Friday - so, here's the Texas weather report

Never in our thirty years at our house has the pool frozen.  Well, there's always a first time. 

This has been a record breaking ordeal.  And after the sweetness of Valentine's Day - a little snow,  comfy pants, good meal, and chocolate - the true test of marriage began as Texas Weather, Polar Vortex temps, and Snowmaggedon descended upon the fair land.   (We declared a rule - no cannibalism)

Rolling power outages started after early Monday 2/15 morning - 2am,  3 am, 6:45 am....and that did not roll. It stopped.  NO POWER and outside temp was  3 degrees.   Yikes.  Inside temp dropped rapidly. We had under counter drawers open, dripping faucets, and Ray rigged a space heater to our large propane grill tanks and brought it all into the house.  He then used a shovel to bust up pool ice. 

Electricity outages were spotty.  My work was fine so we drove the 15 minutes to Omega. Roads were dicey but not much traffic. One tech was there -Zach and I did work. Ray hung out.  We did our best and left around noon.  At home, it was futile - the pool froze again, pump was frozen. It was SO COLD.   We hunkered in one room with blankets and the heater. 

Continued outage.  Read by flashlight, went to bed under a mound of blankets. House temp - 55 or so. 

Tuesday dawned pretty - but bitter cold - 2 degrees. Still no power.  We headed to Omega - I worked. Ray hung.  We could microwave a hot lunch.  Afternoon - got to Ray's folks - they had power. We enjoyed a hot shower and a snooze.  Headed home - wanted to be there over night in case of pipe issues. 

Wednesday - awake and still no power.  House temp at 49 or so.  Back to Omega to warm up, charge up, communicate with the outside world. (Some friends had no power, others no water, it was a mess) After work, tried to find more propane for back up. Ha Ha! Too late for that.  We did go to Chili's nearby - open and warm and functioning - a hot meal was yummy. We feasted.  Home to continue our marriage test.  Still talking. Some laughter. We had alternated some meltdowns, but truly did pretty good. 

 Wednesday night - 11:45 pm - ding....power is on!!!!   Wow.  Heater started cranking.  No obvious water disasters appeared. Hot water working.  It took all night, but Thursday we awoke to our normal house temp. Hot shower felt great. Tasty breakfast in our own home - hooray.  Ray drove me to Omega to work, then came home  to do a deeper check of things. Too soon for the pool - lots more thawing must occur.  He picked me back up and now I'm catching up on blog posts, comments, and real world home stuff. 

We are happy and grateful we do have a house, food, light, etc. 

Texas, the state, failed in its infrastructure, response, etc. Reports from ten years ago showed what should have been done or upgraded to "winterize" wind turbines, natural gas flow, etc.  Nope - no doubt politics and money and greed truly caused this epic fail.  And sadly probably cost people their lives. 

Mother Nature.  Weather.  Climate changes.   Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise - Ben Franklin