Got this text earlier: This is Texas City Emergency Management. The entire city has lost power and as a result the industries are flaring. No action is required on your part at this —the text ended as above. Bayou vista and La marque were both dead too. Kind of eerie.
Power outage in Texas City leaves nearly 20,000 customers in the dark, forces plants to flare, officials say
And now all of a sudden they're saying temps could dip to 5-12 degrees in parts of the DFW burbs and outlying areas later tonight... *grumble*
"All of a sudden"? They've been talking this crap up for a week or so. It'll bottom out at 21ish at ~7AM here in rural CenTex.
Well, yeah about a week ago I noticed the weather in my area may drop down to the single digits, but then about a day or two ago they were saying it would drop down to about 16 degrees which isn't as bad from an "oh no, my pipes gonna blow up" standpoint (for me, anyway). Then tonight I'm hearing we could go down to 5-12 degrees again. The latter is various weathermen on the local stations. Then I look on places like wunderground and accuweather and I still see lows "only" going down to 17-18 or so. No idea what to believe. lol. In any case, I'm just glad this isn't a repeat of last years multiple days in the 20's for a high with power cutting on and off every 30 mins (or even worse for some people -- no power).
WeatherUnderground is the best I've found, nobody's perfect but the're pretty spot-on wrt rain and wind and temps. I insulated all my outdoor stuff 4 months ago. All I had to do today was get the sledgehammer and drop the head on the 3 inches of ice in various water troughs for the animals to have convenient water, they've got creeks and ponds so it wasn't an emergency like last year. A couple of water lines (outdoor stuff, and under old pier-and-beam houses) froze up and then eventually started running today once it warmed up. I highly recommend PEX for all above ground and indoor applications. Pro tip: do not get your gloves wet unless you want your hands to be cold
Yeah, my house was built back in 2004, so no PEX, but I hear they're using that a lot nowadays. I'm sure whatever house I buy next will be constructed with that... probably. Probably not worth it to retrofit all the crap in the attic and in the walls with PEX (assuming that's even possible) in this house.
Not the walls, but if you're worried about the attic it shouldn't be that big a deal to re-do it. Not sure that you need to though, other guys on here know more than I do. I don't mind doing plumbing work as long as it's 3+ft off the ground and not inside a cabinet, the digging holes and crawling around part is what really sucks. You can attach pex to pvc and several other old pipe-types, just a thought.
Weather people were wrong... they need to use Wunderground/Accuweather ... lol. Thankfully it didn't get down to the 5-12 degree weather up here in the DFW area. Hopefully we're done with that mess for the year and can focus on Spring hailstorms, 60-70 mph winds, and tornadic activity.
Yep, looks like at least a 10-day run of perfect weather in the Hill Country. Planning on fishing, cutting wood, firing up the smokehouse, and who knows what else.
