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 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 rayphoton wrote:

The truth if this is very real. In the past when we had freezes, it would be 70 the next day. Why salt the roads...its just gonna be all melted in 12 hours.

I have a fireplace in my house that i have never wanted to light until this week cause its never been worth the hassle and ive lived in this house for almost 10 years.

so yes we could all be better prepared..but until Sunday..we've never had any evidence we have needed to

-Ray

Interestingly enough, we did have a big freeze in Dallas/Fort Worth 10 years ago, just before the Super Bowl was held here. That freeze also shut down the area for most of a week, as the snow and ice didn't completely clear up until the sixth day. However, that freeze didn't impact the whole state like the current one did, and the temperatures then weren't as cold as now.

Yep. It killed a lot of power infrastructure across the state then as well, and a pretty extensive list of winterization measures that needed to be taken was produced (mostly in line with federal regulations that Texas doesn't follow). Texas decided to publish them as recommendations, and ERCOT predictably did none of those things.

 Easy E wrote:
I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!

I hope that our Federal and fellow State governments act quickly to lend a hand, as well as the appropriate charitable organizations.

That said, America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership. Why do today, what you can put off until tomorrow?

Our system heavily relies on the qualities of the people that we elect -- that they actually put the well-being of ALL of their constituents first. In a system where officials may have short terms of office, they can easily get caught in the trap of ignoring deeper issues for easy political actions that boost their chances of re-election. When things get as polarized as they are now in the country, officials may also take actions simply to screw the other party. Neither of these things I described are governing. It's a flaw in our system, and it's an even more of an issue when our chief rival for decades to come is a one-party regime with a plan.

In fact, they're mocking us.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2AJ17N

The grid is back up in Texas.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-weather-idINKBN2AI151

About 325k homes still without power. ERCOT says most of these outages will be resolved before the end of the day, majority of the issues are with blown transformers.

Lots of voices in this thread making accusations about Texans. Attacking people when they're cold and hungry is easy when you're comfy sitting behind a keyboard hundreds of miles away.

There's times I wish certain members of Dakka cared more about the welfare of others.

 Easy E wrote:

NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!

Because they were told it would.

To me, that is not the citizens fault.

That is the part where I say....

America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership.

It is a failure of our elected officials and non-elected officials, not of general citizens.

Two things: First, those officials were elected by the citizens, or put in their position by those who were. Second, the citizens could still do preperation on their own. Adding insulation to their homes, having emergency supplies, extra cold-weather clothing, even getting a backup generator or solar panels.

There are a lot of people out there who are suffering even after they made their best effort to prepare for whatever circumstance has now befallen them. They deserve my sympathy a lot more than people who were warned and did nothing. I don't have an endless well of compassion.

Dog made Texas to train the Faithful!

We huddled on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Rod the old wiener dog was under six blankets for a week straight. I was literally picking up his bed and moving him from room to room. The Poodle Princess was so light she was able to walk on top of the snow like a little elf dog.

Its all melting away now.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!

Because they were told it would.

To me, that is not the citizens fault.

That is the part where I say....

America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership.

It is a failure of our elected officials and non-elected officials, not of general citizens.

Two things: First, those officials were elected by the citizens, or put in their position by those who were. Second, the citizens could still do preperation on their own. Adding insulation to their homes, having emergency supplies, extra cold-weather clothing, even getting a backup generator or solar panels.

There are a lot of people out there who are suffering even after they made their best effort to prepare for whatever circumstance has now befallen them. They deserve my sympathy a lot more than people who were warned and did nothing. I don't have an endless well of compassion.

People who are barely getting by, barely making it paycheck to paycheck, are hardly likely to be able to afford such preparations, and i'm afraid america's 'new economy' has put vast numbers of people in that situation.

 Frazzled wrote:
Dog made Texas to train the Faithful!

We huddled on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Rod the old wiener dog was under six blankets for a week straight. I was literally picking up his bed and moving him from room to room. The Poodle Princess was so light she was able to walk on top of the snow like a little elf dog.

Its all melting away now.

I’m glad the Doggo was kept toasty warm.

Good Frazzled, nice Frazzled. Give paw, and you shall have a whisky!

 Matt Swain wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!

Because they were told it would.

To me, that is not the citizens fault.

That is the part where I say....

America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership.

It is a failure of our elected officials and non-elected officials, not of general citizens.

Two things: First, those officials were elected by the citizens, or put in their position by those who were. Second, the citizens could still do preperation on their own. Adding insulation to their homes, having emergency supplies, extra cold-weather clothing, even getting a backup generator or solar panels.
gm
There are a lot of people out there who are suffering even after they made their best effort to prepare for whatever circumstance has now befallen them. They deserve my sympathy a lot more than people who were warned and did nothing. I don't have an endless well of compassion.

People who are barely getting by, barely making it paycheck to paycheck, are hardly likely to be able to afford such preparations, and i'm afraid america's 'new economy' has put vast numbers of people in that situation.

So after being stationed for 9 years at nothing but bases in warm locations I was given orders to someplace that was definitley going to have a winter. So trying to plan ahead I decided to get a uniform jacket ahead of time. Went to clothing sales at the large base I was stationed at, no such luck. Went to clothing sales at the even larger army base a couple hours away still no luck. So how much cold weather gear do you think is actually available in most parts of Texas ?

In Florida where I am now most people know how they need to prepare for a hurricane, but in Southern California where I'm from if you said "Hurricane will be here in 5 days get ready' It would be massive chaos because its so far outside their paradigm but I bet they're a lot more ready for an earthquake than most people.

To many people in this thread oversimplify everything beyond reality. How about just follow the intentions of the OP and stop trying to score points.

Ouch. Seems there's now another disaster happening in texas. "bit" high electricity bills. If you had fixed fees no problem. If variable you could be in trouble. Read news article about bills almost 17000 dollars O_o. That's gotta hurt.

Water pipes still broken for many. Incidentally that's something that happens here time to time despite snow and sub-zero tems being almost yearly thing.

It's not about scoring points (with who, anyways?) it's about pointing out cause and effect.

>Bad thing is predicted
>People do nothing to prepare
>People are unprepared when bad thing happens

That's how reality works, get used to it because this is the tip of the iceberg.

tneva82 wrote:
Ouch. Seems there's now another disaster happening in texas. "bit" high electricity bills. If you had fixed fees no problem. If variable you could be in trouble. Read news article about bills almost 17000 dollars O_o. That's gotta hurt.

Water pipes still broken for many. Incidentally that's something that happens here time to time despite snow and sub-zero tems being almost yearly thing.

Water is back on in Austin, with boil water notices, likely ending today. This doesn't help everyone with broken pipes (or if you are in an apartment block, where is the whole thing gets shut down), but its a start.

Family friends had pipes break in Katy. Lost their bedrooms as the ceilings came in from the water.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's not about scoring points (with who, anyways?) it's about pointing out cause and effect.

>Bad thing is predicted
>People do nothing to prepare
>People are unprepared when bad thing happens

That's how reality works, get used to it because this is the tip of the iceberg.

Again, I can't fault most ordinary workers and people who are just trying to get by. As some one who lives in the high desert, does it make sense for me to be prepared for a tidal wave? No.

It is leaderships job to prepare for emergencies, and "lead" the people into what they need to do for prepare. For example, Chicago can handle big winter storms fairly quickly and easily with only a few days prep/issues. However, when a massive heat wave hits.... they are less prepared for that, but still manage a response that involves cooling centers, medical services, and electrical power grid issues. That is normal.

However, I DO expect my political leaders to stage general emergency supplies, have a general evacuation plan, and also have a weather monitoring team ready to let me know IF somethings was going to happen so the Government could then have a "disaster recovery" team mobilize resources quickly. That does not seem like any of that happened in Texas, and I feel bad for the citizens due to that.

However, I will cease feeling bad if no one pays a political price for their negligence.

As someone from Texas, thanks for everyone's concerns. My household in Dallas flipped between 1-3 hrs of power and 5-8 hrs of no power. Pool equipment is definitely damaged..just need to wait and see how damaged it is.

The major issue for this is not actually our independent power grid. When it works, normally its actually extremely reliable and robust. The issue is the people that were in charge of it. They knew WELL AHEAD of schedule that the temps would drop dangerously low. Yet they decided that rather than winterize the generators and other equipment properly, an estimated small power outages were an acceptable loss. Because of them, millions of people suffered and untold damages caused. They had one job: provide electricity to the millions of Texas residents. And when people needed that electricity the most, they made the worst decision that they possibly could.

I cannot even count the number of people that have burst water pipes inside their house. Water shortages were a thing for many places too because they went out of power so their facilities froze over....meaning that many households simply ended up having little to no useable water. In some places around Dallas, neighborhoods have to boil their own water to make it drinkable because the facilities are either still thawing or damaged and needing repair. Things were bound to happen, but all the damages can almost be completely traced back to power outages.

I do hope you all take your frustrations to the failed leadership, and hold them accountable. Getting more competent management would be a way to salvage something from all this.

And before someone comes in with the usual 'they will get away with it'; maybe, but I wouldn't underestimate Texans.

Yeah, those Texas people brought this on themselves, with their politicians and their conservative politics. They shamefully brought human suffering on themselves by being on their own power grid that they can't maintain. It's good so many people are vocal about their incompetence and corruption and how its lead to so many people dying. That's the only way they will be held accountable.

Saw this letter on Department of Energy's website and it really confused me. Did not sound like what I was hearing on the news.

Could you guys tell me what it means?

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2021/02/f82/DOE%20202%28c%29%20Emergency%20Order%20-%20ERCOT%2002.14.2021.pdf

This part was really hard to understand:

"To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes. Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources. ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."

"Sorry, yer screwed?"

Seems like official-speak around limited resources. But you're right that the paragraph is ridiculous.

Sounds like permission to exceed emissions caps for the duration, as long as they minimize said excession and log everything for accountability.

Well this is gonna get a lock

To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes.

Dispatched units (work teams?) aren't going to be sent out unless they meet ERCOT's 'reliability standards' (whatever those are), and we're disguising this under a concern for 'environmental impacts.' The referenced to 'the times' probably sets limits on their working hours. (easily excused here because working at night or in poor weather might require generators that would cause additional environmental impacts.

Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources.

Basically we'll use whatever means necessary, so long as the end result looks reliable and low-emissions on paper. But the wording (prior to dispatching) allows for any delays they see fit and (exhaust all) suggests they can cost whatever the market will bear as long as the excuse is 'low-emissions' and 'reliable.' Given what's happening with ridiculous bills, I assume this is what's being used to 'justify' hitting consumers with ridiculous bills.

ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."

This one is relatively easy: the Department (texas state department of energy, I assume) will get daily reports on generating units (ERCOT's various energy facilities) if and only if they're using the 'allowances' (resources) this Order covers. Otherwise the state government can back the feth off.


To me this sounds like a company trying to justify poor service and delays in restoring service by blaming environmental laws. The fact that its written pretty much exclusively in weasel words certainly doesn't lower my suspicions.

I am with Frazzled just outside of Austin - the absolute worst part was no TV or internet and I slipped on the ice going out to repair a leaking valve and cracked my wrist. But, all good and while not getting into politics or blame, it was a total cluster f@#k...

I think the DFW area gets a bit colder, so may have been slightly better prepared, but I have been in the Austin area for over 20 years and this one was a real shocker. We did get weather reports saying it was coming for almost a week or more.

 NotSkilledHere wrote:

The major issue for this is not actually our independent power grid. When it works, normally its actually extremely reliable and robust. The issue is the people that were in charge of it. They knew WELL AHEAD of schedule that the temps would drop dangerously low. Yet they decided that rather than winterize the generators and other equipment properly, an estimated small power outages were an acceptable loss. Because of them, millions of people suffered and untold damages caused. They had one job: provide electricity to the millions of Texas residents. And when people needed that electricity the most, they made the worst decision that they possibly could.

I mean, you say the issue wasn't the independent grid, but if your grid were integrated with the other US grids then power could have been siphoned from them to supplement your own when the plants began failing.

It wouldn't have completely prevented the problems but it certainly would have lessened them. Yes, the people in charge ignoring the warnings are at fault, but the decision to keep the grid separate is what allowed their negligence to be so catastrophic.

To use a nautical analogy. Your independent grid is a cruise liner without a radio, it cannot get help from other ships in the area or communicate with sea rescue in a timely fashion if something goes wrong. The captain of your ship sailed it straight into a rock and it began to sink and it was found there wasn't enough lifeboats for the people on board. Having the radio wouldn't have prevented the captain from hitting the rocks, or made more lifeboats be on the ship, but it would have meant that other ships in the area would have got your SOS and been able to come and rescue people with their own lifeboats.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Yeah, those Texas people brought this on themselves, with their politicians and their conservative politics. They shamefully brought human suffering on themselves by being on their own power grid that they can't maintain. It's good so many people are vocal about their incompetence and corruption and how its lead to so many people dying. That's the only way they will be held accountable.

Woa there dude, I'm one of the more cynical ones here and I still think this is way too far. Not being prepared for something bad does not at all equate to being responsible for that bad thing happening. They didn't just go out and conjure up a nasty storm to hit themselves with, that's ridiculous.

On a different note, I haven't seen numbers on how many people have died, it would be great if you could share your source.

 Easy E wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's not about scoring points (with who, anyways?) it's about pointing out cause and effect.

>Bad thing is predicted
>People do nothing to prepare
>People are unprepared when bad thing happens

That's how reality works, get used to it because this is the tip of the iceberg.

Again, I can't fault most ordinary workers and people who are just trying to get by. As some one who lives in the high desert, does it make sense for me to be prepared for a tidal wave? No.

It is leaderships job to prepare for emergencies, and "lead" the people into what they need to do for prepare. For example, Chicago can handle big winter storms fairly quickly and easily with only a few days prep/issues. However, when a massive heat wave hits.... they are less prepared for that, but still manage a response that involves cooling centers, medical services, and electrical power grid issues. That is normal.

However, I DO expect my political leaders to stage general emergency supplies, have a general evacuation plan, and also have a weather monitoring team ready to let me know IF somethings was going to happen so the Government could then have a "disaster recovery" team mobilize resources quickly. That does not seem like any of that happened in Texas, and I feel bad for the citizens due to that.

However, I will cease feeling bad if no one pays a political price for their negligence.

You're so close (and don't take that in an insulting way).

They had warming centers they had snow plows and deicing trucks spread through out the state. To say nothing was done doesn't match reality. The two main things that seem to have gone wrong were power and water (which goes back to power), something you don't prepare in a week. I really hope they take a look ay their power system after this, heck I'm not so sure if they had been generating enough it would have got most places anyways, a large amount of the time power problems are as likely to be transmission as anything else. (That's why centralized solar is so dang stupid but that's another topic)

gotta also keep in mind regardless of what kind of vehicles that were available.....people couldn't get gas for them either because the gas stations didn't have power, meaning the pumps didn't work and payment couldn't be processed. so there's that too.

also regarding the grid, the Texas grid does have two connections to the eastern grid, but the strain that it put on those connections are actually capped out and it was impossible to siphon in more without likely having caused collateral damage elsewhere. i don't care whether we interconnect with other grids or not. It's not something i will debate or have enough knowledge on because we all know legally there will be so many holes and complications that I simply dont wanna delve into it lol. I can say that Texas generates nearly twice the energy that the next level down which is florida. IIRC, texas generates about 11-12% of all power in the US. Florida generates about 6-7%. Now what happens when you collapse like nearly 50% of our power generation? that means we would need to import power that probably encompasses more than some states could generate anyway. could enough energy have been drawn in? probably, but again i dont have the knowledge on how readily available electricity is to be transferred between grids or how much would be available to meet our crazy power needs. However, regardless of whether that would have worked or caused neighboring states to also have some issues, that does not reduce in any way the responsibility of those in charge of the powerplants to winterize or otherwise prepare the powerplants for extreme weather. just because we can draw power from other states, does not mean our generators do not need to be prepared.

The thing about Texas is....we have a lot of trust. You could call it blind trust, but we, in general, do think highly of each other in Texas and are willing to trust in each others honesty. Clearly, ERCOT could not be trusted to do their part.

again i am not an expert, im just pointing things out from what i know and have seen. but we had a deficit of equivalent to 4-6% of total power generation in the USA. Even crossing grids may have proved challenging for nearby states as they may have had to strain from the rest of their grid.

Voss wrote:

To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes.

Dispatched units (work teams?) aren't going to be sent out unless they meet ERCOT's 'reliability standards' (whatever those are), and we're disguising this under a concern for 'environmental impacts.' The referenced to 'the times' probably sets limits on their working hours. (easily excused here because working at night or in poor weather might require generators that would cause additional environmental impacts.

Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources.

Basically we'll use whatever means necessary, so long as the end result looks reliable and low-emissions on paper. But the wording (prior to dispatching) allows for any delays they see fit and (exhaust all) suggests they can cost whatever the market will bear as long as the excuse is 'low-emissions' and 'reliable.' Given what's happening with ridiculous bills, I assume this is what's being used to 'justify' hitting consumers with ridiculous bills.

ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."

This one is relatively easy: the Department (texas state department of energy, I assume) will get daily reports on generating units (ERCOT's various energy facilities) if and only if they're using the 'allowances' (resources) this Order covers. Otherwise the state government can back the feth off.


To me this sounds like a company trying to justify poor service and delays in restoring service by blaming environmental laws. The fact that its written pretty much exclusively in weasel words certainly doesn't lower my suspicions.

That's not what it says though. This is the Federal Department of Energy authorizing ERCOT to exceed federal emissions standards to meet reliability requirements, which means consistent uptime for customers. As long as they're doing so, they need to make reports to the feds on how they're doing so (the last paragraph) on how they're doing so. The second paragraph says that even though they're allowed to exceed those emissions standards, they need to do their damnedest to make sure they don't violate them by exhausting all reasonable measures beforehand (which also have to be reported in the daily updates).

 NinthMusketeer wrote:


On a different note, I haven't seen numbers on how many people have died, it would be great if you could share your source.

This has the highest number of Texas deaths I could find: 32 confirmed


https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/18/winter-storm-deaths/


That number sure to rise as everyone gets checked on/found.

 Scrabb wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:


On a different note, I haven't seen numbers on how many people have died, it would be great if you could share your source.

This has the highest number of Texas deaths I could find: 32 confirmed


https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/18/winter-storm-deaths/


That number sure to rise as everyone gets checked on/found.

Assuming the number is legit (not a political comment, we just never know these days) I'd guess the 75-150 range for deaths in Texas. The connection of the storm to the deaths in a few of those cases is a bit indirect, but most of them are more or less a direct result.

Jerram wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's not about scoring points (with who, anyways?) it's about pointing out cause and effect.

>Bad thing is predicted
>People do nothing to prepare
>People are unprepared when bad thing happens

That's how reality works, get used to it because this is the tip of the iceberg.

Again, I can't fault most ordinary workers and people who are just trying to get by. As some one who lives in the high desert, does it make sense for me to be prepared for a tidal wave? No.

It is leaderships job to prepare for emergencies, and "lead" the people into what they need to do for prepare. For example, Chicago can handle big winter storms fairly quickly and easily with only a few days prep/issues. However, when a massive heat wave hits.... they are less prepared for that, but still manage a response that involves cooling centers, medical services, and electrical power grid issues. That is normal.

However, I DO expect my political leaders to stage general emergency supplies, have a general evacuation plan, and also have a weather monitoring team ready to let me know IF somethings was going to happen so the Government could then have a "disaster recovery" team mobilize resources quickly. That does not seem like any of that happened in Texas, and I feel bad for the citizens due to that.

However, I will cease feeling bad if no one pays a political price for their negligence.

You're so close (and don't take that in an insulting way).

They had warming centers they had snow plows and deicing trucks spread through out the state. To say nothing was done doesn't match reality. The two main things that seem to have gone wrong were power and water (which goes back to power), something you don't prepare in a week. I really hope they take a look ay their power system after this, heck I'm not so sure if they had been generating enough it would have got most places anyways, a large amount of the time power problems are as likely to be transmission as anything else. (That's why centralized solar is so dang stupid but that's another topic)

The the more I learn I realize that the State Government gave utility companies the guidelines for winterizing their equipment and the option to winterize, but most opted NOT to winterize.

So basically, the political and economic leadership "half-assed" it. Politically because winterizing was an "option" and not mandatory when the guidelines were met, and Economic/Energy leadership "half-assed" it by taking the option that the State offered them instead to not winterize even if the guidelines to winterize were met.

Yet, I am pretty sure no one but the lowest level workers and decision makers will face any penalties for these "half-assed" measures. I do not blame the citizenry of Texas for their Political and Economic leadership being faulty. However, it is up to them to make sure the right people get held accountable for the half-assed measures they took.

Is Texas not a democratic state? I mean this in the general sense. Do the citizens of Texas not elect their leaders?
If in a democracy we are poorly lead, we bear some responsibility for that. Of course, you can say that the system is not very democratic really and so on, but ultimately changing the system is also in the hands of the people so this only slightly dilutes the responsibility.

I think both sides of the equation have blame to bear. The citizens elected incompetent officials, but that does not absolve the officials for being incompetent.