My friends in Austin with 2 cats and 2 parrots and themselves to try to keep warm, finally had power restored after 86 hours in freezing temps.
It's been quite the ordeal for them. They're definitely stressed, fatigued and upset at the cascade of failures with their electrical grid, lack of planning and redundancy failures with the water system.
Hopefully, they'll continue to have power kept on even if it's only on a rotation system.
After living in the Virgin Islands all my life, before moving to FL, I've always had a whole house generator.
When we get blasted with Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes, it's not unusual for our electrical grid to be down for 3 - 4 months, sometimes.
But we're not in freezing temps and snow.
The home I purchased here has electric heat plus a fireplace which I've never used, (I'd have to find a YouTube video on how to properly use it) a huge stack of chopped wood behind the fenced in area at the back of the .50 acre property. After hearing about my friends ordeal in freezing temps, I looked at it with new appreciation.
I may never have to use it but it's there.
After Irma blew thru up here in 2017,
I purchased a whole house propane generator for this home. 10 days without power up here is totally different than being without power in the VI as most homes and businesses are equipped with generators, there.
I truly can't imagine dealing with all they and other affected Texans have had to endure in freezing conditions. Hope they get help and things back to some sort of normalcy, soon without too big a cost of life.
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