shorts. Uncanny really, with a few of them. 

[Pato del Muerto 52,488]

When they are working to get their stats up, I’m sure they are sending crews to repair stuff that could turn on the largest bloc possible. So your 20 house outages don’t  rate for service for a while.  

[Brisketexan 105,090]

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

When they are working to get their stats up, I’m sure they are sending crews to repair stuff that could turn on the largest bloc possible. So your 20 house outages don’t  rate for service for a while.  

Yep.  That's what happened to us in the Austin ice storm.  Our outage was a block of around 15 houses, with power on all around us.  We were in the last 2% of houses to get our power back.

At this point in the process, if you've been fucked by lack of a fix....you're likely to stay fucked for a good while longer.

[TonyTexas 10,509]

11 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

When they are working to get their stats up, I’m sure they are sending crews to repair stuff that could turn on the largest bloc possible. So your 20 house outages don’t  rate for service for a while.  

In my neighborhood, they actually pinpointed the problem on Tuesday morning. It was a single downed pole that fed hundreds of homes and businesses, all of which had underground utilities. They didn’t fix it until Saturday. Infuriating. 

Edited July 15 by TonyTexas

[HouTex 1,866]

15 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

When they are working to get their stats up, I’m sure they are sending crews to repair stuff that could turn on the largest bloc possible. So your 20 house outages don’t  rate for service for a while.  

Yep.  That happened to me during the derecho in May.  A tree took down a line across the street that served about 20 of us.  We were among the last to have power restored.  

[SydneyCarton 48,070]

34 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

 

 

27 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

bullshit. 

Yes, it's absolute bullshit. I must say, there was a particularly dark period yesterday where I was on the couch refresshing the Centerpoint Outage counter, then going to hit refresh on my Vivint app to see if power had been restored. Every 5 minutes they updated that thing another 5-1k customers kept regaining power. It's almost like the fucking time was completely bullshit and rigger. Just to give the illusion of progress. Personaly, I'd expect power restoraitons to come on in large chunks, you know, like they did a ton of work that took some time and then turned power on to people. Not just 500 folks magically getting power every 5 minutes.

 

[Pato del Muerto 52,488]

2 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

 

Yes, it's absolute bullshit. I must say, there was a particularly dark period yesterday where I was on the couch refresshing the Centerpoint Outage counter, then going to hit refresh on my Vivint app to see if power had been restored. Every 5 minutes they updated that thing another 5-1k customers kept regaining power. It's almost like the fucking time was completely bullshit and rigger. Just to give the illusion of progress. Personaly, I'd expect power restoraitons to come on in large chunks, you know, like they did a ton of work that took some time and then turned power on to people. Not just 500 folks magically getting power every 5 minutes.

 

It’s an average, as likely as anything.  Ever have the power company send you a bill adjustment, saying they haven’t actually read your meter in a few months because they choose not to employ enough meter readers to hit each account every month, and they had been billing a guess based on past usage and are now correcting to an actual read?

that issue may be going away with the smart meters, as they get around to installing those. 

[CHIEF 5,079]

3 hours ago, Bevo said:

Crazy that they allow insider trading for politicians. Are there funds out there that just follow Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, etc. and just do the same trades? Are their trades known in real time? Do they out perform the market?

https://www.quiverquant.com/insiders/

CHIEF Jr. uses it, and yes, it outperforms the market considerably. He mainly follows Pelosi's trades. He says she may be corrupt, like most politicians, but she ain't no dummy when it comes to investing.

CHIEF

[PTINS 3,466]

20 minutes ago, HouTex said:

They are fucking themselves by not taking care of their vegetation.  I’ve been throughout the Villages since the storm and there are countless lines down because of fallen trees and very tall bushes. Many still without power.  CP has done a shitty job of trimming/chopping down trees/bushes.  Still, if it was my home or property I’d remove any tree or tall bush that could possibly take out a power line.  And I know several people in the Villages that, for whatever reason, don’t have a generator and they either are staying with friends, got a hotel or left town.  We are all empty nesters so it’s easier to leave.  

The area along Buffalo Bayou from West Houston to River Oaks/Memorial park (~ 12 miles) is most of the highest priced real estate in Houston, in part due to the large lots and the canopy of mature trees.  Removing every tall tree proximate to power lines is basically clear cutting the land to something resembling the Katy Prairie.  It would be easier and cheaper to sell the large house on a heavily wooded lot and move to the suburbs, with buried utilities and planted saplings, 20+ miles from downtown.  Historically, that hasn't happened. Historically, half of Houston didn't lose power every year either, or twice for a week in 2+ months.

That's a tough spot to have to face the new reality.   

 

[Bevo 13,573]

Just now, PTINS said:

The area along Buffalo Bayou from West Houston to River Oaks/Memorial park (~ 12 miles) is most of the highest priced real estate in Houston, in part due to the large lots and the canopy of mature trees.  Removing every tall tree proximate to power lines is basically clear cutting the land to something resembling the Katy Prairie.  It would be easier and cheaper to sell the large house on a heavily wooded lot and move to the suburbs, with buried utilities and planted saplings, 20+ miles from downtown.  Historically, that hasn't happened. Historically, half of Houston didn't lose power every year either, or twice for a week in 2+ months.

That's a tough spot to have to face the new reality.   

 

Memorial is very different now than when I grew up there. As a kid, people asked why we wanted to move from Meyerland way out to the middle of nowhere. Now, Memorial is considered close in. Anyway, as a kid Memorial had huge wooded lots with older homes. Now, very large old homes have been torn down to make room for 3 McMansions. Maybe a decent number of older homes still exist, though, with a lot of vegetation. I don't really drive around enough when I visit to get a great feel for the changes.

[HouTex 1,866]

4 minutes ago, PTINS said:

The area along Buffalo Bayou from West Houston to River Oaks/Memorial park (~ 12 miles) is most of the highest priced real estate in Houston, in part due to the large lots and the canopy of mature trees.  Removing every tall tree proximate to power lines is basically clear cutting the land to something resembling the Katy Prairie.  It would be easier and cheaper to sell the large house on a heavily wooded lot and move to the suburbs, with buried utilities and planted saplings, 20+ miles from downtown.  Historically, that hasn't happened. Historically, half of Houston didn't lose power every year either, or twice for a week in 2+ months.

That's a tough spot to have to face the new reality.   

 

There’s some exaggeration in your post.  Many of those lots are very large, as you said, so there’s plenty of room in most back yards for trees that won’t fall on power lines.  Front yards are wide open for large trees in most neighbourhoods because the lines usually come in from the back.  I’d be fine paying extra money each month to bury the lines and make the transformers flood-proof.  But many people can’t afford it.  

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,509]

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

I’d rather dump the fridge and head west for a week or so and hang in San Antonio or Austin. Cheaper too

 

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

Ding Ding Ding. Not only children, but we were supposed to watch my early onset dementia father in law while my SIL, who usually cares for him, went to a very well earned vacation for 10 days. You can't just drag someone in that condtion and plop them in a hotel room for a few days, or want to share one with them. Well, you can, I suppose, but you're in for a different knid of fucking hell, I assure you. 

And as for kiddo, well, you want to keep him in camps and his routine and learning as much as possible, not just starting a tablet or TV screen. And that's not to mention my own work obligations that don't work as well from another city when my kid is begging me to play with him all day and I'm trying to work. 

Not everyone has the ability or the situation to get out of town but some do especially given the rise of remote work. If you have the ability/flexibility to get out of town during a disaster, there's zero reason not to.

[Js1 85,300]

1 minute ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

 

Not everyone has the ability or the situation to get out of town but some do especially given the rise of remote work. If you have the ability/flexibility to get out of town during a disaster, there's zero reason not to.

And that’s fine. And not everyone has the financial means or living situation for a generator, whether it’s a small one or whole home. That just seems to be the internet’s go-to response if anyone complains about the lack of power. 

[Brisketexan 105,090]

1 minute ago, Js1 said:

And that’s fine. And not everyone has the financial means or living situation for a generator, whether it’s a small one or whole home. That just seems to be the internet’s go-to response if anyone complains about the lack of power. 

Seriously.  Hundreds of thousands of people in Houston live in multi-family dwellings (apartments, townhomes, condos).  In outages -- like the big freeze -- they were and are utterly fucked.

But, fuck 'em.  They're mostly poors, so they don't count.  They sure as shit don't count in any state regulation or planning -- they don't cut big campaign checks.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,509]

1 minute ago, Js1 said:

And that’s fine. And not everyone has the financial means or living situation for a generator, whether it’s a small one or whole home. That just seems to be the internet’s go-to response if anyone complains about the lack of power. 

True. There are ranges from having zero money so little options to portable $500 generator to bugging out ($500+) to whole house generator (>$10K.) Or some combination. IMO getting out of town can be the best if the job and personal life allow for it. It also assumes that leaving post-storm is an option given flooding conditions.

 

[Mez2 4,023]

Team NoPower checking in here,  going on 7+ days without it. 

Whatever. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,509]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Seriously.  Hundreds of thousands of people in Houston live in multi-family dwellings (apartments, townhomes, condos).  In outages -- like the big freeze -- they were and are utterly fucked.

But, fuck 'em.  They're mostly poors, so they don't count.  They sure as shit don't count in any state regulation or planning -- they don't cut big campaign checks.

I don't think anyone is saying that but that is somewhat the opinion of our leaders. I'm staying non-partisan here. Our leaders talk a big game during a crisis but history shows they won't do anything meaningful once the cameras move onto the next story.

[Brisketexan 105,090]

Just now, Nice Guy Eddie said:

True. There are ranges from having zero money so little options to portable $500 generator to bugging out ($500+) to whole house generator (>$10K.) Or some combination. IMO getting out of town can be the best if the job and personal life allow for it. It also assumes that leaving post-storm is an option given flooding conditions.

 

Seeing the shitshow that was the Rita evacuation convinced my parents to say "fuck it, we'll just hunker down here in Houston."  When she only gave the city a glancing blow, they were down the street having tex mex that evening, with light crowds and fully functioning electricity.  BUT...they did the same for Ike.  No real damage to the house, but going into day 3 of no power, they called me and said "we're getting ready to pack up and bunk with you in Austin."  Fortunately, their power came on about 2 hours later.

Would have been tough to get out the day after Ike, but three days later, they could.

Bottom line, it's in our collective interest to have much more robust and resilient infrastructure so we can handle disasters with minimized pain.  But "our collective interest" is not even a consideration in any of the decisions or policies being made.

[Brisketexan 105,090]

1 minute ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I don't think anyone is saying that but that is somewhat the opinion of our leaders. I'm staying non-partisan here. Our leaders talk a big game during a crisis but history shows they won't do anything meaningful once the cameras move onto the next story.

Oh, I don't disagree with you - I think that most folks and people on this threat don't think "fuck the people in apartments."  But our collective decisions and policies sure as shit do.  Hell, those decisions and policies think "fuck everyone else, too" for that matter.  The only people who aren't on the "fuck you" list are 1) shareholders and 2) politicians who get big fat checks.

[SydneyCarton 48,070]

8 minutes ago, Js1 said:

And that’s fine. And not everyone has the financial means or living situation for a generator, whether it’s a small one or whole home. That just seems to be the internet’s go-to response if anyone complains about the lack of power. 

I mean I haven't seen any "Just get a generator" type comments from anyone on this thread, or the internet in general. It's just "Holy shit, how can they be so fucking bad and stupid at Centerpoint?" I haven't seen a single person poo-poo someone for bitching about no power.

And I've already outliend the laughable absuridites involved with getting a generator if you're inside the city of Houston limits. El. Oh. El. 

My two biggest compaints with Centerpoint:

1.) Lack of transparency and effective communiction. If they'd told me a few days back that I would be the last person in the  city of Houston with power, I'd have been a lot more accepting than the perpetual limbo I live in now, trying to deal with animals, kids, not being able to cook, commuting from Timbuktu, etc. I could have made different arrangements, and I could have set my expectations appropriately. Instead, they're obfuscating, not offering any details, not offering info on where we are in a work queue, or what the problem is if it's been diagnosed, anything. But I have to listen to them talk about their award winning text communication system, which isn't texting me shit, or if it does it's wrong. All the while my FB feed is being FLOOOODED by their sponsored and promoted social media posts about how HARD they are working, and what they're doing, and spiking every single football they can when everyone with two eyes knows the management at CP has shit the bed so bad that the matress will need to be burned. They're spending time, and money, trying to gaslight me into believing their performance has been acceptable, when they could just spend that fucking money hardening the infrastructure and not paying stock dividends. But it's easier to just lie to people than actually do anything.

2.) Trim the fucking trees. In some cases it's the owners responsibility. But in many cases it's THEIR responsibility. Fucking trim them. Out neighborhood lost well over 100 oak and pine trees in May, and there's damn near less than half the trees there were before, and these guys were out here cutting trees down then BUT THEY STILL DIDN'T TRIM NEAR THE LINES THAT HAD TREES IN CLOSE PROXIMITY. 

[Storm the Field 5,294]

Latest CP update a few minutes ago is that there are still 222K households affected out of 2.258M total that were affected by Beryl.

Looks like I made the final 10%. What a dubious distinction.

[Js1 85,300]

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

2.) Trim the fucking trees. In some cases it's the owners responsibility. But in many cases it's THEIR responsibility. Fucking trim them. Out neighborhood lost well over 100 oak and pine trees in May, and there's damn near less than half the trees there were before, and these guys were out here cutting trees down then BUT THEY STILL DIDN'T TRIM NEAR THE LINES THAT HAD TREES IN CLOSE PROXIMITY. 

Preventative maintenance?

[TexasHooch 5,122]

I'm loving this Center point account. 

 

And the responses:

I don't know, CenterPoint.  I mean, I get what you're going for, but- and I'm just spit-balling here- maybe you should be taking some pics of your folks working instead of posing them.

Someone needs to give the PR team a lesson on optics.

[hookemATL 11,711]

3 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

And as for kiddo, well, you want to keep him in camps and his routine and learning as much as possible, not just starting a tablet or TV screen. And that's not to mention my own work obligations that don't work as well from another city when my kid is begging me to play with him all day and I'm trying to work. 

[General Specific 3,254]

There’s a how many linemen does it take to service your pole joke in there somewhere!

[Blotto 23,492]

2 hours ago, CHIEF said:

https://www.quiverquant.com/insiders/

CHIEF Jr. uses it, and yes, it outperforms the market considerably. He mainly follows Pelosi's trades. He says she may be corrupt, like most politicians, but she ain't no dummy when it comes to investing.

CHIEF

Lulz at nancy trading those stocks. Those are her husband's trades

[Nivek 16,923]

I left town on Friday night and returned last night.   Streets and neighborhoods which had power lost it.  Intersections which were blinking red were dead.   Unfucking real.

[jdhorn92 1,545]

Heading to Galleria area tomorrow from Dallas for a meeting Wed.  Marriott West Loop has power, hoping i dont run into a bunch of bs trying to get around.  How is that area?

[Ted Lange 16,084]

Mattress Maga goes off on CP, along with getting off some commercials for his store.

 

 

[Dahobbs 17,529]

14 minutes ago, jdhorn92 said:

Heading to Galleria area tomorrow from Dallas for a meeting Wed.  Marriott West Loop has power, hoping i dont run into a bunch of bs trying to get around.  How is that area?

Should be fine. Mainly homes that were affected. 

Edited July 15 by Dahobbs

[Js1 85,300]

29 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

Mattress Maga goes off on CP, along with getting off some commercials for his store.

 

 

Wheels and the Leg Man over there like 

 

[tokamak 6,395]

1 hour ago, TexasHooch said:

I'm loving this Center point account. 

 

And the responses:

I don't know, CenterPoint.  I mean, I get what you're going for, but- and I'm just spit-balling here- maybe you should be taking some pics of your folks working instead of posing them.

Someone needs to give the PR team a lesson on optics.

Why would Centerpoint care about PR? Are you going to cancel your account with them?

[fuggled 576]

7 hours ago, Bevo said:

Crazy that they allow insider trading for politicians. Are there funds out there that just follow Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, etc. and just do the same trades? Are their trades known in real time? Do they out perform the market?

There are actually: https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/07/02/members-of-congress-buy-and-sell-stocks-these-etfs/

The NANC fund (for Pelosi) tracks Democrats and the CRUZ fund tracks Republicans.

https://www.subversiveetfs.com/#etf

[Mez2 4,023]

[Pam Cummings 9,639]

5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Centerpoint and state leadership: "48 days of power out of the last 64 is a great success.  We are proud of the level of service we have provided to our valuable customers.  This is another example of how Texas is leading the way!"

Surely as these disasters start happening more frequently and on a larger scale, the same people who are in charge right now and have proven either incapable or not interested in handling it will do a way better job!

[Storm the Field 5,294]

8 minutes ago, Mez2 said:

Congrats man. Still waiting for the good news. Was hoping for today, but tomorrow is getting more and more likely. Glad we kept our hotel room booked for another evening.

Down to 196K outages. At this point, no less than 92% of people whose power went out will get restored before me.

[Hook1997 5,352]

Finally made it over to Brazoria County for work, the courthouse was closed all last week.  They have tons of downed trees and limbs around there.  

[Armybrat 40,827]

5 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

I've shared the irony here with other people. We ordered a generator after the derecho. They told us the waiting peroid for city approval was 2-4 months then, before they would install. It's probably 6 months now. And after Uri, it was 9 months total time for my neighbors who got one installed. Anyway, the irony is this:

Centerpoint is so bad a their jobs that people will spend the cost of a small car to not have to deal with them in a crisis anymore, but the city of Houston permitting system won't get out of the way enough to allow us to spend money to get the fuck away from Centerpoint. It's truly getting chinese finger-cuffed by Centpoint and City of Houston. 

Cypress and other suburbs can get their shit installed in a week or two. 

It took my brother 11 months to get his 48kw Generac installed and running at his home near Sun City outside Georgetown.

[Armybrat 40,827]

3 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

Congrats man. Still waiting for the good news. Was hoping for today, but tomorrow is getting more and more likely. Glad we kept our hotel room booked for another evening.

Down to 196K outages. At this point, no less than 92% of people whose power went out will get restored before me.

CP aggy knows you post here?

Best wishes though. I couldn’t deal with that at all.

[Updawg 2,266]

Glad yall are finally getting restored. That’s pretty brutal.

[Gatorubet 30,189]

1 hour ago, tokamak said:

Why would Centerpoint care about PR? Are you going to cancel your account with them?

Now, with AI, you can have all of your strongly worded messages directly sent to delete.

[TexasHooch 5,122]

1 hour ago, tokamak said:

Why would Centerpoint care about PR? Are you going to cancel your account with them?

Because the more the direct consumer complains, the more they'll have to pay the politicians to ignore said consumer.  Come on, this is Monopoly 101 level shit.

[Dahobbs 17,529]

I have grid power!

[Dnaguy 11,925]

2 hours ago, Ted Lange said:

Mattress Maga goes off on CP, along with getting off some commercials for his store.

 

 

It’s true what he’s espousing, but the guys who can effect change are at that table and behind him.

They’re the ones who can make a difference. Blaming Lina Hidalgo and yelling into the either is about as effective as taking a swig of Pepto after pounding a lb of fajitas and grilled jalapeños. 

CP is a great boogie man here and share a lot of the blame but let’s not delude ourselves and think that the politicians are somehow fighting for the people. They’re using human suffering as a prop and cosplaying as leaders.