Texas Cold Snap

[Cooper1927]

I know at least a few of us live in Texas. Checking in to see how everyone fared. Figured we could air our “issues” here.

For our house our downstairs the heater capacitor went out and our plumbing under the pier and beam house pretty much is going to have to be entirely replaced (except for a few updated areas). Glad I know a jackleg plumber - me.


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[vintagetoppsguy]

I did ok in Houston. I was without electricity for 3 days and without water for 5 days. Everything has been restored now. After the second day without power, I went to stay with family that lives closer to the coast where it was just a tad warmer and they didn't lose power or water. It was hard for the first few days because there was a shortage of gas. Everyone bought it all up for their generators. The stores are getting back to normal, but a lot of the shelves were bare. It's still hard to find drinking water as we are in a boil water alert.

[Cooper1927]

Houston had to be tough. Y’all never get weather this severe. Hurricanes now...


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[riggs336]

I'm in Austin. Our house lost all power for just two days, then had intermittent power for several days. Our heat pump failed so our house never got above 50° for a week.
We lost all water for five days when a water main burst in our neighborhood.

We have power, heat and water now (although we have to boil the water to use it).

Every time I started feeling sorry for myself for being uncomfortable for a week I remembered how lucky we are to have a home to be uncomfortable in.

Since my wife won't see this I'll tell this story. She was sitting on the toilet this morning when the water came on and the sound of the tank filling scared her s***less.

[Cooper1927]

“Since my wife won't see this I'll tell this story. She was sitting on the toilet this morning when the water came on and the sound of the tank filling scared her s***less.”

Now that is some funny s&!t!


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[Leon]

I live just north of Dallas. Water and electric never went off as I am in a regulated environment and don't think it affected Grayson Collin Electric Coop too much.
I had a water line burst inside my house. I couldn't even get a plumber to take a message let alone come out. I know a Hispanic gentleman that has done a lot of work for me before. He knows everything about houses. He was afraid to drive in the ice and snow with his old truck. I went and picked him up, he fixed it, and I took him home. The girl I am dating had her thumb over the leak until I could get the water turned off.

She had 2 ceilings in her house collapse due to 4 bursts in pipes in her attic. There were inches of water and floating insulation throughout her house. There is 100K+ damage on a 200k'ish house. Pain in the short run but almost a new house in the long run. It will be a long time before everyone gets back to normal in Texas.

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[John1941]

Yikes. I've heard of a lot of people losing power etc., but thankfully it never happened for me. It may be because I live close to a fire station.

[commishbob]

I’m just east of Houston and we lost power for about 36 hours. I’ve got a large capacity generator and ran my fridge, a couple of ceramic heaters and tv/DVR with it. Most of my neighbors had a pipe burst but I was able to avoid that. Never lost water and never was under the water boil notice.

My son living in Houston had a pipe under his house burst but he found a plumber working on a neighbor’s house and got it fixed quickly. They stayed w/in laws. My other son north of town lost power outages but no damages.

None of us went to Cancun.

[rjackson44]

god bless everyone

[Bocabirdman]

I missed the front end of the news story where I assume that they explained how and why. What I saw were people getting Electric Bills for less than a month's service for $3K to $7K......How do you lose power for a week AND run up a Bill like that. One woman that they were interviewing was a single mother of 2, making $11.50 an hour . She got a Bill for $3015.01. She said that it was not even for an entire month. She obviously does not have the means to pay it. Why did she get such a crazy high bill? How many people had their house destroyed by water damage, nearly froze to death and will see their credit ruined because they cannot pay such a high Electric Bill? I would think there would be thousands of such folks......

What did I miss as far as a explanation?

[Cooper1927]

From what I understand, those receiving the really large bills had a company that charged wholesale prices for electric (instead of a fixed rate plan). When this all went down, wholesale spiked by like by over 50 times the normal rate. There’s a main company they keep talking about, and they were telling their customers to find another company (at least temporarily).


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[AustinMike]

I live in SW Austin. We are on the PEC electric grid, not Austin Energy. We lost power for a short period early in the storm and never lost it again. We are on Austin Water and went without water for 4 days. Got it back Sunday evening and are still on the boil notice. My daughter in SE Austin is on Bluebonnet Electric and never lost power. She is also on Austin Water, but never lost water. My son, in central Austin, lost both power and water for four or five days.

As mentioned above, there is a company in Houston, Griddy, that sells electriciy based on the wholesale cost of what they pay for it. It costs $9.99 per month and then whatever power you use based on the cost the company pays for the power. In times of low demand, it's supposed to save the customers money. With the spike in demand, the cost of electricity spiked ... tremendously. So their customers paid whatever Griddy paid for the power. Griddy did send out emails to warn their customers in advance of the storm that they should look for a different provider. Many didn't heed the warning (not sure if I would have either). It cost one retired guy around $17,000. He unfortunately has payments automatically withdrawn from his banking account. So he discovered $17,000 withdrawn from his account.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by AustinMike

As mentioned above, there is a company in Houston, Griddy, that sells electriciy based on the wholesale cost of what they pay for it. It costs $9.99 per month and then whatever power you use based on the cost the company pays for the power. In times of low demand, it's supposed to save the customers money. With the spike in demand, the cost of electricity spiked ... tremendously. So their customers paid whatever Griddy paid for the power. Griddy did send out emails to warn their customers in advance of the storm that they should look for a different provider. Many didn't heed the warning (not sure if I would have either).

Correct. But from the stories that I'm hearing, there were some that tried to heed the warning and actually shopped around for another electricity provider, but were told by all the providers that they weren't accepting new customers at the time.

[AustinMike]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Correct. But from the stories that I'm hearing, there were some that tried to heed the warning and actually shopped around for another electricity provider, but were told by all the providers that they weren't accepting new customers at the time.

Yeah, I read that too.

It'll be interesting to see what our gas and electric bills are for the month. And for the future. The costs the suppliers paid for the natural gas will be passed on to the customers.

[bradmar48]

I live in rural East Texas about 200 milles north of Houston.
Luckly I have a home generator that kicked end when the power went out.
Our problem has been water. We were completely out of water for 3 days then
it was an on again off again for a couple of days. We have to boil what water we use and things are not completely over with yet.