Central Texas weather scariness ft. power outages and no water

Thursday morning, we woke up to ice thunder. There was frozen precipitation most of the morning. It did this:

Everything was covered in a layer of ice, and there were no temperatures in the forecast for above freezing for a week.

That day there were a lot of accidents. The main road into/out of town was closed for sanding. It took forever because there aren't a lot of sand trucks in Austin.

Friday, the roads seemed okay. James went into Cedar Park to buy the groceries that Walmart wasn't able to deliver, because they'd had a power outage for 15 hours and lost everything in their cooler section. We were fortunate enough to have power, but figured it was just a matter of time before it went out.

James tried to find firewood while he was out, but no one had any. I looked online and everyone was sold out. I asked on "Buy Nothing," and the neighbor who cuts our grass did have some left over from a beach trip. It was enough for probably one night.

Saturday, I was panicked about our water lines. We have a pier-and-beam house. Our water lines are only superficially buried. We decided that on Sunday afternoon, we'd shut off our water and drain the pipes to avoid freezing and bursting. 

I also grilled out the steaks James had gotten for our Valentine's meal. It was actually warmer (at 28 degrees) Saturday than it was supposed to be Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, James filled up a ton of containers with drinking water, then I filled up a bathtub and the bathroom sinks with flushing/hand-washing water.

We shut the water off, and I turned on the water in one bathtub to drain the water heater... after I turned off the water heater at the breaker. We opened all of the faucets, and they just kept running. For hours.

I called a plumber but at that point, it had started sleeting and no one was going out at all. But I got an appointment for this coming Friday, which was their earliest appointment. It's apparent that our shutoff has mineralized, and won't close the whole way. We need to replace the handle with a ball valve. 

We watched 9-to-5 during all of this, and it holds up. But I was stressed about all of the work we'd done, and the fact that the pipes were just filling back up (but slower). I decided to go out and see if I could turn off the water on the city side. I took the tool bag, and it was sleeting again. The door to the meter was sealed, but just enough that I was able to pry it open.

I figured that if I couldn't get the shutoff turned, we have one neighbor who likely has a t-bar or whatever and we could try the next day.

But guess what? I was able to turn it with my gloved hands, and that was it. We opened all of the faucets, which drained for a few moments, and we were done. I slept a lot better that night.

Until 3ish on Monday morning. James, Mal, and I were all in the master bedroom when D came in and asked if we had a portable charger. I got up and got one, and saw a message from our electric provider that they were doing rolling blackouts. 

The power was out for about an hour, then on again for a while, then back out until 10:30 Monday morning. Monday, it was brutal but GORGEOUS outside.

I learned that many people whose power had gone out on Friday had not had any since then. People were posting pictures on the Austin subreddit of apartment windows that were iced over ON THE INSIDE. People with children were worried about how to keep them warm... I had to get off of Reddit because when you're an empath, you internalize everyone's struggles, and logically I can do nothing for these people but hope for the best.

In the middle of the day, I went next door to ask our neighbor, who always has a fire going if the high is going to be below about 65, if we could buy some of his fire wood. He said, "No, but you can have it." I asked if he was sure. He said, "You have a little kid! I can't turn you down." I said, "Sure you can!" But he gave me enough firewood for one full day. 

Yesterday, we played out in the snow a couple of times. Then we took advantage of our internet and electricity when it came on. The way it works is this: We plug in all of the devices, Mal streams video, and we cook food so we can eat something hot. Otherwise, we're snacking on string cheese, nuts, granola bars, etc. It seems to be that the rolling outages for us are two hours on, one hour off. It seems like our house loses 5 degrees per hour. We don't know what the temperature is until the power comes back on because we don't have a thermometer except for on the thermostat.

Meanwhile, my parents' house has been without power since early Monday morning. Fortunately, Monday late afternoon, friends of theirs who still have power picked them up to stay with them. That was a relief. My sister's house hasn't lost power at all, which is great. Interestingly, Mal's friend's aunt's house (which is near Round Rock) also has had power this whole time.

We lit a fire this morning at 1 AM, and let it die when we got up. As long as we keep "rolling," we'll probably not use the firewood. The thing is, tonight and tomorrow night, there is a majority possibility of freezing rain. Our power lines survived the first bout of sleet and frozen rain all over the place. Will it stand up to it the next two days? Who knows. It might get worse before it gets better. This is bizarre.

Our power provider got up to 86% of meters with power early this afternoon, but now it's back down to 80%. It was 53% when we got up this morning. The outages do not include us, even though we're having power cuts, because we DO have access to power.

James went out to see if he could get water at the water/ice dispenser across the street, and he had to come back. The roads are treacherous. We'll just have to get creative about the toilet situation or maybe try to turn the water back on before the plumber gets here Friday if we run out. Then again, we might be able to try for water again tomorrow afternoon. It's supposed to get up to 37. Last week, the forecast for tomorrow was a high of 60. Sigh.

After taking the wheelbarrow back to our neighbor this afternoon, Mal and I walked to the park. It was beautiful and weird! He loved playing "maid" and cleaning the icicles and snow off of everything.

Toward the end, he realized that he had snow in his "boot" (grocery bag) and we pulled off his shoe and socks, and put one sock from his other foot on the wet foot, then we hurried home. It was a lot of work to hustle in deep snow! By the time we got back, I was sweating! It's the warmest I've been since a week ago.

Pretty stuff, but I'm ready for it to melt because things are warming up. Austin is not built for a weeklong hard freeze. Texas and Texans are suffering right now.