The Snow Diaries: Living Through the Texas Snowmageddon
By Anne Trominski:
Flapper Press contributor Anne Trominski gives a personal perspective on last month's Texas snowstorm that left millions without power, heat, and water for days.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13: The cold front has begun to make its entrance. Friends in various parts of Texas start posting their sightings of sleet and snow flurries with little-kid excitement.
You see, in Texas, snow is such a rare occurrence it is always a source of fun and excitement.
For most of the day at our house it’s windy and cloudy and unpleasant but no snow.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14: It’s chilly in the house, and I’m moody most of the day. Valentine’s is generally one of my favorite days because my non-foodie husband, Derek, is obligated to take his foodie wife to an overpriced trendy restaurant. I know it’s not going to happen this year because of COVID. We’ve already made plans to keep our standing Sunday-night dinner with his parents, but we are going to acknowledge the holiday with takeout. My moodiness is just a symptom of ongoing isolation tiredness. I try to get over myself and be grateful for what I do have (which includes a lot of V-Day gifts and love from Derek). While we’re exchanging Valentine gifts, Derek’s dad calls us to ask if the restaurant we were planning on ordering delivery from is still open. He asks if we know what to do in the cold. Yep. We wrap the pipes and drip the faucets.
You see, in Texas, whenever freezing temperatures are forecast, we “wrap the pipes” so that we can keep them cozy warm so they don’t burst on us in the cold. To do this, some people impulse-buy foam pyramid covers for their outdoor faucets. Some people say that’s a rip-off and use duct tape and old towels. Some people challenge whether this practice is even necessary since no one in the North seems to wrap pipes. That’s when you start hearing about pipes being buried deeper in the North or the extreme changes in temperature that crack pipes only happening in the South. I don’t know if any of this is true. We have pyramid foam covers on our outdoor faucets.
I call my mom in El Paso. She says it’s snowing. She sends me a video showing a beautiful cascade of fat, fluffy snow. I ooh and aww appropriately. As I’m talking to her, I hear a noise outside our house. It sounds mechanical and clunky. I ask Derek about it, and he goes to check it out. He comes back in and says it’s our AC/heater unit. It’s icing over.
“That’s not good,” my mother says. (It’s common for me to carry on conversations with Derek in person and my mom on the phone simultaneously.)
We have a close friend who is an HVAC expert. Derek starts texting him pictures. In the meanwhile, he starts looking for supplies to scrape ice off the side of the unit. Derek finds an old dish-scrubbing brush and heads back outside. He comes back in and puts on real shoes (a.k.a., not flip-flops) and a jacket and a hat and heads back out again. Our HVAC friend calls Derek back. Derek walks in and out of the room answering his questions. I assure my mom that it’s going to be fine. She assures me it’s going to be fine. We hang up.
This weekend is going to suck if our heater goes out! I think to myself.
Derek comes in and turns off the heater to “let it rest for a while.” In the meanwhile, we’ll “keep an eye on it.” If the unit frosts up again, Derek will scrape it down again. We may need to turn it off periodically to let it rest. But it should be fine. We’ll just listen for that noise again. We drink hot tea.
Derek posts the situation online and someone suggested we use “emergency heat.” We discover we have an “emergency heat” setting on our thermostat. Derek tries that for a while. He’s not convinced it does anything. We both worry about how it will show up on the electricity bill. Apparently, “emergency heat” is more expensive than typical heat.
Meanwhile, Derek’s dad calls. By that time, we’ve discovered that GrubHub isn’t delivering. We all agree to cancel Sunday dinner. I allow myself a moment of quiet snit while I consider having to cook dinner on Valentine’s Day while my heater threatens to die. My inner diva makes use of her fainting couch. Then I get over myself and figure out what I can go cook.
That night we have an excellent vegan jambalaya and watch the Spurs game.
I read lots of posts online with lots of cold weather advice. I decide to follow all of it. Before we go to bed, I open the doors to the cabinets under all the sinks. We close all the doors in the house. We set all the faucets to drip. Derek brings our space heater into the bedroom so we can plug it in if the big unit goes out.
It’s almost midnight, and Derek goes to check to see if it’s snowing. “Yep, it’s snowing!” he says with little-kid excitement. I hover in the doorway as he takes pictures of the white blanket lying over our neighborhood. The wind has blown snow over the walkway to our front door. Derek makes footprints as he walks back.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 3:00 AM-ish: The power goes out.
I know because there’s now a beep coming from somewhere in the living room. It beeps about every five minutes or so.
As quietly as I can, I feel for my small flashlight on my bedside table to go investigate. It’s noticeably colder outside our bedroom, so I guess that door thing works. I think the beep is coming from the big surge protector that our TV and accompanying devices are plugged in to, but I’m not sure why that would beep or how to turn it off.
I decide to try and live with it and go back to bed where I lay listening to the beep. The power comes back on. I can tell because the heater kicks in. Also, our white noise machine, set to river sounds, clicks on. I decide to go to the bathroom.
The power goes out. The beep returns. I get up again—making as much noise as I want—and go in search of the beep and how to stop it. I come back to bed. The power comes on. The river returns. I roll over and try to get some sleep. The power goes out. The beep returns. This cycle goes on for most of the night.
At 7:00 A.M., my alarm clock on batteries faithfully goes off according to schedule. My internal clock is pissed after the night’s shenanigans and promptly hits snooze 52 times. At some point, I drag myself out of bed and blearily start trudging through my morning routine. I make sure I can’t hear clunking sounds from the heater. So far, so good. I decide not to open the blinds to conserve heat in our house even though they are mini-blinds so I know, rationally, this is a minimal gesture.
I check the weather. It’s not 9 degrees—it’s 10! I post my shock and obligatory snow photos on Facebook. Friends who live in Northern states and in parts of the world where snow is common reply with their photos of thermostats with negative temperatures. They do not seem impressed nor sympathetic. The Texans give me cry and shock emojis.
I realize how late it’s getting and go to wake up Derek whose alarm clock does not run on batteries. As he gets out of bed, he says something like, “Oh, did the power go out?” I think rude thoughts about his parentage.
I log into work and am grateful for a quiet Monday. I check Facebook, and there are lots of kids playing in snow and quite a few comments on power outages. This is the first time I see an article about rolling blackouts. Really? I think.
You see, in Texas, “rolling blackouts” is this thing that gets threatened by newscasters every summer when everyone cranks up their AC due to the 100-degree weather. But rolling blackouts rarely happen. If the power grid can handle all the ACs when it’s a 103, why can’t it handle heaters when its 10? I think to myself.
Derek’s dad calls; their power is out.
Throughout the day, Derek goes out to check on the heater’s health. He’s got the scraping of ice down to a system. He gives me updates. We discuss plans B and C. We say things like, “We’ll be fine,” a lot.
Derek’s parents still don’t have power. We tell them they can come over, but they don’t want to drive on the roads. We agree that’s probably safest. You see, in Texas, nobody drives when there’s snow or ice. Our normally busy neighborhood road has been quiet all day. Derek’s only seen two cars go by. We discuss those drivers’ mental health.
The posts about power outages are increasing. As the day goes on, I put candles in each of the rooms with a box of matches. I’m so tired that I declare that we’re eating leftovers for dinner. I snarf some food.
Then, I decide not to do the dishes.
Now we’re seeing posts about people not having water. One person posts a picture of her tub full of snow. I tell Derek that I’m going to fill our bathtub with water so that we won’t lose water.
As we’re getting ready to go to bed, the power blinks out. Derek shows me how to shut off the super annoying beeping surge protector.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 7:00 A.M.: My alarm goes off. I’m less zombiefied after a night without beeps, so I only hit snooze a couple of times. I can hear that the heater is on, but Derek’s clock is blinking, so the power must have gone out at some point. I’m very glad that I slept through it.
When I use the bathroom, the water is still running, but it seems slow as it comes out the faucet. I wonder if that means we have frozen pipes somewhere, but I don’t really know how that works. I check the weather; it’s still friggin’ cold.