COLD!

[Dirtman]

I thought Texans were supposed to be strong and independant? What happened to "pull your self up by your bootstraps"?

Yes, with hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and things they can fix by shooting at Texans are on the ball.

Snow and ice are an alien force to them...

 

[19Walt93]

View attachment 55684

Blowing or plowing your snow into the road would get you a summons here, if the plow driver who'd been out for 20 hours didn't just hop out and neuter you with his jack knife.

 

[Dirtman]

My parents live on a road with a firehouse, it's technically a 2 lane road but it's so narrow that cars are not allowed to park on the street or the fire trucks can't get out. They are first to be plowed, salted etc just so the fire trucks can get off the street.

It's nice because the plow never waits until its 12 inches deep to plow, its like literaly every hour inch by inch so if you go out and keep your driveway skirt clean through the day you never have a ton of work to do.

However they must have the sidewalks done so the firehouse has access to the hydrants. My parents got fined once for not shoveling. I went to court and fought it, won, and me, my parents, and a bunch of people on the street got together and bought the firehouse a snow blower. Ever since, the firehouse has sent someone out with a snowblower to clear the ENTIRE sidewalk on both sides of the street everytime it snows. They don't even still have that snow blower we got them, but the gesture made a point and the firemen took notice.

 

[19Walt93]

You have pavement, sidewalks, and fire hydrants. I bet you have street lights, too. I don't live in that world. I live on a dirt road, not a street.

 

[Dirtman]

No street lights, but yea its a normal city street. My road is a major county road and the main NJ storm evacuation route so its also plowed nicely. It takes a massive storm we haven't seen since the 90's for my road to be nasty. But NJ is 1,000% more prepared for snow and ice than Texas as well. Like I joked about, whats crushing Texas right now is nothing to us North Eastern folks. Even power lines, our lines can handle inches of freezing rain without damage. Its just a shock to the south who see's this stuff maybe once every hundred years. I made jokes but their infrastructure can't handle it.

 

[racsan]

it was -7 when I got up today. its 16 now and seems warm by comparison. A year ago we had a power outage for about 6 hours, 4 hours into it I bought a new kerosene heater from menards. Have a small generator now too, only 3,000 watt but I could run the furnace with it at least. I want a bigger one, this one became available for $100 and only had 100 hours on it, Had to replace the carburetor but it does work.

 

[Jim Oaks]

My son-in-law just looked at the cameras in his house and can see and hear water gushing out of their ceiling. We're an hour and 20 minutes away. He called the city to see if they'll go shut off the water. I told him that if he called a plumber they can also do it and maybe get to it quicker.

 

[Dirtman]

My son-in-law just looked at the cameras in his house and can see and hear water gushing out of their ceiling. We're an hour and 20 minutes away. He called the city to see if they'll go shut off the water. I told him that if he called a plumber they can also do it and maybe get to it quicker.

I dunno how Texas works but every water line ive seen here, and in the south has a metal plate out by the road and you just need a 36" square drive 1/2" extension to turn it off. If thats frozen, break the main copper line and pinch it off and let the city fix it.

 

[97RangerXLT]

I dunno how Texas works but every water line ive seen here, and in the south has a metal plate out by the road and you just need a 36" square drive 1/2" extension to turn it off. If thats frozen, break the main copper line and pinch it off and let the city fix it.

here the water meter has a five sided bolt on the cover, use a large pair of slip joint pliers to remove. use the same pliers to turn off the water. Neighbor across the street from us was replacing his water softener and broke a feed line. and wonder of wonders, Arbor Homes who built the neighborhood did not put a shut off main in the house. Since my house is an exact copy of his he came over asking about the shut off location. mine has one right at eye level in the furnace closet... his does not. we ended up shutting it off at the meter ourselves. at least the water line was gushing into the garage and out to the street and not inside the house.

AJ

 

[Jim Oaks]

A what?

The city has had 16 calls since 1pm from people needing their water shut off. They even have the fire dept out helping do it but they're backed up.

 

[adsm08]

I am actually prepared for a storm, for the first time this year.

Two days before the first storm I was prepping, blew up the engine in my good plow tractor. Had to rush to get the backup ready.

Last storm the good tractor was repaired, but the chains weren't on, and I broke a weld on the seat mount. Then I broke a shear pin on one blower and the chain on the big one after spending 4 hours trying to replace a chute cable.


Yesterday I go the seat welded, I got the chains on right, I have fuel, I have all my wood in the house (about a week's worth of continuous burning), all that is left is to wait and see what falls and how much before I re-mount any snow removal implements on the tractor.

 

[racsan]

In the garage with a heat lamp nearby, ready for the next coming snow.

 

[MikeG]

Off the internet for about a week. Had power and water at GF's house so not complaining.

Idiots at the local power co-op shut off power to one of the water treatment stations, running TWO cities out of water. WTF.....?????

Got down to 4F earlier in the week, practically the Armageddon here. 6 hours of chain sawing at GF's place and aren't done. Haven't even started to pick the stuff up. Plus side, previous house owner's at her place put in a fireplace insert, and had some seasoned oak. Heat pumps SUCK at 25F or so, and below. Have kept the house toasty warm. Swimming pool has a few thousand gallons of water, so no problem there.

I've lived here long enough to know that the politicians will raise hell, but NOTHING will be done about the grid problems, because it doesn't break often enough. Forget about it in a year, ten years later, maybe 15, lather-rinse-repeat.

Rescued a friend with no water and little power, his place wouldn't get above 60F. Started to sweat standing around waiting for him to pack, while wearing insulated coveralls. Butt-clenching ride back home. Driving on ice is NOT fun, done it plenty, never a dull moment, especially with hills and curvy roads.

Grid here is in SAD shape. Between trees down, and people not being able to get to work.... forget about plowing the roads, the cities would have to have equipment to plow first!!!! And no one wants taxes or utilities to be raised. Or god forbid, cut a tree branch in Austin!! You will be tarred and feathered, for thinking about such blasphemy.

My parents were prepared to deal with this crap growing up. Lost power for a week, dad rigged up a generator to run furnace blower, but had to grill their food outside in ten degree weather, wearing insulated coveralls. I can remember their street being plowed maybe once or twice before I went to college, and we speculated that the plow operator got lost. At least it was only two blocks to get to main road.

Grocery stores were a madhouse, when open at all.

Ranger stayed in driveway, the mazda 3 got along surprisingly well. LOTS of people should not have been allowed on the roads, at all, no matter what they drove. Thawing out today. Chickens happy, life is good.

 

[Rick W]

Grid here is in SAD shape.

Sorry for you all, in our prayers.

Here’s an idea. I think I heard it rained hard in Puerto Rico and we paid for a state-of-the-art grid system there. Maybe we could send some of our leaders to PR to get some pointers...

 

[Jim Oaks]

This snow storm wouldn't have been a big deal in Ohio. It brought Texas to its knees and put some people in a grave. Plumbers are making big profits repairing busted water lines.

A plumber charged my son-in-law $200 to come out, and $250 to spot the busted pipe after my SIL opened up the ceiling. The plumber was going to fix it with a sharkbite. I told my SIL I could fix it with a sharkbite for about $20. I showed up after the plumber got there. He was already in to the plumber for $450, so he let him do it. That piece of shit 'plumber' charged them over $800 to cut out the busted section of copper pipe and replace it with two sharkbites and piece of Pex. I hope the MF gets what's coming to him some day.