Lessons learned during the Great Texas Snowmageddon / Power Outage of Feb 2021 – Lee Engle

During Snowmageddon here in Central Texas – Feb 10 – 20, 2021 our preparations were severely tested –

• Lack of power – 3 days without power, then 7 days of alternating power 4 hours on 8 off

• Lack of mobility (ice covered streets / roads)

• Lack of heat – coldest temperatures in over 100 years – 0 degrees here – I haven’t been that cold since I took my pickup to Bremerhaven Germany to return to the US in 1987

• Frozen water pipes and water distribution mains which broke when the thaw came

• Damage not only to power lines but to homes and autos from ice accumulation breaking branches, overhead wires, sidings, etc.

• Lack of supplies – for those who weren’t prepared, even if they could traverse the treacherous roads, no stores were open to sell them what they wanted / needed.

Just in case I haven’t said it enough. I want to send out a big THANK YOU to all the power company linemen who went out during the coldest times, up in the air, with freezing rain and high winds, just to try to keep your electricity flowing into your house. Those guys/gals deserve our admiration and respect for what they did, when they did it, and what they had to endure in order to do it.

I had purchased a 5kw generator and had 10 gallons of gas, but, discovered that running the cord from the back yard into the house didn’t meet our expectations. Once ice/snow melted on the solar panels, we were producing enough power to export to the grid. We just didn’t have any power for 66% of the time because with solar, unless you have a battery, when the grid goes down, so does your solar. We now have battery backup.

Remember to protect your pipes – cover your outside spigots with thermal insulation and keep a slow steady drip at all of your indoor faucets to keep the water moving in your pipes.

Here are some of the things we did that allowed us to provide heat / cooking during the week and a half of Frozen comes to Central Texas.

Outdoor Only	Indoor some items are relatively low energy consumption for use when power (either grid or battery backup) is available
Smoker grill – 40 gal trash can of charcoal	Sterno® Professional Butane Stove – 40 bottles of butane
Small table top grill – 2 extra 40 lb charcoal	UCO Candolier® with 80 extra candles
Coleman® Camp Stove – 4 gal white gas	Instant Pot®
Sterno® Stove with canisters [1]	Sterno® warmers [2]
Dutch Oven(s)	Single burner hot plate
Kelly Kettle® with 80 # of wood pellets	Small electric tea pot (can be used for coffee)
Can Cooker[3]	Alcohol Stove
SilverFire® Mini Dragon Pot [4]	Small Rice Cooker
40 gallon trash can of fire wood
Boy Scout Tuna Can Stove[5]
Coleman® Camp Oven
Good Outdoor Camp Cook Kit – I have Self Reliance Outfitters equipment
Campfire coffee percolator with filters

We boiled water in the Kelly Kettle® - with wood pellets - and then poured it into a pump insulated coffee pot so we could keep hot water readily available. When you boil water, find insulated cups/glasses, etc. to keep it warm for a while so you aren’t constantly boiling water and wasting fuel. We plan on buying another pump pot before December. For heating purposes, consider filling hot water bottles and then refreshing them as they cool. Another consideration here is that we converted to drinking primarily instant coffee during the storm to avoid energy waste with a full pot of percolated/drip coffee. We also went through ½ a #10 can of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate.

After the first foray boiling water in the Kelly Kettle, I decided that deep down, I’m a wimp. For the next several days, I avoided going outside to cook at 0 degrees. So, the grills, Coleman® stove, and the SilverFire® gasifier didn’t get used.

We still had gas, so, we were able to keep the oven burning for warmth. We only used the burners when we had electricity and could operate the exhaust hood. I heard that a lot of people used their burners for heat and ended up burning / melting the bottoms of their overhead exhaust hoods / microwaves.

Reach into your refrigerator / freezer very sparingly. Both will keep their temperatures for a day or two when you don’t open them. Plan what you’ll get out and get it all out at the same time. Remember the health code – cold (refrigerated) goods should be kept below 40 degrees and frozen goods should be kept below 0 degrees (ice is 32 degrees and therefore not good for frozen foods).

Food wise, we only cooked when the grid was up and were able to use the stove (exhaust fan) or the microwave. We tended to primarily eat soups and stews which required very little preparation and were easy to heat / cook. We also enjoyed Chicken and Rice, Chili and Rice, and canned Chicken a la King with rice – some people prefer it over egg noodles. Pasta dishes with jarred sauce seemed to also keep us satisfied. Another satisfying meal you might want to consider having in your pantry is the La Choy® canned Asian meals. We did a pot of pinto beans along with a pan of corn bread, and then you can squash them and turn them into bean burritos with flour tortillas. We also made a pot of American goulash – ground beef, veg all, tomato sauce, pasta, can diced potatoes, onion, and spices and beef broth. I think this will be very easy to convert into an all freeze dried materials recipe.

For heat, we had a small space heater in the bedroom, and kept it on when the grid was up. Now that we have battery backup, we will most likely limit it to night-time use. The UCO® Candolier and we had 2 single candle units of theirs provided a great small space heater. As I mentioned earlier, we also had the oven running with the door open. Helen always has a scented candle going, and we had a bunch going for the duration of the storm. Being Catholic, I had a box of devotional candles, which provided a small area source of heat. Use extreme caution when using candles, you are using an open flame, and I wouldn’t allow one left burning while we were sleeping. For several years now, I have had an urge to build one of the terra cotta pot area warmers which uses tea candles for their heat source. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to that sometime this month.

A tabletop kerosene lantern seemed to put out the best heat / light. I’ve picked up another lantern, another bottle of fuel and a couple packages of extra wicks since the storm. DON’T Touch The Glass once you’ve lit the lantern.

I had these visions of the New Orleans Super Dome after Hurricane Katrina hit. Their sewage system backed up and there was sewage all over the place. Thank goodness our sewer system didn’t freeze, but, just in case, I have a Luggable Loo with about 100 disposable sanitation bags. We have two – we try to keep one for liquids which can be more easily disposed of and one for solids, which will most certainly be problematic.

I think the methane from the sewage kept it from freezing. Don’t count on it – have a plan on what you’ll do should the sewer system freeze or stop. In 1997, lightning hit our sewage pumping station which lifted the sewage up over a hill then gravity fed it into the Austin municipal waste system. The sewage backed up and got into our drinking water supply source and our daughter was the first confirmed case of cryptosporidiosis – not a pleasant sight or experience at all.

I will be experimenting with both the Instant Pot® and the CanCooker® for some freeze dried food recipes which I’ll be putting on You Tube®.

Well, besides the fact that we are experiencing a Grand Solar Minimum and we’ve already seen a record number of X Class Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) directed at earth. One expert proclaimed yesterday that it is only a matter of time before another Carrington Event.

Meteorologists are predicting another Polar Vortex (Snowmageddon) as early as December. Our current electric production has been diminished since last year as coal powered generation plants get phased out, and the bill passed by the House of Representatives yesterday will increase the cost of Natural Gas by 30% which will increase the cost of power generation by at least that much. We can also expect similar price increases in heating fuel/oil.

The CME also have their effect on our globe and the La Palma Volcano is threatening a tsunami against our East Coast. All the major seismic zones are showing increased activity and as of today there are 46 active volcanoes worldwide.

We have an open / porous southern border and are allowing COVID positive and TB positive illegal aliens into our country at an unprecedented rate. We really don’t know how many terrorists have taken advantage of this golden opportunity to walk into our country to do their dirty work. Our country has never been so politically divided and the slow burning fuse of civil war / revolution could hit the powder keg at any moment.

Couple all of that with the supply chain disruption, food shortages worldwide, civil unrest, threats by North Korea, China, and Syria for a world war. Then add in worldwide economic reset – hyperinflation or depression and toss in a race war and the only two things I can close with are:

1. Make sure you are right with the Creator – you might consider praying for a couple miracles

2. Do what you can as you can to prepare for whatever comes.

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[1] There are three different Sterno cans that I am aware of. 1 is high temperature for camping and is used with the foldable stove. The other two are lower temperatures used for warming trays in serving lines and are relatively safe indoors. Make sure that any time you use open flame indoors, you have an operational Carbon Monoxide detector near the flame.

[2] Same as above

[3] Can be used indoors or outdoors. When outdoors it can be on coals, sterno® stove, Coleman® stove, over the top of the Kelly Kettle®, on the Rocket Stove, etc. Indoors, you can use the Sterno® Professional Butane Stove, the UCO® Candolier, the electric hot plate, or the stove when the exhaust fan is working

[4] great with wood pellets, saved popsicle sticks, or tightly rolled cardboard tubes from toilet paper

[5] In Boy Scouts they taught us to use a “safe” side opening can opener to open a can of tuna. Clean the can, cut corrugated cardboard and roll it into the can so that you can see the corrugation. Then, melt paraffin and pour it into the can until filled. This makes a huge candle capable of producing cooking level heat.