Texas Freeze

The week of February 14th 2021

It RARELY snows and then stays below freezing here in Texas. But it did this year and they’re calling it Snowmageddon. It refers to the week long collective experience Texans had during record breaking below freezing temperatures. If you were to have been watching videos on social media that week you may have been groaning, laughing, and saying in a long and drawn out breath “that SUUCKS” quite a bit. The power went out. Cars slid sideways down roads. People brought their farm animals into the house for warmth. Others came home to find waterfalls spraying out of the ceiling or a frozen pond on the floor from a burst pipe. Supermarkets empty. No firewood. No safe drinking water in some cases. The list goes on.

Texas building codes don’t provide for freezing weather. There are no snowplows. The state is also on its own power grid, so when the power went out, we couldn’t get help from neighboring states. 

The power was out at our house all week. 

The night before catastrophe hit, it had just snowed. I wanted to go walking in it. So I put on 2,305 layers, Adam put on his hunting clothes, and out we ventured.

Things are so magical, quiet, and glowy at night after a good snowfall. No footprints. No car tracks. (The walk reminded me of the the winter I had to walk up to the BYU campus at 4:30AM in the snow to start my janitorial job. Part of it was shoveling a path to the doors of the building I worked in for the first round of students that were to come in around 6:30. I didn’t mind it, it was a nice break from cleaning toilets.)

The next day we lost power sometime around 6:00 am on Monday the 15th. Online, we were told it would be back on by noon. So we bundled up and shared a space on the couch under a million of Mom’s quilts. But it wasn’t back so of course we waited. And waited.

Still believing it would be back on, we decided to try our gas fireplace for the FIRST TIME since moving here. The temperature in the house actually WENT DOWN after lighting it. And it was only warm DIRECTLY in front of it. That’s when we decided we were DONE. The Marlex’s had power and offered one of their extra rooms so we packed up for the night and boogied on over.

We checked the house every day. And each day took a few more things back to the Marlex Motel because the power was STILL not on. Did we sustain any damage? Yes. We had a water leak in the bathroom from when Adam had winterized the pipes. (Drained and turned off the water to the house so no pipes would burst.) It discolored the NEW GROUT on the bathroom floor and bowed the manufactured wood floor in the hallway. Though, none of this you would notice unless you were purposefully looking for it. I consider ourselves lucky. SO MANY buildings sustained damage. 

Also my indoor plants WERE NOT HAPPY. All three of the fiddle figs are going to get some leaves clipped off. Poor things.

Anyway, we had a good time with our friends. They ended up housing another young married couple, a nephew and his college roommate, and already had their son and daughter in-law staying with them. So it was a house full of twosomes. Game nights rocked as did dinner conversation. (And Marlex fed us EVERY night! Could you ask for better hospitality? Wow.)

Below: Snow is melting, and the power had finally come back on! Home we go.

Thanks again to family and friends who helped and checked in on us!