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Dallas suburb here (Las Colinas). No power since Monday 6am. I had to get room at holiday inn. I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after
by svnpenn 6y ago
Dallas suburb here (Las Colinas). No power since Monday 6am. I had to get room at holiday inn. I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after an hour, so I had to go back home and sleep in 5 degree apartment.
Don't believe anything you read about "rolling outages". It's only rolling, if you define that as "out until it's not freezing anymore".
- rconti 6y agoIndoors??
- pault 6y agoYes, there were sub zero temperatures in Dallas last night.
- maxnoe 6y agoHow badly are your homes insulated that you get internal=external temperature in mere hours???
- KMag 6y agoIt has been a day or two, right? (Former Minnesotan, now living in Hong Kong, so slightly out of it, but familiar with -20F/-30C and occasionally -40F/-40C.) I think enough air circulation to avoid your breath causing mildew everywhere will mean without a ton of thermal mass, your house is going to get within a few degrees of the daily high within a day or two.
- tclancy 6y agoShut off your heat for a couple of days and report back.
- ineedasername 6y agoIt's been going on for a lot more than just a few hours.
- UncleOxidant 6y agoHopefully that's 5C and not 5F.
- greenonions 6y agoApproximately zero chance that that would be 5C
- ckemere 6y agoWe were at 14F this morning...
- masklinn 6y agoI don’t think Texans are legally allowed to use non-freedom units.
- bjacobt 6y agoWe were at 0 F today morning north of Dallas.
- UncleOxidant 6y agoWow, I had no idea it had gotten _that_ cold down there. I've never seen it that cold here in the PNW - west of the Cascades, anyway.
- nogbit 6y agoThat’s rough. I’ve bundled up without power with little ones for 4 day, but it was mid 20’s. Keep warm however you can, safely...and good luck, don’t wait and cross fingers, take action.
- tyingq 6y agoIt does look like they intended to roll, then figured out they didn't have enough capacity to roll. So, the people "rolled" first got stuck.
- rst 6y agoRolling outages are when they've got enough power for some neighborhoods, but not all of them. Texas is so short of power right now that they've dropped power everywhere they can, excepting only certain critical facilities (hospitals, police), and continued operation of the grid itself -- a totally cold restart, they say, could take weeks.
- tyingq 6y agoA rolling outage would be relatively short in duration, and "roll" from one area to another. No roll happened here, just a bunch of areas off for long periods of time, and others not off at all.
- jimbob45 6y agoAustin here, staying at a colleague’s place who’s in an over-55 community on the hospital grid (unlikely to be taken down). Agreed that they’re misusing “rolling outages”. We got an hour of power a day for the last two days and don’t foresee getting even an hour today. I don’t know who they think they’re fooling because everyone here knows exactly that these outages aren’t rolling and is out for ERCOT blood.
- adrianmonk 6y agoMy guess why we keep seeing rolling blackouts mentioned is that ERCOT has three alert levels, and the way you would typically deal with number three is with rolling blackouts, so that has become the term everyone uses. Also, it's up to the power distributors in different cities to cut in the ways that they can. Some are doing rolling blackouts, and others (like mine...) aren't.
- salawat 6y agoYou realize ERCOT doesn't specify how rolling outages are implemented, right? That's up to the generating utility/transmission network. Ift you're not getting what you think you should, point your frustration where it belongs at least.
- ineedasername 6y agoThe ERCOT website say they "manage the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers -- representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load. As the independent system operator for the region, ERCOT schedules power on an electric grid that connects more than 46,500 miles of transmission lines" This makes it seem like they would have at least some influence on the rolling outages, no?
- salawat 6y agoYou'd think, but nope. If you hit the About section and watch their videos, you learn of ERCOT's role as a market facilitator and administrative body. They don't actually own any of the infrastructure, they are just a mediating influence through which granular activities are coordinated. They have the highest level view of activity as a whole on the grid, but there is no centralized control room or intimacy with utilities systems that allows ERCOT any semblance of fine grained control beyond being a message dispatcher and info propagter. Powerful and influential? Yes. Top down driver of day to day operations? No. If anyone is interested in more about the Midnight Connection scandal, I highly recommend https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/470/798/1362924/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/4...
- cvhashim 6y agoMan, what are people with children, elderly, or pets doing.
- lurquer 6y agoAre you people for real? What did people with children, elderly, and pets do 150 years ago? If your house is 25f, put on a couple sweaters and a coat and have a beer. It’s not the end of the world. As far as the kids go, they’re outside building snowforts. In short, you make do. It astounds me that the typical HN poster can whip up a C++ compiler, pontificate about solutions to every social-ill, purport to speak intelligently about mRNA, economics, epidemiology, and race relations, yet can’t figure out how to survive for a few days without power in freezing temperatures.
- ulisesrmzroche 6y agoWe’re not ready for this kind of weather here in Texas. I’d you’re so smart you should know people 150 years ago lived differently and built their houses differently Are you without power? I don’t think so. Real easy to talk shit when you’re warm and comfortable. It’s not like you built any infrastructure or built your house, so don’t take credit for keeping it warm What’s more is that it’s not only hackers and engineers in this situation. There’s a lot of elderly people, sickly people, families with babies, small animals, and so on, that are far more at risk. I made it the two days but I know some of my neighbors didn’t The real question is why are so many people rubbing their nuts till they pop with schadenfreude, it’s not just you
- lordgroff 6y agoYeah, living here in Canada, when I read the temperatures I had to rub my eyes in disbelief. Temperatures of -30,-40C are by no means unheard of here but we know it will come every winter. I can't imagine a prolonged, unprepared for infrastructure failure, with houses getting down to minus territory indoors. Sounds terrible.
- 6y ago
- Jcampuzano2 6y agoHouston right now, haven't had power, nor water since yesterday. My room is sitting at 20ish degrees and has been all day. I've quite literally been snug under a load of blankets with my wife all day just to stay warm. My office back in Dallas which is not normally open offered to let people stay the night since they happen to be on the same grid as a hospital and I seriously considered trying to make it there today
- justinzollars 6y agodude, go to the office. Its too cold to sleep in those conditions.
- GavinMcG 6y agoYou've never been winter camping?
- swozey 6y agoA texan? I didn't buy anything below a 20* sleeping bag until I started camping in the desert and even 20* was super low for TX, most go with 40. I've got a -30 now but I never knew they went that low until I needed one.
- trianglem 6y agoSleeping in below freezing weather without proper equipment is stupidity.
- samfisher83 6y agoRoads have ice so you might get hurt getting there
- yurishimo 6y agoThe major highways are pretty good but it’s snowing more tonight so it’s gonna take another day to clear up. By that time, it’ll be over 40 so power will likely be restored in short order.
- alyandon 6y agoYeah, "rolling outages" is a joke. I went 19 hours without power in GP&L territory yesterday and portions of my house were down below 40F when I went to bed around 9 PM last night. They finally decided to restore power in my neighborhood at 4 AM this morning.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoI'm wondering how rolling outages on the proposed schedules were supposed to work in this situation. If they gave everyone power 50% of the time, everyone would crank everything they have to the max during those periods to get some heat into their buildings. Unless their total ability to consume energy is less than 2x their average consumption, it's not going to help. To have any effect on overall power consumption, they first have to overcome this effect, and reduce power availability so people can't just shift the load. Depending on creativity (if you have an electric tumble dryer... that's a fan heater), I bet many people could easily 10x their average power consumption. If I had power for a short period of time and cold was an issue, I'd be dumping ~10 kW into water immediately (the only energy storage I can improvise on short notice).
- WillPostForFood 6y agoYou are right if they were trying to reduce load 50%, that's basically impossible for the reasons you mention. They were only trying to get it down 20% and it might have worked if they could have effectively rolled the blackouts. A lot of people have natural gas heat. It doesn't work when the power is out (no ignition, no thermostat, and no fan), but doesn't put a huge load on the electric grid when it is on. For a well insulated house, you are probably running the heat for much less than 50% of the day. We run on average 6-8 hours in the winter. A rolling blackout where power was off for 1 hour, on for 2 would have exceeded their target savings, and shouldn't have affected heating or demand.
- gkop 6y ago> A lot of people have natural gas heat. It doesn't work when the power is out That doesn’t have to be the case. I have gas heat [0], that works fine when our power is out. (Not intending to detract from the rest of your point) [0] a basic Williams wall furnace on a 50 year old thermostat.
- WillPostForFood 6y agoHow does the thermostat work? I've had the old mercury switch style thermostats before, but those work by completing a circuit, so I assumed they were dependent on power being on.
- austincheney 6y agoI was out for 17 hours from yesterday to mid afternoon today. Slept through the 0deg weather without power and yet still kept the house at 43deg internally without a heat source. Here is our simi-successful attempt to survive. * boarded up all the windows and doors with sheets, curtains, and heavy drop clothes * limit going outside to fewest essential trips * close all bedrooms and abandon them. All pets and occupants sleep in close proximity in a common area * we have lots of sleeping bags and mink blankets. It’s more about layers
- pomian 6y agoAs a Canadian, a few more tips: keep kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors open. To keep water pipes from freezing. They are trouble if they freeze, expand, crack, and then when thaw - start leaking. (Empty toilets if risk of freezing.)(add glycol if you have it, in bowl.) Also can trickle water from the taps - moving water sure but freeze so fast as still water. Blankets, in doorways, hallways, Windows - keep warmth in room where you need it.
- btbuildem 6y ago"Keep your taps running" is the one practical bit of advice here.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- HNfriend234 6y agoI'm in Dallas too. What we did was pull out our generator that runs on propane then run an extension cord from the garage to inside the house connected to an electric heater. Close the bedroom door. We were about 75 degrees. You are crazy to not have a backup generator! It is an essential item to have!
- dalacv 6y agoI'm 46. I've never owned a backup generator. Even here with rolling outages, I'm not sure I will every buy one. I don't think I am crazy.
- lpmusix 6y agoI hope I'm reading that wrong and you're not saying you actually have the generator in the garage (unless that garage isn't connected to the house), that's a good way to kill your entire family.
- Johnny555 6y agoUntil recently, I've mostly lived in apartments or condos where a backup generator is not easy to own or operate since there are limited places to store fuel or to put a generator while running. Even if I'm ok with putting it on the balcony and running a cord inside, my neighbor may not want the generator's exhaust in his balcony. Now I live in a single-family home and have an entire RV parked beside the house (with an on-board generator, and around 100 hours of fuel in the RV's gas tank to run it). I can run an extension cord to power the house furnace as needed, but unless it was below freezing and I was worried about the pipes freezing in the house, I'd probably just let the house stay dark and move into the RV during an extended power outage. So I can confidently say "You are crazy to not have a backup Recreational Vehicle!". Maybe I should buy a travel trailer to back up the RV.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago>my neighbor may not want the generator's exhaust in his balcony. Might be easier to convince them if you shared the electricity . . .
- 6y ago
- rasz 6y agoA survival game 'The Long Dark' might be handy to learn how to keep warm. You dont need external heaters, just lots of layers and food, your body is a heat engine.
- runeks 6y ago> I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after an hour, so I had to go back home and sleep in 5 degree apartment. Have the water pipes been emptied as a precaution? Otherwise they’ve all exploded due to being frozen, right?