That Time It Froze When We Lived In Texas
If you hadn’t heard this from me yet, my husband and I lived in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas for 6 years. 2016-2022. We were there for the major ice/snow storm in February 2021 when the power companies and state government failed to prepare for a major storm (even though it had happened before) and caused an energy deficiency for the entire state. They had shut down several power plants for maintenance and they didn’t fully winterize some of the still-running plants, probably because they didn’t want to spend the money…but, I digress. Basically, it could have been prevented, but it wasn’t, and people died and homes had some major damage as a result.
Thankfully, we did not suffer damage. Only some slightly traumatic memories. We were told we were in a “rolling blackout” zone…meaning, we would have power for 2-3 hours, and then it would be off for 2-3 hours. That was most certainly not the case. When our power went out, it was out for 36 hours. Our home had been 72 degrees inside before the outage, it was 37 degrees when it finally came back on. Once it came back on, it didn’t go off again. We did not suffer any frozen pipes in our home, but the rental properties I was paid to manage at the time certainly did.
We wore 4 layers of clothing inside the house. We ate cold food mostly. We did attempt to make pancakes the first morning using a Coleman camp stove OUTSIDE (DO NOT BRING THOSE INSIDE)…but the pan was hot and the air being 5 degrees meant it was having a hard time cooking. We did heat up some cans of beans on that same stove that night. We literally just ate baked beans out of the can that night. We also had absolutely no idea how long we may be without power. There were no real updates. Every time we checked with our power company we were told that we were in a rolling blackout and it would be back on in an hour or so…which was definitely not true. We discovered that our gas water heater was still functioning, though, and we were able to take a hot shower. Let me tell you — THAT was mental-health saving for me. A hot shower where I could feel actually warm and clean again to put on fresh layers of clothes…I NEEDED that so badly.
Out of boredom on the second day with no power, we left the house. The sun had melted most of the snow in the middle of the roads and we really wanted a hot meal. So, we took the dogs and we went to any place that was open…for some reason, that was Whataburger. Now…should the Whataburger employees have been required to work in these conditions? Absolutely not. But I was very thankful that they were at the time and we profusely thanked them for being open. It as a 2 hour wait in the line for food, but we didn’t care. We literally had nothing else we could do.
Once the power came back on we were good to go. It took a while to get the house back to a normal temperature, but it got there. We had no real understanding of it would stay on, though. So we recharged all battery blocks and cooked some hot food with every expectation that it could go back out without warning.
Things we learned — 4 layers of clothes is mostly warm enough if you’re also sitting in a pile of blankets. We slept with 11 blankets piled up on the bed to be warm enough. Our little short-haired dogs were freezing, so they also were buried in the blankets with me. More than 24 hours without a hot meal wears on me faster than I ever thought it would. Living off sandwiches and granola bars is not my vibe…so maybe I shouldn’t ever go backpacking. You can read a lot of books in 36 hours when you have no other options. Good thing I like reading. You can also bond with your neighbors and people in your community very easily when you’re all experiencing a terrible event together. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but I definitely didn’t feel lonely in this span. You have to go play in the snow even though it caused our area to shut down. Play anyway. Build the blanket fort, both for fun and for warmth. Play board games. Have a card throwing contest. Go to sleep at like 6p because you have no electricity to light the house anyway. I was very well rested in these 2 days. Go and check on your neighbors when you need a break from your house. Make the best of it.
We hope to not experience this again, but we now know that we are pretty positive people when going through an experience like this.
