All was going well
the first day into the cold spell. And
then the electricity to the house was cut off. Quickly following that, the wire
line phone system went dead. Except for
the bottled gas we use for cooking, the whole house depends on electricity,
including the water system and the heating system. Losing electricity was doubly
bad for us because much of our two pumphouses depended on 100 watt light bulbs
to add just enough heat to keep the pumps from freezing and breaking. So, we waited
for the power to be restored---and waited and waited. At the time there was no information on why
the power failed but one can imagine that some nearby power line was down because
some freezing rain fell and that would mean tree limbs could have broken
the lines.
The low temperatures
of the day for three days hung right around 5 degrees F with the highs never
reaching 32 degrees F. Everything froze
and stayed frozen. The big problem was
how to keep the freezing conditions from wrecking the pumps (cast steel does
not tolerate much expansion and cracks easily with expanding ice) now that we did not have the benefit of the 100 watt light bulbs. Since we have learned repeatedly that it is
not wise to get rid of a lot of old stuff, we had on hand two Coleman lanterns
that still worked even though we had to search for two good sets of
mantles. So, we lit the lanterns and put
them in the two pumphouses, refueling them every six hours, 24 hours a day. We were fortunate to have on hand 4 gallons of automotive regular gasoline as fuel for the lanterns. Getting out of bed in the wee hours of the morning when the house temperature is
50 degrees, getting dressed and refueling the lanterns at ten degrees outside
temperature was no enjoyable experience, but then we weren’t sleeping under a
bridge or looking for food in the snow-covered woods like some of the other
animals.
We coped with the
toilet system by breaking the ice on the surface of the irrigation water tank
and dipping pails of water out and using that water to refill the toilet tanks. Not an easy job on slippery slopes, but
doable.
The snow fell after
the freezing rain ended and we found six inches of snow on the level ground. Then two days later, another six inches fell,
but neither lasted long as the humidity was low, and the ground still had some
heat to melt the now. You ask what difference
the humidity makes on the evaporation of snow.
Snow crystals have vapor pressure just like water so snow and ice “dry”
just like water, albeit more slowly. For
those of the northern climes, during pre-clothes dryer days, our family always
hung the wash on the clothesline in the winter, just as they did in the summer
and the clothes first froze, then dried.
Bits of science never hurts.
It was interesting to
note the animal tracks in the snow. The
deer never seemed to mind it all, but probably took some time to learn to eat
the snow for water, as all the water supplies were frozen. Their tracks were prevalent. Each day proved that the Grey Fox made rounds
looking for food, but only at night because we never saw the animal, only the
tracks.
Probably the most
miserable critter was the Roadrunner, and unfortunately we found one huddled in
the sunny corner of the garage, presumed to having frozen to death, probably the first
night of near zero temperatures. When I
first spotted the bird, it appeared to be warming in the sunlight, so I assumed it was still
alive and would be best to let it warm up slowly while in the sunlight. This photo shows it huddled in a protective corner behind a spool of fence wire.
A few hours later I tested
it for life by nudging it and found no response.
Later, the next day I looked to see if it was still there, but it was gone. First thinking it was dead and frozen, now I
assumed it had died and was found by the fox and eaten, but the puzzle was not over yet as a
wide search of the area revealed no feathers. So, I still had to presume that
it was dead and served as food for some other animal.
Then I
began to be concerned about all the Roadrunners and how they are able to
survive these cold temperatures.
Driving out the driveway the next day we spotted two adult roadrunners
looking racing along in their normal fashion, fit as a fiddle and thus we concluded that these hardy devils can survive cold
weather.
That
prompted a search for how Roadrunners cope with cold weather and we found that
two southwestern birds, the Poor Will and the Roadrunner are capable of entering
a stage of torpor where they can shut down their systems when it gets too cold
and and when they run short of food. They can exist
in this very dormant state for days and survive with no ill effects. As a result of all this information and a
strong desire to think the best for our Roadrunner, we concluded it was in a
state of torpor when seen by the garage where the photo was taken and lived through it all. And, better yet, maybe it was our bird that we saw the next day as we drove out the driveway.
Noticeably absent were the ever-present raccoons. They apparently stayed in their dens wherever those happened to be located.
We probably will never
know the full extent of damage to wildlife but it seems evident that it will not be significant.
The weather finally
returned to normal for this time of the year, and we began to recover. It took two days for the house to come back
to 68 degrees because the electrical grid was still rationing the power, not only
by rolling blackouts but by lower voltages.
We saw voltages as low as 115 when normal is about 125. Low voltages mean any electrical device is
only at partial performance levels. We first
noted this when the bread toaster worked, but never to the extent that one
could see glowing radiators in the bread slots.
The heat pumps ran but were not pumping much heat and the auxiliary heating
units had to make up the shortfall.
The snow is now gone,
the ground is mostly bare, and we found that all the outside piping had
survived thanks to wrapping everything with old towels and serapes, plus those
valuable Coleman lanterns. Oh, and another
point. Sitting in the dark, even with our kerosene lamps, was not enjoyable so
we rigged up a 100-watt light bulb to a DC to AC inverter and lit the lamp with
the power from the storage battery. A
normal auto storage battery does not hold a lot of power as it ran the 100-watt
light bulb for only a few hours, but that was enough time to get in some
reading to take our minds off being cold.
All through this
ordeal, our only communication link to the so-called outside world was the cellphone.
But still, there was little communication on why we had lost electricity and the
outlook for restoration. When temperatures
began to moderate and electricity became more reliable, then the information on
the utility system began to flow from the governmental authorities. What we know now is that very little of the
transmission system of wires, transformers, and poles were affected by the
storm, but the grid managed by the Texas Energy Commission lost more than a
third of its electricity due to two significant events (1) the wind generators
in the panhandle were shut down due to icing of the blades. That reduced electrical generation by a whopping 23%. We must remember, but not brag,
about the fact that Texas generates more of its electricity by wind turbines
than any other state. (2) some of the natural gas fired steam turbines had to
be shut down due to icing of the natural gas.
This is not unusual, although most would not think that natural gas
would ice up and clog the lines and injectors of gas turbines. But again, a little bit of science. Recall that methane can form hydrates when water is present and the methane hydrates turn from gas to solid at temperatures that we encountered.
All told, had we not
lost electricity, we would have easily coped with these temperatures, this amount
of snow and for this duration.
