Not sure if it’s karma points or what, but so far in my home the power and heat have remained steady during this worst cold snap in modern Texas history. Not that I haven’t experienced power outages, most during the spring and summer and a few during some cold nights. Seems what starts it here is a thunderstorm, then poof! Lights out. In the dark I call the power company apparently directed by a robot with a female voice that knows my locale and usually confirms the power is indeed out in my neck of the woods. Sometimes I get a restoration estimate of three or four hours. Sometimes they don’t know when the power will be restored. Having experienced no electricity in hot and cold weather, I guess I’d take the summer outages. But there’s no sleep in either. And when it’s pitch black in the house with no battery radio for entertainment and the need to conserve battery flashlights, sleep is it, like preparing for the coffin.
Texas again is an international laughingstock. This time due to millions of folks being without electricity and heat when temperatures are in the single digits and the windshield below 0. Hell no! Don’t sound like Texas a’tall. Texans have taken to social media (powered up by their automobiles) to rant with unprecedented rage about this going on for days now. Schools are closed, not even attempting virtual learning as so many homes sporadically are out of electricity, and then there are the homeowners and apartment dwellers having to contend with the watery mess from busted pipes. Plumbers are taking a hundred calls a day.
Texans don’t do winter well.
And apparently neither does our state government. We’ve heard blame passed around to everyone except the Almighty. The green deal caused this? Governor, please. This is more about power companies not winterizing—like they were supposed to after the big 2011 February freeze that spoiled our brand new boasted Super Bowl stadium and kept schools closed for a week due to thick icy roads. That winter, no one dared drive around except for the Cheeseheads from Wisconsin who chuckled at our wintry conditions. “What snow?” they said, laughing at us.
No, this lingering power outage is due to the usual culprit: corporate greed. Passing the blame, of course they claim we Texas customers would not accept overall higher utilities for the extremely rare winter cold snap. If you look at the Texas year, we spend a lot more time complaining about the excessive heat than the almost forgotten freezing rain and icy cold. The suits have a point. One time a utility company, playing good corporate citizen, waived electric bills for poor families throughout a very hot summer. The company set October for the month when they’d come collecting. Ha, October in Texas is like July in Wisconsin. We usually keep our ACs running to keep cool because we’re still hot without it. I knew the suit thinking October is the time the heat would be gone was from the north.
Freezin’ East Texas
The reason I bring up karma for spending a comfortable winter so far (knock on wood with frequent audible praises to God) is because I have spent some miserable winters in East Texas. The worst was December 1983 to January 1984. My car wouldn’t start. I thought the engine block had cracked, something I heard was common up north. An all-electric apartment where I lived circulated ice-cold air. Then the power was out in the region for days. In another place I stayed, the pipes froze. I was in college and learning how to rough it in 0-degree weather. It was 0, sometimes 2, on a warm day 7. I learned to double and triple clothing layers including socks and wear long johns under my jeans, T-shirts with flannel shirts. I did without bathing for a week or so and each night slept under mounds of blankets and quilts while keeping burners on from a gas stove, the only source of heat.
The funny part is, the next year in Texas I wore shorts while cooking a turkey. Texas weather, if you don’t like it, wait a minute. Then compare the same time year by year for lots of laughs.
Anyone remember Thanksgiving 1993 in Dallas? I was staying with my parents for my first vacation from a reporter job in northeast Texas. On Thanksgiving around noon as my mother and I drove out for a home-cooked meal with her sister, the snow fell, and the roads were slick. Driving back was more hazardous. I parked my truck, saw the Dallas snowstorm made national network news, then for days could not move my vehicle to go shopping and have fun. The truck was stuck, as if welded by ice to a concrete driveway. The ice would not melt. I waited, day by day, going stir crazy as my vacation plans in the big city were ruined. Then on my last day, my mother and I poured lots of buckets of water all around the truck tires. I turned on the vehicle to heat ’er up, put the gear in reverse, and nothin’ doin’. We continued our chain of bucket water until finally the truck would move in reverse. I floored it and drove the hell out of there, waving at mother in the mirror. I was so angry about a spoiled vacation, especially when I saw the roads were for the most part passable, that I stopped by a mall that had a New York Museum of Modern Art shop and purchased something I always wanted: a display of perfectly round polished crystals and rocks, each with its own tiny label. It’s a game created by someone in exile during the rule of Napoleon, kind of a solitaire Chinese checkers. It’s still on display in my home. Whenever I dust, I hardly ever think of the wintry reason I got it, a symbol of survival.
Another miserable freezing winter lasted one whole week, again in an all-electric apartment, with no electricity and therefore no heat in northeast Texas January 2001. Folks who lived in the country were out of electricity for two long weeks. As a government news reporter, during the big freeze I’d drive out every morning to the water treatment plant and see what was going on. The streets were fine for driving. It’s just no one had electricity including businesses and restaurants. Back at the news desk, where power was out a day or two but otherwise restored, I’d call the electric company that covered the region. The problem with lingering power outages spanned Sherman to Tyler. I lived right in between. A few readers would drop by, telling me they’d lived in states like Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin for 30 years or so and never experienced a power outage for more than a few hours, never days on end. They hinted something else must be going on. No, I believed what the power company said. I understood Texas doesn’t know how to deal with severe cold … and doesn’t care to.
Some areas were restored power but not where I lived. Each night as I came home, the neighborhood was eerily empty. No lights. No cars. Everyone had left for heated shelter except me. I’d use a large flashlight to get around inside. Wasn’t sure what to do with the food in the fridge. Brought some to work each day to microwave for lunch and then ate dinner there, too, before ruefully having to head home. Couldn’t take a shower. The water was ice cold. Then I’d crawl into bed, still wearing socks and pants and a long-sleeved shirt, laying under every blanket, quilt and bed covering I had. I counted 10 layers. During the big freeze while I cried under the covers because breathing in the cold air hurt my lungs, my friend Jean called to tell me about the 2000 election verdict with Al Gore conceding. I told her about my fate, trying to keep warm in a cold no-heat apartment. I told her about daily calling the power company officials. They explained the weather has to get above freezing for the crews to successfully ‘sweep’ ice off the lines. The official maintained crews were sweeping lines every day, but the temperatures were just too cold, and the lines would freeze again and power couldn’t be restored. There also were tons of trees that had fallen throughout the entire East Texas region that impacted service.
Cold feet, warm heart
It was colder inside my apartment than outdoors. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. Within five minutes, I felt the cold all the way to the marrow of my bones. My organs ached. I was developing a bad cough that would turn into a long bout of bronchitis.
Midweek a friend whose home had electricity offered showers and food. I brought towels, a change of clothes, shampoo and my blow dryer, and was so grateful.
A couple more days went by. Under the covers, I’d punch out a tent to breathe and prayed all the time for the miracle of electric heat to return. I cried myself to sleep, it was so miserable. In such situations I think of those who lived in concentration camps and wondered how they did it, how they survived. I think of my parents and grandparents and their childhoods without electricity and heat other than a potbelly stove. They really lived the lives of frontier families until electricity was provided nationwide and lastly in the poorest areas of rural America. The thoughts didn’t warm my heart, just made me mad that people have to endure such deadly weather elements year after year. We’re used to being in control.
But throughout all my self pity at having no power, no heat or cool air depending on the time of year, I knew the power would be restored. This was not permanent, not meant to be intentional as it was for prisoners of war. In Texas frigid temperatures are soon gone, even forgotten as we compare it to the miserable heat, and this is why energy providers skimped on effectively winterizing the all-important massive power grid supplying exclusively the Lone Star State. Texans come from a proud heritage of living off the land and sitting tight during days of extreme cold or months of extreme heat. It’s what we do down here: We deal with very bad situations and for the most part live through them, survive them, don’t think about ’em … till the next time which in terms of Texas winter weather could be decades.
Finally after one entire week of living in the coldest abode of my life, I returned home for a quick lunch and found my living room light on and the TV. My heart was overjoyed. Yet I was cautious—like those concentration camp survivors at the end of the war when all the guards were gone. I thought this might be a trick, and the power would go out again. It’s happened before. I had to make myself take in a breath. Life was continuing, no longer frozen still. I laughed and hooped and thanked God for the power now heating and lighting my home. I fixed a sandwich and almost choked when realizing the only channel available was “Jerry Springer” with the topic “You’re too fat to do porn!”
I never watched his show and turned off the TV, preferring silence. At least it was my choice. I turned on all faucets to check for any damage. All was well. I did a load of laundry. Life was instantly back to normal especially in my home. During the power outage, I had put together a large puzzle by candlelight. I spent a couple hours a night finishing the puzzle. It kept me occupied. It is Flowers by Andy Warhol. Each of the four flowers are a different color, colors I remember fondly from my childhood: red, hot pink, orange and yellow. The image is fun, but putting each small piece together was difficult, more so in shadows. I organized piles based on color including the green/black for the grass. At the time while working the puzzle, I was aware it kept my mind off the cold temperatures as each hour I thought surely the power would return. Perhaps subconsciously I worked that specific puzzle, with nothing but close-up flowers, to assure myself of the seasons to come, that winter passes like time, and that it comes around—less in Texas than anywhere else—to force all humanity to stop … and appreciate our blessings and know we’re not alone or forsaken.