What was living in the Texas Winter Storm 2021 really like in a small rural Texas town, after living with COVID-19 for a month?

It was a catastrophe.

It’s 80 degrees just a few days after a brutal Winter Storm in Texas, in February as I write this. I didn’t want to wait until too much time had passed after the Texas Winter Storms, but neither did I want to write it (or post it) when I was still highly emotionally charged after experiencing it.

I can’t promise this will be the best post it could be. It’s probably pretty sporadic as my mind continues to wrap around and remember events. Even after writing it and letting it sit, it might be turbulent as my mind goes back and forth to the events.

I’m going to tell you my accounts of surviving COVID for an entire month and then just a week or so later surviving the Texas winter storm, along with the comments I heard online, as I’m feeling it now. It will be long.

First off, my husband was diagnosed with COVID-19 on January 4. He was super sick. We spent all that time apart and using safety precautions, aside from me checking on him and making sure he had what he needed. And honestly, making sure he wasn’t dying!

Unfortunately, I got it 20 days after his first diagnosis. Luckily, I wasn’t as sick as he was, and by that time he could handle caring for me and our pets, but I was still sick for 2 weeks. I am super suspectable to other problems with having Type 1 Diabetes and Asthma that my allergist says is turning into or is branching into COPD (because uncontrolled asthma can ruin your lungs no matter how healthy you try to be! Who knew? Probably more people than me knew.)

We both got over the worst part of it about the end of January. We still had some issues and a lot of fatigue, but was trying to get back in the swing of things. I personally knew some who are still suffering, and times were not easy. A friend almost died, and I will mention my aunt (who got it) later.

But we all do our best to survive. Then Uri hit. Or whatever the storm’s name is, I don’t know it was at least three and way more names than I can keep up with.

I’ll start my diatribe with the comments I head from others.

“You knew it was coming. We have this kind of cold for months and are fine. You should have been prepared. You’re just not used to it.”

Oh yes, I saw comments like these all over the internet, and every time I did, my blood boiled. I’m not one to say #TEXASSTRONG because honestly, we are all human. No matter what country or what state we are from, we all go through some major crap that Mother Nature loves to dole out. We all want to not only survive, but keep our loved ones alive. And we are all pretty damn strong. Sometimes those loved ones are animals. They may not necessarily be pets. We have all faced some pretty horrible conditions and let me tell you, the State of Texas is not without its horrible conditions. I have been through 100, 50, and 20 year floods and honestly have been through yearly flooding. I have also been through yearly temperatures that would cook an egg on a sidewalk. That’s what we are prepared for.

So to hear this really pissed me off. Thank you Shenielle from #3rdhourtoday for first pointing out to me that we just aren’t used to it. You’re correct. We aren’t used to having snow, must less ice, then snow, then ice, then snow on top of frigid temperatures that didn’t go over freezing for 8 straight days. We aren’t used to below zero, much less below zero wind chills for days on end.

And you know what else we aren’t used to? Having our power cut off for days. With absolutely no control. Even our own electrical departments were somewhat without control (although I’m still waiting to hear on truly how much control they did or did not have).

I lost my power on Monday. Our weather forecast told us that on Sunday night, we would have the worst of us hit. My husband and I, who work full time, planned on having things prepared way before then. But it hit on Thursday, while we were working. Luckily, my husband was able to come home early and we worked our ass off trying to get things prepared for a storm we thought would be over within 24 hours, maybe 48.

Before that point, the electricity kept going off and on. I don’t even know when it started because my days started running together. But we have acreage, we take care of a cat community, most of them feral. Everyone tells you to bring your pets indoors, but have you ever even tried to approach a feral cat?

We have been doing trap, neuter, release for years. That’s a post for another day if ever for me, but we live on acreage in a very rural area that is a perfect dumping ground, so we have a lot of new cats show up every year. Many of them I have taught to trust me, and I go out and feed them every single day. We have water set out and we have shelter. But they don’t trust me when I try to trap them, and they will only approach when they want to approach. The ones I care for have been trapped to be fixed. Why don’t I take them to an animal shelter? Because the shelters are not no kill, they will not be safe, and I have the means to provide for them. And I have way too much empathy. Enough said.  

We have also had dogs dumped on our property. Fortunately, for whatever reason, dogs are a lot easier to find homes for than cats, so we have found homes for those. But, like many people in this world, we care for a cat community all on our own all with our own money and all with no complaint. I won’t say much more than that, because this is going to be long enough. Feel free to email if you want more info. But one thing I will tell you, each of them has a name and I care for and love each and every one of them, even if I can’t touch them. We have a routine. I find homes for the ones I can and I do it all on my own with no help, all my own money, and we spend a fortune. I love each and every one of them and will not justify myself.

Back to the storm. We spent days getting things prepared, although we already had a great system going. But we’ve never had a storm like this and it was worse than anyone expected, and honestly my husband and I bickered a lot because he thought everything was fine and I wanted to prepare for the worst. Only the worst was much worse than we expected.

Our electricity went off completely 100% off on Monday. The day the worst was about to hit us. Our home was built in 1994. We have single pane windows and haven’t had a chance to remodel our windows. The building we had set up for our cat shelter would have been a warm sanctuary at the point our electricity went out. We only use electric. Many people in our area do. The ones who do have propane, yay for them, but according to official posts, 86% of people in my community were without any electricity.

There is no way to prepare for what we went through. Not just me and my husband, but my family and my entire state.

We absolutely made the best of the situation. Here’s a few photos of us enjoying the outdoors before the next round hit. And here are a few of us making the best of the first night of having no electricity.

My husband and I stayed warm because years ago, he pulled a propane heater out of a dumpster. I fussed at him for doing so, but my husband is a bit of a hoarder and likes to fix things. Good thing, because when daylight hit, he was able to get to town and find the only propane bottle left which was 100 gallons, and he was able to fix that heater. It’s the only way we had warmth. Our indoor cat bowls literally froze on our floor. My meds were in the process of freezing. I’m on insulin and yes, they have to stay cold, but they should not be frozen.

Meanwhile….

We live about 8 miles from town. Doesn’t seem like much unless you have snow on top of ice on top of snow. My dad lives about 20, crossing 3 creeks and hills and something called Dead Man’s Curve (yes where people have actually died on this curve). His road is treacherous in normal conditions. He cares for his elderly mom, my grandmother who practically raised me. She’s 93, so she was freezing at temps in her house at about 46 degrees at the highest temps. They were lucky enough they didn’t lose complete power, only they had rolling black outs for about 5 days (more maybe but we’ve all lost count at 5) and it screwed up a lot of things. The best power they had was only about an hour at a time, but the average was much less. That isn’t enough to stay warm in our conditions. And when we lost phone contact, I had no idea if they were freezing like we were, or able to keep enough power to stay warm. The worry about everything was brutal.

Expect me to repeat myself as I continue my diatribe.

Why didn’t you conserve power?

Oh, this is a good one I loved to hear. 254 counties in Texas and not a single county didn’t not have this winter storm. Many have never had or rarely have a touch of snow somewhere. Did I say that right? I don’t know, but every county in Texas had a touch of snow, but most way more than a touch. Did you know that the average snowfall in Texas is .1 inch? Our freezing spells at night are never many in a row. I can plan for when they’ll start and when they’ll end, but it’s rare to have a week in a row, even at night. This storm was all day, every day, sometimes below zero.

I am 45 years old, have lived in Texas my whole life, and can count on one hand the days of snowfall we have had. Two of those days was in 2021.

And not a single county (well, maybe one called El Paso with a different grid system) was without power.

Texas is huge, BTW. 10 countries could fit into Texas. 243 states the size of Rhode Island could fit. I really don’t know how much more to explain it than that. I am saying this so I can geographically explain the catastrophe that should never have happened, the shit we could never have prepared for. And the sheer size is basically all inhabited. Texas doesn’t have a lot of uninhabitable areas. Sure, we have a lot of rural areas. I’m in one of those areas, although not near as rural as other places. But most of our rural areas have communities.

Okay, back to conserving power.

Texas is large, yes, with a population of 29 million, but my actuall city has a population of 3,400. My county has about 20K. It’s a small county in comparison to others, but not as small as many.

My town had complete power 100% of the time and the outside of city limits had none. Downtown Austin, Houston, Dallas had power, but other places where people actually lived had absolutely none or if they had any, they had rolling blackouts. Yes, I get that hospitals needed it. Absolutely I understand. But the office building where I work that was vacant for days didn’t need it. And many other office buildings were functional when they did not need to be. Look, your office paperwork can wait (maybe buying a house or waiting on an aunt’s long-lost letter—insert sarcasm because I can’t think of any other sarcasm right now that fits what would be more important that someone’s life). What can’t wait is the fact someone might or might not die of hypothermia. Which actually did happen. Thank God not in my family.

I get that the excuse is now that places didn’t lose power because they were on the same electrical system as the hospitals. And I’m thankful hospitals didn’t have to suffer. But I’m tired of the excuses.

Even today, the news said Texas was 4.5 minutes away from being in a complete blackout. But I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona. And even if it’s true, it should never have happened.

I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what I and my husband and many others went through.

The night my husband set up the heater, I constantly worried and didn’t sleep at all. Actually, I didn’t sleep for 6 days straight. Yes, I documented it (with or without my Fitbit App). I wouldn’t let him keep the fire going because, you know carbon monoxide and explosions and all the other myriad things I imagined happening. But we had lost communication with the outside world at that point and all I could think of is my elderly dad and grandmother being without power like we were, and them dying of hypothermia. Or my cats (you know, the ones I can’t bring indoors because they are feral and would freak out, believe me I tried) might die. I had a great set up with heaters for them too, only they didn’t have that now either. We had a great set up in a lot of places, but having no power really hurts.

Okay, so let me tell you about my aunt. She had a double lung transplant about 10 years ago. She was without power, or alternating power for a very short time, after recently having COVID-19 and being recently released from the hospital after 7 days. She was still using oxygen with her 10-year-old lungs and couldn’t keep it charged when the electricity went off and on. She lives on a ranch with livestock, baby calves that she asked her spouse not to tell her whether they lived or died. I’m betting the latter since at this point, she still doesn’t know.

She had some anxiety attacks, and she lives in an even more remote area than we do, as many Texans do. She did what she could to check on oxygen tanks only to be told they had none. She is doing okay right now, but still has a lot of issues, as many of us do after a traumatic event that we are now being chastised for as if we could control any of it.

And speaking of livestock, my husband and I love animals, and we have a lot of deer that we don’t care to shoot and eat in our area, so we feed them every day for the absolute enjoyment. We also have a fox that has lived on our property for years, more than one. We went out every few hours not only to check the outdoors, but to break up the ice for our deer. Many of our neighbors did the same for sheep and goat and cattle, etc. Even those with a heater pump couldn’t have it work without electricity. On one of our outings, we actually saw the fox running around, as if looking for food an water. Possibly even had babies holed up somewhere. This is the same fox we have seen for years who has lived here with us. (There is nothing to be afraid of about foxes, but I’m happy to go more in depth in that too if necessary).

And let’s not talk about the water pipes that busted in and outside homes because of one company—ER—ER—ERCOT’S—decision to cut power either entirely off, or rotate by giving us 20 minutes on and 3 hours off at a time during the coldest few nights of our entire lives and of Texas history.

So yes, please don’t tell me it’s because we aren’t used to it. Nobody should ever, ever be used to what we went through.

They blamed everything they could. And still are. Natural gas pipelines frozen. Wind turbines frozen. I’m certainly able to see the greed in that. After all how many states in our county have these same issues, but don’t have what we went through? Because they are prepared? Because maybe they spent a bit more money on taking care of equipment than on lining pockets? But this isn’t one of those posts, so I’m trying not to make it so.

Warming stations are available. Why not go to a warming station?

Ooh, I love this one too. Why not? Let’s see. Because, as I said earlier, many of our remote county or ranch roads are treacherous on a normal day. Much less adding ice, snow, ice, some weird ass rain coming down, then ice and snow again. My elderly dad could never safely get his mother out of the house, up into his truck, and then to a warming station 20 miles away. The 254 counties in this state have a ton of remote areas many people have never visited. My city of 3400 people has an entire county of another 20K people in remote areas, or small subdivisions that are not at all like a city but like living in the boondocks, which is the way most of us prefer it (when we have what we planned and paid for—such as electricity). I don’t even want to talk about warming stations because it pisses me off. We should have been warm in our own homes. And if something would have happened to the electrical grid, well damn that sucks, but it didn’t. You know what did? Other people’s greed.

And the fact no one wanted to tell us or warn us but then later they said they did warn us. Umm, no.

We trust we will power during the worst of circumstances, and believe me I’ve seen some pretty bad crap. 100 days of 100 temps with flooding and I still had electricity. Yes, if something happened where we didn’t have it, that’s one thing. But the DECISIONS THAT WERE MADE TO CUT IT WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARNING BEFOREHAND is the reason we didn’t have it. Period. I don’t know why any argument needs to be made. (And FYI, I’m not making the initial argument, already posting about arguments that have already been made and many many daily excuses as to why they were made).

Oh, and it’s funny how my electricity came back on just in time to hear pitiful excuse of why this happened, and an interview with ERCOT. Then they wanted to blame the actual power companies. And maybe they had some fault in this. My electric company only said “we will report as we know” or whatever and they only started reporting anything after ERCOT did their excuses presentation. Then they reported like crazy, although they ever had before. I’m still not sure why mine went completely down for several days. In this day of technology, the reporting system failed us (for those who might have even been able to get online).

So why weren’t we prepared? Maybe for the same reason many states wouldn’t be prepared for 100 days of 100 degree temps in a row with the worst flash flooding they’ve ever known after a horrid tornado and rainstorm during a hurricane all while not having electricity and having someone else have complete control of whether or not they have power or not. Do I exaggerate? Maybe on some accounts (except for the temps), but it’s not because it hasn’t happened.

At one point in my journal, I wrote I didn’t even know if my dad, grandmother, sister, aunt, and many others were even alive at this point. Because we lost communication. And the few times I reached out to anyone who could make a difference, I was given the same crappy diatribe. Then ERCOT gave us a bunch of diatribe. And now we are left to face with the consequences, dead livestock, animals, maybe lost lives some not even accounted for yet, and broken pipes. And definitely broken trust.

This was a long post, so to sum it up:

1. Texas housing isn’t set up for cold weather. We are used to 100 degree temps for 100 plus days with 100% humidity. Yes, humidity is generally over 80% here. I read that the average is 64.9 but I can tell you after living here my entire 45 years of life, that isn’t accurate and it is much higher (and we all know how averages are calculated).
2. You can never truly be prepared. No matter what you do. Leaving your home or not. I am very blessed in that I didn’t lose as much as some.
3. Nobody should ever have to be prepared for what we went through, when we were completely at the mercy of one company’s reign. Excuses will always be made. And the best we can do is move forward. Because the only thing we can truly control is our own attitude, and how prepared we’ll be prepared for next time. And I can tell you I have learned a harsh lesson on preparedness.
4. Lives could be lost because of pure greed and selfishness.
5. Lack of planning. Well, I’m not sure you can ever be truly prepared.
6. Oh, and one more thing. I can’t imagine anyone going through what we went through all while going through the COVID-19 we went through in January. All with no power! So many prayers for them!

I also want to say how incredibly blessed and grateful I am. It’s not just my state, but humanity in general that I continue to have hope for and that I continue to see stand strong. Things could have been so much worse for me. My deer came back to eat their corn and drink the water I provide for them. I lost no chickens and my rooster survived (although he woke me up weakly crowing at 1AM one night and we constantly worked on their coop to try to stay warm without electricity as well). It was the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had in my life, but my faith stood strong, my prayers were lifted up, and even though I battled a lot of stress during this ordeal, we survived. Many people are still battling and struggling!

I hope this is a wake-up call not just for Texas but the entire world on how not to depend on an electrical grid system many of us trust and don’t even give a second thought to keep things running in perfect harmony.

I also am still infuriated by comments, as if Texas deserved this or asked for it. Many of us are just like anybody else in this world, trying to make the world a better place in the small way we know how. Many states have suffered tremendously over the years and will continue to suffer. Annual storms, wildfires, and all the things we can’t really control but maybe in some small way we can. I have also seen conspiracy theories that say it was fake! I can tell you that it was not fake!

I apologize for a super-duper long post! And to end this (because I could probably go on and on), I’d love to hear your story, to know if you have ever been through anything catastrophic and traumatizing, how you dealt, and any advice you have now.