4 ms·

That's not really accurate. I've lost power 4 times total in 30 years here. Usually big Texas thunderstorms, never heat. The 100 year winter freeze I lost powe

That's not really accurate. I've lost power 4 times total in 30 years here. Usually big Texas thunderstorms, never heat. The 100 year winter freeze I lost power for two days, that was the longest ever. Haven't lost power since then, didn't lose power for a couple years before that. We have the cheapest rates because of the way distribution and providers are setup. The problem with big user bills were SV companies like Griddy tricking people into buying variable rate electricity, something we made illegal since then.

Bilal_io 5y ago
I am not denying your experience, but I was talking about my own. I lost power for over 3 hours just 2 nights ago. And since the horrible experience we had in February 2021 we (me and everyone I know) have been living in fear it might happen again. A quick look at Centerpoint's own outage tracker[1] shows outages everywhere in different parts of Texas. 1. https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Image_Callout https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Im...
- nomel 5y ago
  I don't see why "fear" is necessary. Power has never been a constant. When I was a kid we had a box of candles under the sink and warm blankets stacked in the garage, and some emergency food/water to last a week. Now that I'm an adult, I still have the same. I don't understand this trust and expectation of flawless infrastructure, where "fear" would come into play. Inconvenience, sure. You should be able to easily remove the fear aspect, with minimal preparation.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    Because in the pursuit of efficiency, we are less resilient. I maintain a old inefficient boiler for my home. It has a pilot light and stays lit as long as there is service. It costs me about $250-400 more annually vs an efficient boiler.
  - Bilal_io 5y ago
    "fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.
    - nomel 5y ago
      As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.
      - Bilal_io 5y ago
        Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people. > Campground You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.
        nomel 5y ago
        > You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces. No, I mean the little burners you put on top of portable propane tanks, that are usually used for BBQ's or while camping. Searching "campground propane burner" in Amazon shows several hundred results of what I'm talking about. They don't require a campground to operate. > Or fix the damn infrastructure. You and your fear exists in the reality that is right now, which includes bad infrastructure, that will almost certainly take years to fix. If you desire to not live in fear, for the next few years, you can easily do it with minimal, extremely common in places where it's cold, preparation. If you desire to continue living in short term fear, when it's so easy to mitigate that fear, then well I guess you do you.
        Bilal_io 5y ago
sfteus 5y ago
That's great that your power has been mostly reliable, but it is not the case for a lot of the people here. In my family alone, my brother and his wife lost power at the apartment they had then for 3 days during the ~2014 winter storm, during which our apartment lost power for around a day. My parents lost their power for all 4 days of the storm last year, and had to travel 15 miles or so to my brothers house after their inside temperature dropped below freezing on day 3. They just let us know their power is out again this afternoon. My wife and I are lucky enough to have since purchased a house close to some critical infrastructure so we've rarely lost power comparatively, but we still lose power several times throughout each summer during heat waves. I also want to reiterate: this happened in 2011, again in 2014, again in 2021, and again in 2022. The storm in 2021 was objectively the worst of the bunch, but 2011 was similar. It is _not_ a 100 year freeze. It is happening more regularly, and our government has ignored recommendations to better prepare for it going on over a decade now. EDIT: Just to round this out, a federal report was provided in the wake of the last "100 year" storm that occurred in 2011[1]. In it, there are several dozen recommendations, many of which were at least in part the cause of the 2021 outages as well. ----- [1]: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-re...
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Just replying to other anecdotes with my own. And I disagree with your assessment of our weather and government.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    This is one of those cases where annecdotes of power loss have a much higher informative value than annecdotes of stability. The former tell you there is a bad situation wheras the later just add a little bit of context about the severity.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      It's not, that's your rationalization to make your anecdote more important.

Bilal_io 5y ago

I am not denying your experience, but I was talking about my own. I lost power for over 3 hours just 2 nights ago. And since the horrible experience we had in February 2021 we (me and everyone I know) have been living in fear it might happen again. A quick look at Centerpoint's own outage tracker[1] shows outages everywhere in different parts of Texas. 1. https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Image_Callout https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Im...

nomel 5y ago
I don't see why "fear" is necessary. Power has never been a constant. When I was a kid we had a box of candles under the sink and warm blankets stacked in the garage, and some emergency food/water to last a week. Now that I'm an adult, I still have the same. I don't understand this trust and expectation of flawless infrastructure, where "fear" would come into play. Inconvenience, sure. You should be able to easily remove the fear aspect, with minimal preparation.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Because in the pursuit of efficiency, we are less resilient. I maintain a old inefficient boiler for my home. It has a pilot light and stays lit as long as there is service. It costs me about $250-400 more annually vs an efficient boiler.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  "fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.
  - nomel 5y ago
    As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.
    - Bilal_io 5y ago
      Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people. > Campground You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.
      - nomel 5y ago
        > You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces. No, I mean the little burners you put on top of portable propane tanks, that are usually used for BBQ's or while camping. Searching "campground propane burner" in Amazon shows several hundred results of what I'm talking about. They don't require a campground to operate. > Or fix the damn infrastructure. You and your fear exists in the reality that is right now, which includes bad infrastructure, that will almost certainly take years to fix. If you desire to not live in fear, for the next few years, you can easily do it with minimal, extremely common in places where it's cold, preparation. If you desire to continue living in short term fear, when it's so easy to mitigate that fear, then well I guess you do you.
        Bilal_io 5y ago

sfteus 5y ago

That's great that your power has been mostly reliable, but it is not the case for a lot of the people here. In my family alone, my brother and his wife lost power at the apartment they had then for 3 days during the ~2014 winter storm, during which our apartment lost power for around a day. My parents lost their power for all 4 days of the storm last year, and had to travel 15 miles or so to my brothers house after their inside temperature dropped below freezing on day 3. They just let us know their power is out again this afternoon. My wife and I are lucky enough to have since purchased a house close to some critical infrastructure so we've rarely lost power comparatively, but we still lose power several times throughout each summer during heat waves. I also want to reiterate: this happened in 2011, again in 2014, again in 2021, and again in 2022. The storm in 2021 was objectively the worst of the bunch, but 2011 was similar. It is _not_ a 100 year freeze. It is happening more regularly, and our government has ignored recommendations to better prepare for it going on over a decade now. EDIT: Just to round this out, a federal report was provided in the wake of the last "100 year" storm that occurred in 2011[1]. In it, there are several dozen recommendations, many of which were at least in part the cause of the 2021 outages as well. ----- [1]: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-re...

hunterb123 5y ago
Just replying to other anecdotes with my own. And I disagree with your assessment of our weather and government.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  This is one of those cases where annecdotes of power loss have a much higher informative value than annecdotes of stability. The former tell you there is a bad situation wheras the later just add a little bit of context about the severity.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    It's not, that's your rationalization to make your anecdote more important.