Texas Power Outages

[TCHB]

Texas power outage tracker: More than 350,000 outages as winter storm, ice sweep state

Check our map of power outages in Texas where hundreds of thousands of residents were without electricity Wednesday after a winter storm hit the state

news.yahoo.com

 

[FROGMAN524]

Texas power outage tracker: More than 350,000 outages as winter storm, ice sweep state

Check our map of power outages in Texas where hundreds of thousands of residents were without electricity Wednesday after a winter storm hit the state

news.yahoo.com

Since you’re the CA utility expert, what is the issue with TXs grid? I keep hearing about outages there’s every time it drops below 75 degrees outside.

 

[Taboma]

Since you’re the CA utility expert, what is the issue with TXs grid? I keep hearing about outages there’s every time it drops below 75 degrees outside.

You don't believe the article ?

 

[Xtrmwakeboarder]

Thankfully nothing up here. Would seriously suck to lose power. The freezing rain and sleet has been constant since Sunday night.

 

[Nanu/Nanu]

Texas is on their own. They're grid isnt connected to the rest of the U.S. power grid. It would probably help if they would connect but they don't want to so they will continue to have issues until they correct what is wrong in their system.

 

[USMC2010]

Power has been going out all throughout Austin and area all day. Ours has been on but I know many people that didn't have power today and they are from different areas all over. Working from home for two days has been a nice change but I'll be back in the lab tomorrow morning.

 

[DarkHorseRacing]

Speaking of Texas, what’s with T-DOT? They never heard of ice melt for roads? Most of the Rocky Mountain states are good at putting a solution down to stop ice and keep it from forming. Watching the news and holy balls, the roads look like skating rinks. How is that allowed to happen?

 

[4Waters]

Speaking of Texas, what’s with T-DOT? They never heard of ice melt for roads? Most of the Rocky Mountain states are good at putting a solution down to stop ice and keep it from forming. Watching the news and holy balls, the roads look like skating rinks. How is that allowed to happen?

They might have to invest in that with all this global warming

 

[USMC2010]

Speaking of Texas, what’s with T-DOT? They never heard of ice melt for roads? Most of the Rocky Mountain states are good at putting a solution down to stop ice and keep it from forming. Watching the news and holy balls, the roads look like skating rinks. How is that allowed to happen?

Texas, metro population areas specifically, are too busy focusing on woke. This is the 3rd year in a row for Austin having winter problems, that's as far as I have tracked. Problem is, people here drive 30 mph under the speed limit with hazard lights on when it is raining, or 85 mph in vehicles not safe to do so. The roads and road plan here sucks and it probably isn't budget wise to have what equipment would be needed on hand for the area for only 2-3 days a year.

 

[Ace in the Hole]

Speaking of Texas, what’s with T-DOT? They never heard of ice melt for roads? Most of the Rocky Mountain states are good at putting a solution down to stop ice and keep it from forming. Watching the news and holy balls, the roads look like skating rinks. How is that allowed to happen?

Traditionally Texas doesn’t get weather like they’ve been having. They don’t have the infrastructure set up in the southern part of the state For plow sand and salt storage. The roads are also not designed to be plowed there… Reflectors are not recessed etc.

 

[FROGMAN524]

You don't believe the article ?

I read the article, it doesn’t say what the cause is besides ice. Have they gone all renewables?

 

[USMC2010]

I read the article, it doesn’t say what the cause is besides ice. Have they gone all renewables?

This time where I am at, ice is dropping trees on a lot of lines, elsewhere I can't speak of.

 

[rivermobster]

Traditionally Texas doesn’t get weather like they’ve been having. They don’t have the infrastructure set up in the southern part of the state For plow sand and salt storage. The roads are also not designed to be plowed there… Reflectors are not recessed etc.

Yeah, but, but...

Global warming is making it colder!

 

[FROGMAN524]

This time where I am at, ice is dropping trees on a lot of lines, elsewhere I can't speak of.

Ok got it. This seems to happen yearly there. I imagine putting all the power lines subterranean would be expensive.

 

[DarkHorseRacing]

…Problem is, people here drive 30 mph under the speed limit with hazard lights on when it is raining, or 85 mph in vehicles not safe to do so. ..

Don’t come to the San Bernardino Mountains in SoCal. Exact same group of morons.

 

[USMC2010]

Ok got it. This seems to happen yearly there. I imagine putting all the power lines subterranean would be expensive.

I know some areas have very old, very big oak trees. Might be why my area is ok. It is a new neighborhood with underground power.

 

[Xtrmwakeboarder]

Speaking of Texas, what’s with T-DOT? They never heard of ice melt for roads? Most of the Rocky Mountain states are good at putting a solution down to stop ice and keep it from forming. Watching the news and holy balls, the roads look like skating rinks. How is that allowed to happen?

You’d think that. We’ve got people ice skating in my neighborhood. Only ones out are those in UTVs towing their kids on sleds.

 

[baja-chris]

Speaking of Texas, what’s with T-DOT? They never heard of ice melt for roads? Most of the Rocky Mountain states are good at putting a solution down to stop ice and keep it from forming. Watching the news and holy balls, the roads look like skating rinks. How is that allowed to happen?

I drove through the ice storm Monday and TDOT had saline tankers and sanding trucks on the interstate but I think the resources were overwhelmed. It was getting bad and got worse after we went across. Windshield 50% iced over, wipers iced, mirrors completely iced over, etc. Tens of Thousands of miles of highways impacted

 

[clarence]

We’ve got people ice skating in my neighborhood.

God, I miss skating.

 

[Orange Juice]

Dallas

 

[rrrr]

The outages have nothing to do with generation capacity. ERCOT announced yesterday there is plenty of reserve in the system. When ice storms occur, the precipitation collects on power lines. The weight breaks the conductors or cause them to touch grounded items like trees and poles. The ice causes trees to fall on conductors, also creating outages.

 

[Laguna]

I moved my business out to Round Rock 2 years ago. I experienced the last winter that shut down Texas. All my employees from TX said this never happens here, we were shut down for 2 weeks. Grass is not always greener.

 

[farmo83]

It's not generation related, ercot has reserves ready to roll. Ice build up on lines locally is the issue.

When a hurricane rolls through there is power outages to

 

[rrrr]

I just looked outside, my driveway looks like a fuggin' hockey rink.

 

[clarence]

The ice causes trees to fall on conductors, also creating outages.

Lots of trees bent to the ground downtown.

 

[TCHB]

The outages have nothing to do with generation capacity. ERCOT announced yesterday there is plenty of reserve in the system. When ice storms occur, the precipitation collects on power lines. The weight breaks the conductors or cause them to touch grounded items like trees and poles. The ice causes trees to fall on conductors, also creating outages.

Go underground.

 

[rrrr]

Go underground.

It's a little late for that.

 

[farmo83]

Buy a generac

 

[Nanu/Nanu]

The point i was trying to say is texas is all on their own. They may have the capacity but if lines go down from their generation plants they dont have any ties to the outside states. Im sure they have built in some redundancy where they can switch transmission to feed abnormally until conditions or issues are fixed. Wasnt trying to make a dig in any kind of way.

But the circuit maps for transmission across the U.S. are quite funny. Everyone is happy in the sand box and theres texas just building thier own sand castle all by themselves.

 

[rivermobster]

Hurricanes? Ice storms? No power?

Sounds fun!

Meanwhile in SoCal...

Seriously though...

Hope you guys make it through this ok. Scary shit!

 

[Xtrmwakeboarder]

I just looked outside, my driveway looks like a fuggin' hockey rink.

All ice

 

[rrrr]

Hurricanes? Ice storms? No power?

Sounds fun!

Meanwhile in SoCal...

View attachment 1195300

Seriously though...Hope you guys make it through this ok. Scary shit!

It's been a non-event for us. We went to MegaLowMart on Monday and picked up necessities. I bought 10 gallons of diesel for my torpedo heater to keep the shop warm, and already had 15 gallons of non-ethanol gasoline for my 4 kW and 7.5 kW generators. We haven't had any power interruptions.

I knew it would be above 32° F by midday Thursday, so those quantities were sufficient for anticipated power outages. Right now it's about 34° F, so the roads are slowly clearing.

This freezing rain/ice storm has been a little unusual because of the precipitation duration. Normally the precip lasts less than 24 hours, the next morning a high pressure system pushes out the clouds and moisture, then the sun comes out and the ice melts by afternoon.

This one had steady precip for about 60 hours, and the ambient temperature stayed below 32° F during that time. I didn't bother going anywhere. Many of my fellow Texans that own lifted 4X4 pickups believe that allows them to drive on all icy roads at speeds approaching 50 MPHand that hills and curves don't matter. It's comical driving along the multiple lane toll roads out in our part of the county during ice storms, because there are dozens of those lifted 4X4s waaay out in the weeds.

I know the limitations if I must go somewhere. My 4WD Excursion will get me there as long as someone doesn't hit me. But as I said, the boneheads think that little switch on the dash allows them to let 'er rip. You hafta stay away from them.

 

[pronstar]

We’re slowly melting.
We had at least an inch of solid ice on the ground yesterday, it was slick as snot.

Took this pic just a minute ago, still icy in South Dallas…North Dallas snow all melted yesterday.

My truck has mud tires, they’re useless in these conditions.
Michelin LTX on the suburban have a lot of sipes so it’s drivable if necessary…but the whole metroplex shuts down in these conditions so there’s nowhere to go.

 

[rivermobster]

We’re slowly melting.
We had at least an inch of solid ice on the ground yesterday, it was slick as snot.

Took this pic just a minute ago, still icy in South Dallas…North Dallas snow all melted yesterday.

View attachment 1195351

What happens to your pool and equipment during all this??

 

[pronstar]

What happens to your pool and equipment during all this??

Keep the pumps running and it’s all good.

But my pumps were offline during the last freeze a month or so ago, so I drained pipes and pumps that I could, and wrapped everything else in moving blankets.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

We ended up with an ice dam which leaked water into a crawl space aside the media room. Then an ice pack just up from the ice dam and around a corner also leaked into the same crawl space, but further went down the wall into the garage. I got up on the roof today and cleared the problem frozen gutter with hot water and all the ice from the problem areas. No more leaks. Most the water went down inside of brick. But I need to decide whether to open up the garage drywall to look for wet insulation. Fabulous.

A bunch of neighbors also had ice dam issues. All but one have the same builder home as we do. Guess I need to figure out who to call to permanently solve this issue.

Generally, I don’t think Prosper got it near as bad as other areas south of us, looking at pictures. Kids may be home tomorrow for 4th day this week.

 

[TCHB]

It's a little late for that.

Next year!

 

[PDQH2O]

North Dallas area didn’t get hit too hard, just lots of ice. Fortunately no building or property damage. Still haven’t plowed our road. Still melting. All deliveries pushed out to next week.

 

[rrrr]

What happens to your pool and equipment during all this??

Pool? What pool?

I'm not missing pool ownership. The new owner of our house in Plano is gonna be spending some substantial money on that hole in his backyard, he just doesn't know it yet. It's been 13 years since the last refresh.

 

[rivermobster]

Pool? What pool?

I'm not missing pool ownership. The new owner of our house in Plano is gonna be spending some substantial money on that hole in his backyard, he just doesn't know it yet. It's been 13 years since the last refresh.

I was asking Robert about his pool. I just happen to know he has one.