Record weather

[Amygdala]

17 hours ago, Dustparticle said:

I left some chocolate in the car, I hope is not frozen. Tough times we all facing in the last days. 

This is why I stocked up. Cleaned out the 85% dark chocolate that was on sale. 🤓

Edited February 18, 2021 by Lieblingskind

[AH173]

I like this article on the extents of the Mexico /Texas connection of the problem. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-weather-texas-energy/texas-energy-freeze-stretches-to-sixth-day-raises-mexicos-ire-idUSKBN2AI0R3

 

 

[Allabord4Jah]

These paragraphs taken fro NPR News/Feb 18, 2021

 

State and local officials attribute most of the cases to the use of improper home heating sources, from devices like barbecue pits, charcoal grills and campfire stoves to practices like running portable generators and car engines indoors. These mechanisms all release carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless gas that at certain levels can cause permanent brain damage or death in mere minutes.

National

Carbon Monoxide Poisonings Spike After Big Storms. Portable Generators Are A Culprit

"Much of these poisoning calls ... they're due to bringing grills into the house, turning cars on in garages, basically using outdoor equipment inside," Hidalgo said. "You can use that equipment to stay warm, just don't use it in your home."

The improper use of portable generators,

 

**************************************************************************************************

Generators used improperly can cause your death.  I did not see Kerosene heaters in the pictures, or the articles.  Proper ventilation is needed. True, its freezing out there, in some places below zero!  Used correctly and with some common sense, it will work.  Now if you have ruddy kids, and babies who crawl around the floor, this is the wise parent's responsibility to make sure it does not tip over the box or lantern of kerosene.  Common sense (or wisdom from above will keep you safe).   Crazy people in the garage running their vehicles, with no ventilation, come on people, get real!  Death is there waiting.   Or those generators put into a house, no ventilation, they belong outside, chain them down if you have to, and gasoline or propane, keep it locked in the garage or a safe area in the house ( wouldn't recommend the laundry room) with the water heater if its propane.)  NO SMOKING ALLOWED!  If you want to defrost! You can heat a can of soup in the can itself.  Or eat it cold! lunch meats, keep food like milk outside in a holding bag, or one of those coolers, put a cinder block on top of it if you can't lock it.  Keep it in a cold area of your house, it will thaw.   I wonder if this could have been the plan the F&DS, asked us to gather but not hoard for food?  Cause food in many areas is running low. Trucks can't get through the snow and ice bound hwys.  Airports can't fly everything in.  If I lived in Texas, I wouldn't have taken it for granted that "it's never done this before"... we are in the time of the end.  Things will be getting more then critical, yes hard times to deal with.  

[Allabord4Jah]

This last one:

 

Check out Buddy Heater Propane Bass Pro Shop.  This might be safer then the Kerosene for some who have kids, and other things that could knock into it.   It's great when your camping and no power in house or garage.  But ventilate!

[Doug]

On 2/17/2021 at 11:37 AM, Allabord4Jah said:

Sad, west Texas and part of Mexico with no electric and pipes in gas. Water lines frozen and bursting in people's homes.  People actually going inside their vehicles to warm up, pumping more gasoline.  Texas runs by wind turbines, the propellers have ice on them and to heavy to turn for power. Gas line frozen.  

Ice and the below zero temperatures, difficult situation for all. I am expecting ice and snow into Friday. More snow next Mo day too.  It's crazy weather all over the world.  

As the infrastructure fails   .   .   NASA lands their Rover on Mars !    Talk about irony !

[daydream]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/us/texas-deaths-winter-storm.html

 

A gas stove warming a house in Austin. Doing so is dangerous, and several people this week died from carbon monoxide poisoning

 

 

 

 

Judge Mark Henry, the county’s top elected official, said he would have evacuated some of his most vulnerable residents in advance of the winter storm had he known that power outages would plunge the county into darkness for a few days. He said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid, had warned only of rolling blackouts. Instead, most residents were without power for at least 48 hours.

“We would have been happy to order an evacuation if we’d been told Sunday the power was going to go out and stay out for four days,” he said

[daydream]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/winter-snow-storm-gallery-2021/

 

 

Austinite Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon stands on his kitchen counter to warm his feet over a gas stove.

 

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/houston-snow-hurricane/ 

Brett Coomer

 

Quote

In the last few days, as predictions of falling temperatures became ever more dire, I hit the grocery store, along with hundreds of other experienced, enervated Houstonians. Once again, I felt like a contestant in the Supermarket Sweepstakes of old. This time, the whole wall of precut, prepackaged vegetables had been picked clean, except for, inexplicably, snap peas

Quote

My trip to the hardware store, a mile from my house, was less fruitful: Instead of masking tape for the windows, I was carrying a list worthy of a serial killer—one that included duct tape and plastic sheets to cover my (probably doomed) plants. The shelves were empty. Then I remembered the Sherwin-Williams paint store nearby, which was devoid of shoppers but full of drop cloths and multihued, multipurpose tape. At least we will have cheerful-looking pipes, I thought to myself, but when I got home I saw that I had been bested. A neighbor on Nextdoor posted photos of his pipes covered in cut-up yoga mats.

 

[Allabord4Jah]

I saw people in Texas (on news) home with outdoor tents, with camping Sterno's, keeping warm and eating hot foot.  The tents were able to keep out the freezing temperature in their home.  Their pets were in the tent with them.  Not outside dying from the frozen tundra.  If you have natural gas pipped into your home and it has not been cut off, that will work.  You should have (in the future) some gadget that lets you know that gas is leaking in your house.  So you can wake up the next day!  

[Lee49]

58 minutes ago, Allabord4Jah said:

with camping Sterno's

Burning sterno in a  closed area like a tent could cause carbon monoxide poisoning, not to mention a fire if too close to something!

[Allabord4Jah]

5 hours ago, Lee49 said:

Burning sterno in a  closed area like a tent could cause carbon monoxide poisoning, not to mention a fire if too close to something!

That's true.  I saw a video with people in their homes (no power) with sterno in their tents. But I did not see any ventilation. Maybe they should have put it in their kitchen near a window that was cracked enough to ventilate. 

[steeringwheel]

We are about hour drive west of Houston, Tx. Had a little snow & ice Monday. But electric went off Sunday night for 60+ hours. At 12 degrees, those (even our JW brothers) in all-electric homes had to double up with others that had some gas heat. Our gas furnace doesn't work without electric; so glad we have gas cook stove; using burners for heat. I also ran couple heavy cords to Invertor in pickup. So this helped power small freezer, ref, TV and computer. (home phone works thru it). The battery LED camp lights are also nice. Cell towers were also down. So if our fsg elder couldn't get us by text or phone each day, he did come check on us. Weather back up to normal 60 today. Several brothers homes have/had water leaks. So they had to carry water. Most leaks fixed yesterday & today. What gets me is how people didn't think to salvage their food from refrigerators. They could have put it in coolers, etc and placed outside, if too hot in house. So now groceries are usually out of basic needs again. I'm from Ohio and know how to adapt and plan ahead. But like with electric, we do get spoiled, don't we.

[Lee49]

 Yeah, I used kerosene heaters as supplement years ago, some burn clean , some don't, and as the wick ages it hardens and then if you don't replace it they smoke and smell, also kerosene fuel smells if spilled and yes you should have a window cracked, I never did, I sold all of mine and never went back, I'm thinking of buying a generator or maybe a propane heater just in case but even a generator can have it's own issues, having to keep it outside with some kind of overhead cover for rain/snow and you have to make sure  the gas is drained if not used for any length of time or the carburetor will gum up, the same reason why people can't start their lawn mowers in the spring because they didn't drain the gas or add Sta-bil to the gas! I'm also going to get my gas fireplace replaced as we haven't used it in years, they will run without power so long as you have a running pilot and not an electronic ignition.

[steeringwheel]

Update: 10 homes of local brothers still having water problems.  Some well pumps not working, some all plumbing connections under home busted.  Younger brothers trying to help fix.  Lumber yards here busy.  Houston area has lots of water damages.

[BLEmom]

6 minutes ago, steeringwheel said:

Update: 10 homes of local brothers still having water problems.  Some well pumps not working, some all plumbing connections under home busted.  Younger brothers trying to help fix.  Lumber yards here busy.  Houston area has lots of water damages.

Thanks for the update.  After watching the news I’m surprised it’s not more!   Good to hear.  

[Lee49]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/28/weather/coastal-flood-forecast-washington-dc-baltimore/index.html

One of the biggest tidal flood events of the past two decades, forecasters predict

 

 

Over 20 million people are under alerts for coastal flooding, including residents of Baltimore and Washington, DC, as a large and powerful low pressure system shifts from the central US toward the Northeast.

"Right now we're expecting it to be one of the worst tidal flooding events that we've had in the past 10 or 20 years for a lot of locations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed," Chris Strong, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS) in Sterling, Virginia, tells CNN Weather. "The biggest impact that we're expecting here in the Baltimore/Washington area and along the Chesapeake Bay is the tidal flooding."

Flooding is expected to peak on Friday and linger through Saturday. During this time, two to four feet of coastal flooding is likely.