amazon has been my hardware store these last few days. Use what I have, salvage what I can from other parts, and order immediately on amazon as things are consumed (so I don't forget) in order to repair/replace the stock of what I've used. It'll get here when it gets here, I'm sure in 30 different boxes. I am terrified of going anywhere near a home depot or lowes for at least the next few weeks. Bet they make bank though.
Having worked in a hardware store, I can confirm this. Even without an emergency people come up with the most bat shit insane ideas and want you to figure out how to make it work. I wasn't an expert by any means, but I have worked as a plumber, carpenter, painter and glazier...and the average home owner is woefully uninformed about how anything works. As far as people not having food....how the hell does that happen? Maybe it's just the way I was raised (That shit like this can and does happen)....I always at the very least have five dollars worth of bullion cubes and noodles stored somewhere, enough to keep me alive for a week or two. If you've got snow, you've got water as long as you have a lighter, something flammable, and a tin can. Add a bullion cube and noodles and you've got a semi-passable meal.
Over my teen/ adult lifetime, I've tried gaining employment at local and national hardware stores many times. NEVER GOT HIRED. But somehow they manage to hire the laziest, most incompetent dipshits, and women who know NOTHING about hardware, or the computer systems to run the cash registers*. I simultaneously love and hate hardware stores. *Before someone calls me a sexist asshole, I get why they hire women at jobs that predominantly cater to men: the employer is looking for good computer/ cash register skills, and many women score better on that than men. But when you hire some woman who doesn't even know how to type in an item code (and it's not her first day, or even first WEEK), what was the point? In other news, I finally got my power back on; for now, at least.
So did I! You know who they did hire?!? My brother! You know who my brother calls when he wants to fix something or has a hardware related question?!? That's right, me! And it's nothing to do with criminal record for me. I might have looked too good in the vest.
Negative. We exceed their hiring standards by so much and look so manly that they think we're unapproachable by normal people with silly hardware questions. We're discriminated against, I tell you.
y'all this is gonna be a Harvey-level cleanup I think. But for the entire state. At once. Anyone know what the record bill is for a disaster in the US? Because everything is bigger in Texas, and my prediction is this will be the new high bar.
Katrina is the record. Harvey is up there, but the bill hasn't been fully paid yet. Maria is as well. Depending on how you calculate it, 9/11 may technically be the most. We had set a record for the number of disasters in 2020, but that's skewed because of COVID (we had over 56 declarations for COVID, for each state, territory and a few tribes). We set the record for the most billion-dollar plus disasters in 2020, however that had nothing to do with COVID. https://www.noaa.gov/stories/record-number-of-billion-dollar-disasters-struck-us-in-2020 We have a saying that "civilization is three days without electricity away from collapsing". Previous to this, Puerto Rico was the worst disruption in US history, This won't go on that long, but from a numbers perspective, it's going to eclipse that in scale. The insured loss is already kind of staggering: I've yet to see an estimate that's less than $20b. Depending on what all you factor in, the total loss just at the household level could be astronomically higher. Normally, we can flood an area with temporary generation (usually, diesel generators we truck in). We can't do that for an entire state, not the size of Texas. The supply side issues are going to be the target of a LOT of scrutiny over the next few years. I am thankful most of my TX friends/family are safe, and I am grateful I don't have to work this event. It's a serious shit pile, and it's going to have political implications. One of our unspoken goals is for disasters to be apolitical, we let the locals blame it all on the feds. In most events, the federal response gets the most criticism (somewhat fairly, even when the state/locals are fucking around). In this case, that simply doesn't hold water: the causes for this are purely local, and Texas has a literal isolationist energy policy. They can't blame the feds, and the fuck-tarded messaging against solar and wind isn't holding water.
dude thank you for whatever you are doing. Thank whomever you can that you work with, on behalf of me personally and everyone I know, for everything y'all have done and will do. Even the most die-hard, anti-federal government people I've heard from are beyond livid right now with how Texas is handling this, and how the federal government and other states, individuals, and people from all sides and everywhere are stepping up and stepping in without question or hesitation. This is going to have MASSIVE political ramifications. People are pissed and this is why: I have friends and co-workers who went over three days without electricity. Civilization didn't collapse, but they are ready to burn the goddamn house down to build a better foundation. I am in a warm house, with nothing that's broken (anymore) with food and water and working diligently to get work back up and running starting tomorrow (supply line stuff, then open Monday). I have family members who run other critical businesses (like nursing homes that flooded) which are still running somehow and doing their best to keep it going and safe. This is gonna take forever to dig out of. It sucks, but at least everyone is happy to grab a shovel. Except ted fucking cruz.
My kid works at an Ace and the store was closed from Saturday until yesterday. This is where this is really going to hurt. People don’t realize how rural Texas is, and how many small towns outside of dfw/Atx/SA/Hou rely on their local Walmart or brookshires or HEB for EVERYTHING, and once that is tapped, they’re in a bad way. I have family who are 30 min from a gallon of milk and 60 min + from specialized necessities, medical care, etc. Throw in that lots of these communities are overwhelmingly paycheck to paycheck, and the divide between the haves and the have nots is about to get even more clear.
I'm reading Gov. Abbott's request for federal assistance, for all Texas counties. There's a map of the weather with a giant yellow blob over most of the state. The color yellow, according to the legend, indicates: "Common-Happens Frequently" in terms of the temps. Some of this shit you couldn't make up. The issue is the sustained temperatures, but it's not like Texas hasn't seen cold. TDEM's response is costing about $27m for 3 days, and it's escalating wildly, at about $2.5m per hour. There are 3% more folks living below the poverty line in TX than the nationwide average, and double the uninsured. Water and power restoration simultaneously would be ideal, because as the lights come back on, you have risk of fire and to fight fire you need....water. Right now, the water seems to be the more pressing issue, because the damage is still hard to assess while shit is still frozen, and that's where most of the home damage will occur. It's not as awful as massive flooding a la Harvey, but that damage isn't cheap or easy to fix. The guy in charge is (seriously) Nimm Kidd. I've met him, and he gives of a shit-kicker, good ol boy vibe, but he's been through it all and the gap between his experience and the next guy is immense. Of course he wears a 10 gallon hat and boots to meetings, and pronounces it "femur", why wouldn't the guy in charge of preventing further catastrophe look and sound like a cartoon?
never realized until I read this that I am in this position, and how cut off it could be. And I don’t even consider myself especially rural or whatever, just a bit inconvenienced from time to time. I don’t know when we will get more milk. I just don’t. As of yesterday evening, local Walmart and heb were completely empty. If it was edible or in any way useable, it was gone. Fortunately to the T on every place I’ve heard, they were kind enough that when they lost power and water, they gave away food for free to anyone in the store and people acted civilly and took just what they needed.
This is the problem with a lot of the rural and suburban areas: your home is an island. You have to drive everything in and out, except for water, electricity and coms. As that infrastructure falls apart, or as folks get too old to safely drive and move stuff in and out, it's a serious challenge. There's a reason we're the only country on Earth with this kind of lifestyle and presence, and it gets prohibitive to maintain.
If I lose electricity, I’m fucked. The electricity to our house runs the water well, for multiple houses on the ranch. 4 families including ours depend on it. We happened to get into the house that the well was connected to, and I happened to be the most handy in keeping it on. It’s expensive and a pain in the ass, but it was also very fortunate. we are a complete island here basically. At many points my “coms” was getting in my 4x4 and driving to someone and bringing them water while I worked on the well to get it going again. thank god the electricity held. I’m getting a generator ASAP. Money is a resource to acquire goods and right now I need goods more than money. Who has recommendations?
You should seriously look into wind/solar and get a price on what it would take to run a few key things should shit go down. Work backwards from that, instead of forwards from a generator that comes with gas and maintenance costs.
This. Towns whose stores were supposed to get trucks Thursday onward are probably running scarce right now. Fuel too. Our supplies are completely dependent on the condition of the highways.
Texas is fucking weird about how they run solar. short of just buying it you still deal with Oncor and solar batteries will get you for 24 hours at a time if you have two. And they’re MAD expensive. You’re going to have to come up with a way to get your well pump and generator to work together. Mom and dad are on a well and that’s the issue we have with it. We can’t plug the well pump into a generator.
generator is for my house. If those fuckers wanna pitch in to get something setup for the well, I'm all ears. But fuck if I'm doing it myself. Assholes only ask for shit when it goes wrong.
Apparently, Texas' approach to decentralized energy and energy policy is less than ideal, or so I'm hearing. Color me shocked. I'm reminded of some of the windmill-powered lights and radios from literally 100 years ago. Perfectly independent. I'd go that route before looking into a generator and having an even bigger need for fuel. Also, generator usage killed folks in Louisiana this summer at a higher rate than heat stroke and 3 of the 4 fucking hurricanes.