Texas Situation; Food, Electricity, & The Rest

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/18/texas-food-banks-crisis-storm-freezing-supplies


Good morning all,

Sidebar: Dan, hoping family and you faring AOK.

Article per ...

Note article's "Hunger ... in Texas ... includes one in five children". With the large and bloated food stamps / SNAP program, I have a hunch, there's a bit of corruption involved.

Between the Federal Reserve and the Guardian ............ I must be nice ...... burst pipes-$400 ? Will consider "collapsed roof" just poor-quality writing. Even in panhandle Texas a collapsed roof repair is going to cost a few bucks.

cc: Mayor, Cancun, Mexico

 

So true, Lonewolf,

Our nation has been dumbed-down.

Only the population's ~ 3% being Preppers are ... to use an appropriate expression ... "weathering the storm".

 

What we have is a separation between the prepared and un-prepared . As expected , the un-prepared are in a bind and want to be rescued . The same storm brought freezing subzero temperatures to our survival retreat . Me or my wife have not left survival retreat since the storm hit and probably will not for days to come as we have no need to leave .
One of our survival members leaves in a 4 wheel drive vehicle to work . The rest of our survival group is working out of state , including one that is in Texas restoring electricity to the hollering un-prepared . Another is restoring electricity to the hollering folks somewhere near the state of New York and another is restoring electricity to the hollering folks in Nebraska . -- The last contact we had our Texas worker sleeps on the seat of his work truck when he is not in the freezing temperatures restoring power . We were kind of joking but the Texas worker told me they couldn't find any food , but he had seen a dead possum on the side of the road and him and his crew might have to retrieve it and cook it up . Preppers know how to survive . --- To prevent confusion I will add the above powerline workers work over the entire U.S. and sometimes beyond for days , week, or months to restore power in a power grid down area and then move on to another area of the U.S. . Their homes however whenever they get to see them is on our survival retreat .

 

"If a man is carried long enough, he will forget how to walk." -- ancient wisdom

Events such as the Texas area freak winter storm situation is a serious reminder of why we prep and encourage others to prep. When Puerto Rico last got hit by a hurricane, I tried to read as much as I could. Scary part of Puerto Rico's situation was that gangs would come through areas and steal people's electric generators -- and they could, the people there do not own firearms. Crime and looting went through the ceiling. I'd not want to go a'thieving in rural Texas, 'cause lead poisoning is a bad thing.

Never eaten possum. I've heard that it is greasy beyond description. Groundhog I've eaten. It's greasy and gamey, but those issues didn't stop me from eating it. And if one is hungry ... . I was. We'd been hunting at over 5,000 ft. And here's the deal, one's appetite is royally whetted by smelling campfires. Damp, chilly, up in the clouds, your stomach growls like a bear's.

Instead of moving Mr. Generator hither-thither, today I broke down, got out the billfold and dropped over $75 bucks for a 100 ft, 12 ga, extension cord. You gotta go heavy wires with plenty of insulation when moving some serious amps. Decided that our heavy new generator is going to just stay in the work-shed and we'll run a thick cable into the house. I'm now old and lazy, ain't rollin/luggin no generator if I don't have to. And I've got battery-backed-up electronic security out back -- why not just shoot a thief from the comfort of one's home. Does anyone know if looters make for decent kindling? You'd have to first let them dry-out, I guess. Dang, what a bother!

Returning to the Texas issue: Many of these "Texans" in trouble are definitely NOT true Texans. Texas is now eaten-up with urban transplants. Can't stick their finger in their @$$ with a road map and a jar of Vaseline. Some mayor down there made a bunch of people angry by telling folk that they aught to get up off their butts and look to taking care of their own selves. Such was a crass statement and quite frankly, I'd not talk to Texans like that (Texas was founded by not too few Tennesseans and insults will thus get you hurt ... bad hurt). Towns should have prepared better even as individuals should have prepared better. In today's world, NOBODY is thinking ahead. Actually, nobody is thinking, period.

My life has been a string of stepping stones, one tragedy to the next. Therefore, we just expect evil hellish events; often, we get worse than anything we could have imagined. Life is solid hell. The minute you grin, you get slammed in the face. I prep as best and as intelligently as I can. To do otherwise is to stick your head into the limb-grinder. Got food stored in the pantry, the den, my office, and beside our bed. Got my water purifiers. Smart folk in Texas are melting & boiling snow.
.

 

Between covid and the elections I'm guessing that government was already stretched.
There are plenty of strong self reliant types who have prepped but the thing is that there is always that "curve ball" that you didn't prep for. Texas is supposed to be a hot climate, this extreme prolonged cold has been a real unexpected kick in the balls for some. Their housing stock and utilities simply weren't built for this.
I'm not going to try and make any smart assed comments because too many people are hurting.

 

I'm sure you'd be just fine in their situation LW but for those who have gone from living in semi arid conditions to getting enough snow to crush their roof it probably came as a bit of a surprise.

 

The only reason anyone is hungry is because they spent their money and food stamps on drugs or they are too dumb to keep any food in their house. There is no food shortage. I went to the store yesterday and there were only a few things in short supply. The fresh produce was pretty well thin. There have been no delivery truck and IF they tried to ship fresh produce it would arrive frozen and useless. Nobody heats truck trailers here!

The big problem of people being hungry is stupidity. I keep at LEAST 6 months of food in my house and then have two freezers that I am not counting. If you don't have more than a couple days worth of food in your house you deserve to be hungry. The roads are a mess and I can see where the idiots that go to the store every day for food for that day might be hungry for a few days. Sorry, not a bit of sympathy for them. We knew this was coming.

Texas is a really big place with a lot of different environments. The part of Teas most affected by this is the Texas upper Gulf Coast. This part is oil country with tons of refieries and in the past thousands of oil wells. I was raised there and there is no day of the year that it might not be 85F/30C and that I have gone swimming on. I’ve hit the water on New Years day more than once wade fishing.

We don’t have any experience with things like we have had for the last week. I am nearly 70 and NEVER seen snow like this that didn’t melt the next day. People don’t have a clue about driving on ice and don’t have enough sense to stay home. Lots of people don’t even own the sort of clothes to deal with this sort of long term cold. To give you an idea go outside when it is in the upper thirties in jeans, a tshirt and a light hoodie and stay there for a few hours. People are having that sort of thing IN THEIR HOMES for days on end. The stupid bring a BBQ pit into their house and start a charcoal fire. The carbon-monoxide kills them unless they open their windows and then are just as cold.

Me and mine have done fine. I will not say that it has been fun but I have lots of food and lots of ways to cook it and several propane heaters. We camped in the master bedroom and read. My kids played in the yard with my Granddaughter and then went back into the livingroom with the fire place. My three acres no longer has a single stick laying on the ground. I told them to buy a cord or two of wood back in December. They will learn.

By the end of today it will be totally ove with no sign of snow left on the ground. It will be a long time though before anyone forgets it. Who knows maybe a few of them will even wise up and realize that the future is always uncertain. It doesn’t take much to have a couple weeks worth of food and some water. We have a 1600 gallon cistern that fills off the runoff of the house. It will flush the toilets without treatment. I had three big cases of Aqua-Fina bottled water on hand for coffee and drinking.

If it had really gotten cold I have a camo blizzard suit that I wore to hunt and on my motorcycle in the winter back in the old days. All of this isn’t really prepping. I got this from my Dad long before prepping was ever heard of. He was a big believer in keeping a well stocked pantry and at least 20 gallons of water on hand during hurricane season. Only idiots wait until the storm is coming in to try and stock up.

Texas compared to Great Brittian. I live north of Houston and to the east a bit.

 

During the aftermath of the last hurricane in TexaDanm's living area a nice lady with a nice home on a lake moved out to a second home she owned and let an entire powerline crew working the area stay in her home free of charge . In charge of the crew was one of my survival group members . There are some very nice people in the area just don't screw up and act an a-- .

 

Good morning all,

My comments I'm now placing here do not apply to someone in Texas who just got injured on the job and was home when this Algore global warming hit the fan.

Whether a "black swan" event or not, there are common denominators. Did these people in the houses without utilities...electricity, water, accessable public roads, have a first aid kit in the dwelling ? A fire extinguisher ? A couple of jugs of water (year round) ?

I am not posing the question whether these people had a cartridge space heater or a tarp in case of roof damage.

These people are just socialists even if not called this. They are the "In case of emergency call 9-1-1".

In the Houston area, about 3 years ago, they had ~ 1 meter of rain. About 3 MONTHS ago does anyone think these folks now have rubber boots ?

These people are being subsizied to the hilt - and this was one of the causes to our reduced standard of living.

It's not just Texas.

 

This situation is not unknown in Texas history. For that matter not unknown across America. From time to time America gets what used to be called an "Alberta Clipper" coming down from up in Canada via the Jet Streams.

The olde folks know....about this and many are prepared. These olde folks tend not to get excited over this nor loose their bladders at the first difficulty.

I can remember my mother having the olde Feather Pillows as big as a double bed....to keep warm. Dad had kerosene heaters.

I keep Kerosene Heaters here...but need to get another Feather Bed big Pillow...they do keep you warm.

As I am oft want to say...people who have mostly a television and or movie education in instant gratification know little history...particularly weather history..

I learned about these kinds of high maintenance people after Hurricane Isabelle....and will not be taking in any of them the next time.

But how about those Kardashians....ESPN....Soccer....et al.

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

Rubber boots are worse than nothing when you are wading in knee deep water. Houston is FLAT. If it gets a meter of water it is atleast 3 feet deep. As the many creeks and bayous rise from water north of town it gets worse. I've been there and that place is a flooding monster.

 

Good morning TexDanm,

Don't go in knee-deep water if can be avoided.

Don't go in any level of this type of flood water without rubber boots / Welingtons. The infected water will do just that and the medical facilities are just as limited as ambulances. For the elderly, those with pre-existing diseases and children still without developed immune systems, can be lost.

...

Today's Sunday newspapers are loaded with the "blame-game" stories called analysis.

 

I've only been to Houston two or three times; business trips all. One time that I was there, Houston got itself one very serious storm. This is in the latter 1980s I'm talking about. Worst of the storm hit after business hours. I'd gotten back to the hotel without any difficulties whatsoever; I was staying at a super nice place and was in total end-of-day relaxation mode. The hotel was just off the 610 loop, northwestern part, easy to go further north to access the airport ... were it not for the hell-traffic (man, do I have a couple of traffic stories about that place; once got in around midnight and there was ZERO traffic, really odd being on an essentially empty 610, felt like I was driving on a airport runway).

I'm forgetful, but numbers I do not forget. I was on the 14th floor facing downtown Houston -- total bird's eye view. Nasty BIG storm hits. Wind and rain and lightning and rain and rain and rain. Get out your scuba gear rain. During worst of storm, of course I couldn't see anything. Storm let up and I could see everything. I couldn't count the number of emergency vehicle lights I saw flashing. Flooding writ large and hell to pay for its arrival! Nearer my hotel as I looked down, the magnitude of the waters was manifest. Flat and flooded, parking lots, greens, roads, ... water with nowhere to go. Highway crashes and the flashing lights attending were everywhere; in front of me spreading out to the periphery of my vision right and left. Imagine a city vista with so many red lights it looks like the place has some Twilight Zone form of measles. Bizarre, burned into the brain; an instant recall.
.

 

People that live in Houston know that there are parts of it that will get 14 feet of water in the underpasses. I have seen pictures of people sitting on top of 18 wheeler trailers waiting for rescue more times than I can count. The high point to the low point in normal levels in Houston is 4'. If you dig a hole for an overpass it becomes a swimming pool when it rains. THAT is what happens when you stupidly hire a construction company out of ST. Louis to do work in an area whose geology they don't understand. Sad to say but that sort of stupidity is still happening. They built a prison in Beaumont which is just like Houston.

Like idiots they just poured the slab for it on the surface. By the time they tried to open it only half of the doors to the cells would open or close. Finally they hired a local to fix the problem. You drill a hole down until you hit clay, there is no rock, and then bell it out on the bottom. Basically all large buildings there are actually sitting on invisible piers. They had to tear down walls and drill footings all over the place in order to stablize the slab. It cost a FORTUNE!!! As with all politicians they still have not learned and just keep making the same mistakes over and over.

The problem is that politicians are mostly lying idiots (Who else would run for public office?) and that won’t ever change I guess. The idiots then put their idiot friends and family in positions of power and guess what??? The Idiots make bad decisions and NEVER learn. That is just the way of Democracy I guess.

 

https://www.bing.com/images/search?...loods&form=IQFRML&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover

 

Good morning TaxDanm,

Real good pictures.

It's similiar here.

Both the Texas and mid-Atlantic tidal flood plains are already undergoing some changes. In the news is Texas could soon be losing its subsidized wind insurance program and nation-wide, FEMA is leaving the flood insurance racket. Construction and the mortgage financing will not be around for creating these petri dish infectious pools of disease. Just 1 unburied dead horse sends the mosquitoes 10 miles out.

Norfolk, a key (THE key ?) city for the national defense - submarines - is having it's critical roads elevated and other critical areas flood-proofed. It's all Fed $$$.

I can envision the Texas Gulf Coast(Houston and corridor east and a little south) losing it's big city spraul status and reverting to state of the art industry staffed only by the labor force. Nursing homes, Ward 3, related, might just be going away.

 

Houston was never meant to be a megalopolis. It would have been fine as a large port city but that isn't what happened. It is the fourth largest city in the US. It is low, flat and barely above sea level. To much of the stuff in houston has been built by companies from all over the US. They give no thought to the actual facts that people that live there have to deal with. FOR example, what sort of idiot would place the emergency generator for a major hospital in the basement when that would put it a dozen feet below sea level? They did it though and the next storm took the power out and they had to evacuate the hospital during a storm with some loss of lives that were dependent on the machinery. They saved a few hundred thousand dollars at the cost of lives and MILLONS in law suits.

They just keep building. they fill in swamps and then put people in those holes. The next time Houston catches a big storm headon the loss in lives and property is going to be staggering. It seems to be human nature to pick the very worst places to build their big cities. In some places it is building at or below sealevel on the coast and then in other places it is building right dead atop an active fault zone that WILL eventually shake loose and kill a bunch of people. Some think it is fun to live under the saddow of an active volcano. ??? The stupidity of people in making their decission about where to live is beyond understanding.

 

Good afternoon TexDanm,

So true.

Now much of this current situation is "just" about the history of the ship channel and displacing Galveston.

President Wilson needed oil for the Great War soon starting in Europe and the ideal situation was believed to be to build, build, build. They did.

As far as the idiots and emergency generator location, this is all over the nation. It's about America's education system, it's job-hiring programs, regulatory oversight by municipal, state and Fed inspectors, insurance companies, banks or who ever financed the building and generator(s).

It's difficult to admit but our nation throughout the fruited plain is in decay.

I do have a hunch that the Texas wind insurance program will go away along with the FEMA subsidized flood insurance. This could allow for fixing up the nonsense. Who doesn't know that Houston is in the hurricane zone ?

 

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2021/02/22/602212.htm

Speaking of FEMA's flood insurance .................

An under estimate of 67% is a political statement.

 

It doesn't even take a hurricane to flood Houston. Don't get me wrong, Houston is like built on a hilltop compared to New Orleans. Our wonderful government has helped people in New Orleans rebuild homes 12 feet below sea-level right on the coast. They should have bought those people out and let the casinos build there. At least Houston is above sea-level almost totally...2 to 4 feet anyway. It also has Galveston as a barrier island.

On a happy note the sun came out today and all of the snow has melted and is GONE. It is actually real nice and I hope that is the end of winter for us. We are well and truly tired of it.