Be Prepared: Thoughts On and Lessons From the 2021 Texas Freeze

It quickly became apparent to me last week that I was not going to get a post of any type published. However, I have one for you today! As many of you know, I live in the Houston metro area. Last week we—and pretty much all of Texas—experienced a brutal winter storm. I grew up in Colorado, so I know that those of you in the north have different definitions of “cold” and “winter storm,” but this was exceptionally cold and snowy for us. For various reasons, the cold knocked out power (and later water) to millions of Texans.

We are doing fine. I know many Texans can’t say this right now, so I say it with a profound understanding of how blessed we are to have what we do.

We lost power at 2:00am on Monday morning. It was freezing outside (in the 20s, if I recall correctly) and snowing (a very rare occurrence for us). Though we have a gas furnace, the fan to blow air through the house works on electricity. Thus, it got cold. I covered the girls with extra blankets and we waited for power to come back on. Hours later, power had not returned, so I started our gas fireplace. This warmed the living room and kitchen of our home. We got the girls up and explained what was happening. After breakfast, I bundled them up and took them out to play in the snow. We stayed out for as long as was comfortable and then returned inside to warm up by the fire.

We didn’t get above freezing on Monday, nor did our power return. During the afternoon I moved the contents of our fridge into a cooler and sat it outside so it would not spoil. I later pulled the contents of the freezer and just sat it outside in a box.

By Monday evening we realized that the “rolling blackouts” being reported by the electrical companies were actually just outages. No one had any idea when our power would be restored. We turned on flashlights, cooked pasta with marinara sauce on a butane camp stove (our range in the house is electric), and stayed close to the fireplace. We slept there, with blankets piled on top of us. The outdoor temperature fell to 11°F, which is terribly cold for our area. Houses and other structures aren’t built for temperatures that low. We managed to keep the living room warm enough that we were safe (not particularly comfortable, but safe). Friends, I cannot tell you how grateful I am that we have a gas fireplace. I don’t know what we would have done without it. We would have had to go out in the driveway and warm ourselves in our vans or we would have to have driven on icy roads to the home of someone who had power (which would have been tricky because we only know a couple of families in the region who had power).

We were cold and discouraged on Tuesday morning. Thankfully, things started looking up when our lights came back on during the afternoon. We had power for a couple of hours and then it went out again for a couple of hours (this cycle, actual rolling blackouts, continued for about 24 hours). While we were celebrating having power back (albeit in spurts), we realized we didn’t have running water. After ruling out a frozen pipe, we found out via our city’s webpage that the two water treatment facilities in town had suffered power outages and this was preventing them from producing safe drinking water. We were under an order to boil water. We, of course, had no running water, which was due to low pressure from so many pipes bursting that water was basically gushing out of the system. It took over a day to get any water flowing from the faucets (we always keep bottled water on hand, so we were fine in terms of having water to drink and with which to cook). As I’m writing this (on Friday), we still don’t have normal water pressure, but we do finally have running water. We’ve also had uninterrupted electricity for over 24 hours.

As I said above, we are so blessed. We have a gas fireplace. Many do not and had temperatures drop to below freezing INSIDE their homes. Tragically, some of these folks even died of hypothermia. We did not have any pipes freeze. Many, many did and some of these individuals have had their homes absolutely destroyed by the water that leaked into their homes once the pipes thawed. We have the ability (in terms of money and space) to store bottled water. Many do not and are now scrambling to find clean water to drink.

There’s no one person or thing we can blame for this mess. Believe me, there is plenty of blame to go around! In the coming weeks and months, it is critical that Texas examine all that failed and determine the true causes of these failures. Then we must fix things. In the meanwhile, though, we must focus on recovery.

The reason I am sharing all of this with you is that I want to encourage you to be prepared. I take disaster preparedness seriously. My husband and I prepare for these sorts of disasters just in case. This past week, just in case because reality. We were prepared. We had plenty of food. We had plenty of water. We had flashlights, batteries, and a camp stove. We’ve identified a few additional items we’d like to include in our supplies, but overall we feel like we handled the situation pretty well.

Are you prepared? Would you be okay if you lost power for a couple of days or for even longer? I was without power for 15 days after Hurricane Ike, so I’m well aware that our recent time without power was short (though difficult because of the freezing temperatures). Would you be okay if you were without running water for days or even longer? Would you be okay if it took several days for grocery stores to get food back in stock and gas stations to get gas back in stock? These are important questions to answer. Thinking through the possibility of a disaster happening isn’t an alarmist thing to do; it’s a wise thing to do because disasters are common and no one is immune to them.

If you’d like a place to begin, consider reading the posts I’ve published on disaster preparedness:

• Assembling a Basic Disaster Preparedness Kit
• Creating a Family Emergency Plan
• Disaster Preparedness for Families with Special Needs
• Eight of the Best Foods to Keep in Your Disaster Preparedness Kit
• Finding Supplies Before a Storm When Store Shelves are Bare
• Flood Preparedness and Safety
• How to Store Refrigerated Medications During a Disaster
• Introduction to Disaster Preparedness
• Items to Use for First Aid When in a Pinch
• Obtaining and Storing Disaster Preparedness Supplies
• Remaining Vigilant
• What to Do in An Active Shooter Situation
• What You Really Need in a First Aid Kit
• Why You Really Should Say Something If You See Something

There are so many things that occurred in these recent days that I could complain about. However, I’ve tried to remain positive and grateful. I’m so incredibly grateful for our gas fireplace, our camp stove, our warm clothing items, our headlamp flashlights (which proved more helpful than any of our other flashlights), and that our living room has windows that face south (this allowed sunlight and warmth in when the sun broke through the clouds).

Please don’t wait until disaster strikes to realize that you need some supplies. You may not be in the thick of it right now, but at some point soon you will likely experience something—a hurricane, a wildfire, an earthquake, a blizzard, an industrial accident, or another disaster—that requires you to either shelter in place or flee for safety. Both of these will be much easier if you have a few essential supplies.

What disasters have you experienced? What tips would you pass along to others as they work on their disaster preparedness plans?

Shared at the following:

Encouraging Hearts and Home, Over the Moon, and Busy Monday.