(02-20-2021 08:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 07:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 06:43 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Federal disaster assistance

Even a progressive should be able to figure out what this is about.

Not following

Guess I was wrong.

It’s about Federal Disaster Assistance.

Yeah - not following what your point was about the progressives.

Are you posting so people here can use the info in the article?

(02-20-2021 09:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 08:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 07:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 06:43 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Federal disaster assistance

Even a progressive should be able to figure out what this is about.

Not following

Guess I was wrong.

It’s about Federal Disaster Assistance.

Yeah - not following what your point was about the progressives.

Are you posting so people here can use the info in the article?

Yes, of course.

(02-20-2021 10:07 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 09:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 08:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 07:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 06:43 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Federal disaster assistance

Even a progressive should be able to figure out what this is about.

Not following

Guess I was wrong.

It’s about Federal Disaster Assistance.

Yeah - not following what your point was about the progressives.

Are you posting so people here can use the info in the article?

Yes, of course.

Sarcastic? It’s not clear at all what your initial post was about. Can you elaborate?

(02-20-2021 11:08 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 10:07 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 09:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 08:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 07:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Not following

Guess I was wrong.

It’s about Federal Disaster Assistance.

Yeah - not following what your point was about the progressives.

Are you posting so people here can use the info in the article?

Yes, of course.

Sarcastic? It’s not clear at all what your initial post was about. Can you elaborate?

Once again, I overestimated the Progressive mind. I posted it so that Tanq and others with significant losses could use the info if they needed it. Apparently you were looking for something to fight about. It’s as if you you just “know” that whatever OO says, it is your duty to counter it.

Sorry, nothing to counter here . Just a PSA post.

Some of us have more immediate problems than Cruz’s bad political judgements. Tanq has said he may be out hundreds of thousands. I may be out of water for weeks.

Maybe we need a thread titled PSA.

(02-21-2021 09:23 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 11:08 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 10:07 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 09:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 08:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Guess I was wrong.

It’s about Federal Disaster Assistance.

Yeah - not following what your point was about the progressives.

Are you posting so people here can use the info in the article?

Yes, of course.

Sarcastic? It’s not clear at all what your initial post was about. Can you elaborate?

Once again, I overestimated the Progressive mind. I posted it so that Tanq and others with significant losses could use the info if they needed it. Apparently you were looking for something to fight about. It’s as if you you just “know” that whatever OO says, it is your duty to counter it.

Sorry, nothing to counter here . Just a PSA post.

Some of us have more immediate problems than Cruz’s bad political judgements. Tanq has said he may be out hundreds of thousands. I may be out of water for weeks.

Maybe we need a thread titled PSA.

Your comment about “Even progressives should be able to figure out what this is about,” made it sound like you were trying to make a point about the link. That’s why I asked for clarification - I wasn’t sure if you were just posting a helpful link for those to use, or making a point about progressives. You singled out a specific political ideology - that was why I was asking.

(02-21-2021 09:33 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-21-2021 09:23 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 11:08 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 10:07 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 09:24 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Yeah - not following what your point was about the progressives.

Are you posting so people here can use the info in the article?

Yes, of course.

Sarcastic? It’s not clear at all what your initial post was about. Can you elaborate?

Once again, I overestimated the Progressive mind. I posted it so that Tanq and others with significant losses could use the info if they needed it. Apparently you were looking for something to fight about. It’s as if you you just “know” that whatever OO says, it is your duty to counter it.

Sorry, nothing to counter here . Just a PSA post.

Some of us have more immediate problems than Cruz’s bad political judgements. Tanq has said he may be out hundreds of thousands. I may be out of water for weeks.

Maybe we need a thread titled PSA.

Your comment about “Even progressives should be able to figure out what this is about,” made it sound like you were trying to make a point about the link. That’s why I asked for clarification - I wasn’t sure if you were just posting a helpful link for those to use, or making a point about progressives. You singled out a specific political ideology - that was why I was asking.

I was thinking of the recent mini-furor among the Progressives here about my posting style - the requirements for quotes and précis so y’all don’t need to waste your valuable time reading or watching the link. I decided it was self-explanatory even without the Progressive posting requirements, and an explanation would be redundant, so I posted that even a Progressive could figure it out. I thought it was obvious. I was wrong, because I failed to take into account the suspicion that any OO post engenders. Mea Culpa.

(02-21-2021 01:51 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Im thinking we avoided a mortar shell. House had zero breaks -- even though I am absolutely positive we had multiple freeze points.

Fburg, we had two pinpoint failures -- luckily precisely where the damage will be limited to simply plumbing issues.

Well motor unfroze last night and it was not ground into dust --- the family that rode out the storm in the place shut the well power off when the power went into rolling blackouts. The irrigation cistern pipe blew at the well pump, and caused a huge sheeting of ice all over the piping and machinery --- in short it created a 3 inch 32 degree heat barrier over everything.

Farmhouse was tested today and no breaks. Havent a clue how that happened, but I think the failure of the power caused the water to retreat out of the house and into the ground pipes.

The pressurized water for the rest of the plaza blew in two places --- right where the cistern was input into the pressure/ sanitizer, and right at the output where the water got branched 5 ways. Again, the break at that branch caused a retreat of the water in all the buildings back into the ground, and that happened before the individual units might have flooded. And since the main artery was severed, there was no 'after thaw' pressure to shoot anything anywhere else. My cistern/ treatment piping looks like someone rolled a stick of dynamite into it. But all fixable.

The only other points of failure can be the tankless water units, but they are on the outside. If they are untouched, once we get the main pressure /cistern pipes back into place we can get back into business. We might even have our reserved full plaza ready to go for this weekend.

If there was any other mode of failure I am pretty sure that all of the interiors would have been trashed.

I feel like one of the luckiest people around today.

On top of it, two families from outside of Harper called us when their power went out -- last Friday. They rode out the storm in our units. When I got there yesterday they had already fixed the wellhouse plumbing and were well into fixing the cistern/ pressurized plumbing in the barn. I am just stunned.

Good news and glad to hear it.

well guy coming out to me later today. Won't know about my pump until then.

Moving one sister to Assisted Living on Tuesday.

Other sister has stage one lymphoma - bad news, of course, but the best bad news one can get.

Life is much better for me, too.

As I hear more and more of other people's problems, the smaller mine seem.

(02-21-2021 01:51 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Im thinking we avoided a mortar shell. House had zero breaks -- even though I am absolutely positive we had multiple freeze points.
Fburg, we had two pinpoint failures -- luckily precisely where the damage will be limited to simply plumbing issues.
Well motor unfroze last night and it was not ground into dust --- the family that rode out the storm in the place shut the well power off when the power went into rolling blackouts. The irrigation cistern pipe blew at the well pump, and caused a huge sheeting of ice all over the piping and machinery --- in short it created a 3 inch 32 degree heat barrier over everything.
Farmhouse was tested today and no breaks. Havent a clue how that happened, but I think the failure of the power caused the water to retreat out of the house and into the ground pipes.
The pressurized water for the rest of the plaza blew in two places --- right where the cistern was input into the pressure/ sanitizer, and right at the output where the water got branched 5 ways. Again, the break at that branch caused a retreat of the water in all the buildings back into the ground, and that happened before the individual units might have flooded. And since the main artery was severed, there was no 'after thaw' pressure to shoot anything anywhere else. My cistern/ treatment piping looks like someone rolled a stick of dynamite into it. But all fixable.
The only other points of failure can be the tankless water units, but they are on the outside. If they are untouched, once we get the main pressure /cistern pipes back into place we can get back into business. We might even have our reserved full plaza ready to go for this weekend.
If there was any other mode of failure I am pretty sure that all of the interiors would have been trashed.
I feel like one of the luckiest people around today.
On top of it, two families from outside of Harper called us when their power went out -- last Friday. They rode out the storm in our units. When I got there yesterday they had already fixed the wellhouse plumbing and were well into fixing the cistern/ pressurized plumbing in the barn. I am just stunned.

Great news, particularly because I was planning to head back some time soon. I miss my s'mores around the campfire.

Still planning on doing a family thing with my Mexican "in-laws" some time soon. It's a wonderful place and I can highly recommend it.

(02-21-2021 01:58 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  As I hear more and more of other people's problems, the smaller mine seem.

Same here.

One thing that I hope doesn't happen, with all of the attention Houston seems to be getting with respect to recovery actions/dollars, is for the mid-sized cities, smaller towns, and rural communities to be left out of the extra assistance that is being sent Texas' way by individual donors (or even worse, be left out from state and federal aid).

I'm wondering if we'll see (or are seeing) any specific recovery efforts focused on assisting those in less populated areas.

Hope that past few days of warmer weather have been kind to those posters who aren't in a major metro area.

(02-20-2021 03:27 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 06:09 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  For my next house, I have been thinking that I should build a small water tower, to keep the house supplied when everything else is out.

Except when it freezes, it won't do you much good.

It would be pretty hard for 300+ gallons of water to freeze solid. I suspect that even a tiny amount of heat tracing or perhaps a small agitator would be a sufficient countermeasure.

(02-22-2021 11:00 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  One thing that I hope doesn't happen, with all of the attention Houston seems to be getting with respect to recovery actions/dollars, is for the mid-sized cities, smaller towns, and rural communities to be left out of the extra assistance that is being sent Texas' way by individual donors (or even worse, be left out from state and federal aid).

I'm wondering if we'll see (or are seeing) any specific recovery efforts focused on assisting those in less populated areas.

Hope that past few days of warmer weather have been kind to those posters who aren't in a major metro area.

In our "semi-rural" location in Comal County, the local water company set up water distribution sites - one case per family. Everything else has been neighbor helping neighbor. Haven't seen or heard of anything else close by.

(02-22-2021 12:32 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(02-20-2021 03:27 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 06:09 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  For my next house, I have been thinking that I should build a small water tower, to keep the house supplied when everything else is out.

Except when it freezes, it won't do you much good.

It would be pretty hard for 300+ gallons of water to freeze solid. I suspect that even a tiny amount of heat tracing or perhaps a small agitator would be a sufficient countermeasure.

Some years back, on a cruise tour of Alaska, one of the tour guides on Ketchikan noted that all the houses had a cistern on the roof to catch and retain rainwater. If they can get through an Alaskan winter with those, I would guess the small water tower would be OK. maybe the Alaska native, Big, can tell us more.

My takes on this:

1. This was not unprecedented cold. We broke some daily records, but were still far away from the seaonal/all-time ~100Y records. It gets this cold in Texas about once every 20-30 years, which puts a winter storm such as this on par with a a major hurricane landfall into Houston. Something that is rare, but should be considered and planned for.
2. This was not unforeseen. We had about a 3 day warning on having "rotating outages" of some severity for Monday & Tuesday. Several industry participants were wondering why ERCOT wasn't reacting to the changing forecasts throughout the week leading up to the event as things got progressively colder.
3. Renewables failed. We will need to retrofit the existing wind fleet with winterization packages in order to guard against this in the future. Unclear how much benefit that would have given us this time and who would pay for it. With most wind farms in Texas lacking winterization, wind troughed out at around 3% capacity factor Monday night. Solar doesn't help at all in the winter given the peak loads are reached prior to sunrise and directly after sunset. In any case, it was cloudy and there was presumably some precip buildup on the solar panels as their capacity factor was likewise much lower than normal for the duration of the storm. Without a ridiculous amount of batteries, renewables help very little in situations like this and there we will require a solid backbone of dispatchable power plants until we can build as much as 500GWh of batteries.
4. Natural Gas Infrastructure failed. We had massive "freeze-offs" across the system originating from the production fields. This led to much less gas being available in the ground and caused operating issues for several power plants and pipelines. Not sure if this can be fixed going forward. It has always been a known risk. There is a term called "fuel security". It is all about having the necessary fuel to operate your power plant on-site. This is not a problem for coal or nuclear plants. Several gas plants in ERCOT used to store about 1-2 days worth of fuel oil on site and they were able to burn oil during gas emergencies such as this. I do not believe there are any more fuel oil sites in Texas as they have all been decommissioned. With natural gas, you have no fuel security as it is a statewide interconnected air balloon under the surface. If the pressure isn't there, then there are no alternatives.
5. ERCOT's Winterization Failed. They did a lot of barking after the 2011 rolling blackouts. Apparently it was mostly bark and little bite. To be fair, the affected pipe that froze at the STP nuke plant was only 5 ft. long. These are complicated machines, and it is not as simple as waving a winterization wand and being safe. In any case, ERCOT was unprepared and failed to force power plants to plan sufficiently.
6. This market event was not unprecedented. We had a similar event in 2003. There was more ice in that storm and it knocked off enough load from mechanical failures to prevent rolling blackouts. This should have been ERCOT's planning case, and not the 2011 event.
7. This has nothing to do with "deregulation" or the like. The heavily regulated market of SPP (ERCOT's neighbor) had similar if not worse outcomes with respect to plant failures and multi-day "rolling" blackouts. It isn't politically beneficial to pillory SPP, so it is not in the news. This has to do with failures of ERCOT to do proper worst case scenario planning. Why do wind farms in Texas not require winterization packages? That is a regulator decision, not a market decision. Why did so many thermal plants fail? That is a regulator's lack of oversight, not a market decision as those details of plant preparedness are highly confidential. Why did centerpoint not rotate outages and leave people in the dark for days? That is a regulator decision and centerpoint is heavily regulated.

Good news. Water is back on at my house, and apparently I had no broken pipes.

Driving down FM 306 this morning from the Canyon Lake area to New Braunfels to get our 2nd Covid vaccine. Passed a convoy of three tractor trailers each with a convoy of three support vehicles, Suburbans and F250 pickups, so 12 vehicles in total, transporting 3 blades for wind turbines. Not sure where they were headed as 306 dead ends at 281, but I’ve heard rumors of turbine blade graveyards out this way. In any event, does anyone else find it ironic these symbols of the green movement are being transported each by four hydrocarbon guzzling vehicles?

It made me smile. Where is Steven Wright when you need him?

(03-03-2021 12:08 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Driving down FM 306 this morning from the Canyon Lake area to New Braunfels to get our 2nd Covid vaccine. Passed a convoy of three tractor trailers each with a convoy of three support vehicles, Suburbans and F250 pickups, so 12 vehicles in total, transporting 3 blades for wind turbines. Not sure where they were headed as 306 dead ends at 281, but I’ve heard rumors of turbine blade graveyards out this way. In any event, does anyone else find it ironic these symbols of the green movement are being transported each by four hydrocarbon guzzling vehicles?

It made me smile. Where is Steven Wright when you need him?

And it is ironic that they are such an environmentally decrepit piece of machinery when put out of service. Yep, just bury em.....

Headed out 290 I got behind a similar convoy, but probably new turbines to replace the ones that need to be buried like spent plutonium. I noticed the three S-350s in front of me flipping them all the bird as they passed that gauntlet.

(03-03-2021 12:12 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-03-2021 12:08 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Driving down FM 306 this morning from the Canyon Lake area to New Braunfels to get our 2nd Covid vaccine. Passed a convoy of three tractor trailers each with a convoy of three support vehicles, Suburbans and F250 pickups, so 12 vehicles in total, transporting 3 blades for wind turbines. Not sure where they were headed as 306 dead ends at 281, but I’ve heard rumors of turbine blade graveyards out this way. In any event, does anyone else find it ironic these symbols of the green movement are being transported each by four hydrocarbon guzzling vehicles?

It made me smile. Where is Steven Wright when you need him?

And it is ironic that they are such an environmentally decrepit piece of machinery when put out of service. Yep, just bury em.....

Headed out 290 I got behind a similar convoy, but probably new turbines to replace the ones that need to be buried like spent plutonium. I noticed the three S-350s in front of me flipping them all the bird as they passed that gauntlet.

The ones you saw replacing the ones I saw? More irony? Looks like this green movement is doing its part to keep fossil-based fuels in business.

The person that figures out how to recycle the composite blades will do well!