We’ve all heard the saying that something impossible will happen “when hell freezes over.” Texas is a lovely state, far from being “hell,” but it is usually warm—and last week, it froze over. Thousands of people lost power and went without water.
Many events of the past year, including Idaho’s March 31 earthquake, remind me that “hell might freeze over” here, and I’m not fully prepared. So I asked three family members in Texas for their suggestions: What was it like for you? What worked, what didn’t, what are you buying for the future?
They prefer not to be identified by name, so I’ll use their initials: B lives in Austin, with her husband and son, and they were without power for a week, then without water for four days in extremely cold weather. J and E and their five children, ages 7-17, live in a suburb north of Dallas and experienced rolling blackouts for five days.
B said, “We weren't able to drive for a week because our cities do not have snow removal equipment. The city was in total chaos. Every member of our bishopric [local church leadership] was without power and basically, no one could drive unless they had a 4x4 because of icy roads. Austin has so many hills, that even with a 4x4, it was dangerous to drive.”
J said, “Others had a more harrowing experience than we did, since we never lost water and we have a gas stove (though gas was heavily throttled at times), and we also had rolling blackouts instead of a straight power outage. I had employees in South Dallas who had to move out of their homes and didn't have power until this week (February 20-26.)”
E said they didn’t drive much because of cold weather roads. FYI, disaster experts say that we should keep gas tanks half full or fuller because, in case of a disaster, we might have to travel, or gas stations may not have power.
POWER ISSUES:
How should we prepare for a blackout or rolling blackouts?
In an ideal world, every home would have a back-up generator to provide power for: its electric furnace and space heaters; ranges, refrigerators, and freezers; vital appliances like an oxygen concentrator for an ill family member; electronics, and much more. Generators cost from $1,000 up and require attention to safety concerns. B. said she hiked across the icy street to accept their neighbor’s offer to use a generator to recharge her phones and her battery backup. She’s now looking at generators.
E’s family used a “car battery jump starter” or “portable power device.” They used its powerful light at dinner time and in the evening during blackouts. These units, which cost between $60 and $150, can jump-start vehicles, pump up tires, and charge devices. Downside: they need electric power to charge, although some on the market have folding solar panels so they can charge without electricity.
J used a USB rechargeable LED flashlight and he’s going to buy a couple more. They were short on unscented candles, so they made them out of household items following internet DIYs, “which actually works pretty well for those desperate emergency situations where you have a lot of fresh oranges available.” (J is a very funny guy.)
“We appreciated having a couple of rechargeable LED night lights that provide either ambient light or focused light, like a flashlight. We charged them when the power was on and used them when the power went out. We bought extra gas lighters for our stove and fireplace (which wouldn’t be as important if you don't use natural gas for those.) We wished we had had propane stocked to use with our backyard grill. More candles and a lantern would have been helpful,” E. said.
B’s most valuable tool was a crank radio-flashlight: “On the days we were freezing inside, it was helpful to listen to the news since we had no TV or internet. A one-minute crank charges the radio for over 30 minutes. Ours can charge cell phones. Our mobile data was very spotty. We could generally see emails but could not open attachments and sometimes could not reply. When we could see Facebook, I would start typing a comment and not be able to post it. We could always text, but sometimes I had to go outside to get it to send. (That is common in good times, too.)” She used a battery backup to recharge devices and kept phones plugged in case the power came on.
B will buy one or more hot water bottles. She figured out how to heat items on her gas fireplace and could boil three cups of water in a shallow saucepan, which she could have used to fill a hot water bottle to keep feet warm. “And I’m buying unscented candles. We had lots that were scented, but with a candle burning for a few hours, the smell becomes overwhelming.
“We were blessed to have a large collection of blankets. Sleeping in a cold house was tolerable if we wore socks and hats to sleep and had about eight blankets on top of us. One morning, it was 39 degrees inside the house, so we were very cold,” B said.
J said, “Energy backup is tougher than any other issue, especially for nonrural areas. I was surprised how many people in our neighborhood had woodburning stoves, and we saw crazy lines of cars for some opportunistic firewood sellers. I have a good friend who has a brand-new solar system, but they had no power the whole time, like everyone else. Battery systems for solar are very expensive and have limited capacity.”
He added, “We had a few small battery backup chargers and two car battery jumpers, which kept little devices running and provided light, but they would’ve died out in a day or so if we hadn't been able to recharge them sporadically; a larger battery pack would be good, especially if the solar option works. I’ll keep more propane on hand, and I'll buy an indoor propane heater (~$100, can heat a small space for a long time on a 20# tank) and a CO monitor. We have a Coleman stove with an adapter hose for the large tanks, though it's probably redundant with the grill, except you can cook indoors or in the garage with a CO monitor.
FOOD:
“We were glad we had plenty of bread-making ingredients and skills and wished we had had eggs and milk. Stores ran out of those quickly. We will look into getting more powdered eggs and milk for the future. We had some, but didn't get desperate enough to open the cans,” E said.
“We ate a lot of crackers and cheese when our power was out. I had cooked several chicken breasts a few days before the storm hit. They were cut up and in baggies in the freezer. We used all of the pre-cooked chicken. I had signed up to feed the missionaries (but couldn't drive to take them food because of icy streets and our driveway, which is on an incline) and had brownies on plates in the freezer. We ate all of that - and other goodies planned to take to other people. (The missionaries got all their food yesterday - a week late, but they had spent several days last week in a member’s home closer to them.) We never had to use powdered milk or other long-term storage options. It's interesting to note that most of my storehouse-type storage items would require water, which we had in limited amounts. We have cases of dried potatoes, apples, onions, carrots, etc.”
WATER ISSUES:
B emphasized that it is critical to know how to turn off your home's water at the street. She said once buildings started to warm up, pipes burst and serious damage from flooding could have been reduced had people known how to turn off their water at the curb. (In Nampa, Idaho, this requires a special tool—which we now plan to buy.)
“When the water was off, it was helpful to have large buckets to catch runoff from the roof as it melted. We had to carry in water to flush toilets from our pool. Many people were melting snow on their stoves for flushing.
B said,
“Once we realized we were going to be without power for a while, we switched to paper plates in all sizes, paper cups, and styrofoam bowls. We also had a good supply of disposable cutlery. We were able to reuse spoons and forks a couple of times by designating our own spots to keep utensils. It was very frustrating to not be able to wash dishes. It affected our choices of what to eat. I would clean out larger bowls as much as possible and then stack them by size. We had quite a pile when we finally had hot water.”
B said she had lots of Clorox wipes, but only one (dried out) pack of baby wipes, which would have been helpful for washing hands.
B noted, “We used about one gallon of water a day for drinking (for three of us.) Our soda consumption went up since we had quite a bit on hand. We had several gallons of water in old Clorox bottles. We used that for washing hands and rinsing out pans, etc. We never had to switch to using our individual water bottles.
“Our situation was complicated by having a sewer pump (even the best generator wouldn't turn on the sewer pump since it is hard-wired to the house.) I didn't dare fill the tub with water because it would slowly drizzle through the plug) into the sewer line. When the power came on, even for 10 minutes, the sewer pump would empty the giant container. Those who filled their tubs with water were able to flush toilets easily (without hiking outside and melting snow.)
J said, “Water storage is probably the real gap for basic emergency preparedness, and we've been trying to address it through the COVID scare. Another argument for building a pool. I bought 25 collapsible 2.5G water bags a few months ago and had half of them filled before this (not very attractive decor!) and we also have a pretty neat $35 bathtub liner. I've meant to buy a 100G tank for the backyard for some time, but they are a bit of a pain to acquire, and I assume it would have been inaccessible after our couple of days in the single digits, but I think they bury them in Idaho.”
Very helpful info, I’ll be referring to this in the future as I work on my own family’s emergency plan. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you! That was the purpose of the post.
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