It’s in the 20s with a windchill in single digits here today. For Houston, that pretty much means it’s the apocalypse.
There are rolling blackouts — ROLLING BLACKOUTS — because the power company can’t keep up with the demand for heat. I don’t completely understand how the power companies can keep up with the demand for air conditioning on 100+ degree days in August but can’t keep up on a day like today. And a lot of us have gas furnaces! I understand that electricity is still needed to run the fans to blow the air around, but the heat itself is being created via another method. Something does not compute.
The roads were chaotic this morning not because of snow or ice or precipitation of any kind, but because all the traffic lights were out or flashing. Rolling blackouts. Ridiculous.
It’s fun for northerners to make fun of those of us in the south. We don’t handle cold very well, I admit. But windchill of 9 degrees? I don’t have clothes to keep me warm in a windchill of 9 degrees! The buildings here are not insulated well enough to stay warm when it’s below freezing all day. I’m already dreading work because I know I will be cold ALL DAY in my office.
They’re predicting 1-3 inches of snow on Thursday night. We’ve had two instances of snow in recent years, but nothing like 1-3 inches. The whole city will shut down if that happens. Disaster is upon us!
And did I mention yesterday morning it was 70 degrees outside? Oh Houston, you and your wacky weather.
One of the reasons for the rolling blackouts is that the cold knocked out some plants, so they are having to divert onto other, already heavily-laden grids. Although the article you linked to didn’t mention it, this later one does, and a friend was watching the news this morning and they said the same. Anyway, still an interesting experience to have all the power go off at 7am, and at that point, not know why or for how long. Started thinking of putting the food from the freezer outside; figured it’d have a better chance of staying cold there than in the freezer! 😉
Actually the other plants were down for scheduled maintenance from what NPR said because usually this is a low power usage time of year.
It shouldn’t effect most of Galveston county, they only requested Centerpoint do that, which covers the Houston portion of grid; where I am in League City we are on Texas New Mexico’s portion of the grid.
We hadn’t lost power yet when I left for work, but there were a couple people on FB who live within a mile of us who had no power. And there are many reports of neighborhoods and schools in Galveston County with outages.
That makes sense, Becca. Plus, apparently, the news was also reporting that some lines themselves had frozen & then snapped in the wind. That is third-hand information, though, as I didn’t watch it myself. So, it is probably a combination of factors. It’s good, though, that it’s for a short period of time. The ones in Cali – for a totally different reason – were 3hrs at a time. In the summer. And while it’s not a Houston summer, it can get pretty darn hot in some places.
So we got one of those emergency phone calls from League City, it said power was being restored to the last few neighborhoods and further power outages are not expected in my area.
I love my kerosene heater – no worries about freezing with it around. I normally advise everyone to get one, but I find it hard to advise someone who lives in Texas to get a backup heat source.
I’m sure you have probably seen by now, but the blackouts were in part because pipes froze at some plants in Austin. Texas is on its own electricity grid so they did rolling blackouts statewide. The channel 13 reporter said he was going to ask the company in charge (how many times have we heard pipes, pets, plants… pipes is the first one!) but that the president of the company hung up on him. Whoopsie.
As for 1-3 inches, I am such a southerner I don’t even really know what that means. I couldn’t tell you how much it snowed last time except it was more in 2008 than 2009. I guess I’ll learn soon enough.