Lights Out, Part II
How to survive a tropical storm/hurricane
July 9, 2024
Lights out, again. And this time longer. I’m very fortunate that I could be typing away on a fully charged computer, when over 2 million Houstonians are without power. A few years ago, we decided to invest in a tri-fuel generator from Costco and it sat in the garage for almost two years. Our neighborhood has buried power lines, and we seldom get outages, but the winds of tropical storm Beryl probably knocked out a transformer just a few blocks away. So, I had to move my car out of the garage, and pull out the machine, buried in the back behind bins of lumber. There it was, nice and neat with its dust cover. I forgot how heavy it was until I tried to move it. Then it all came back to me the time when Costco dropped shipped it right in the middle of my driveway and how much work it took to get it off the pallet and onto the grown to assemble.
It probably took me an hour to figure out how to make it work and then another 30 minutes to start the thing. At first it was set to connect to my propane tank, but as the day progressed and from the condensation forming outside the canister, I knew I had to search for fuel. I told Paula I needed to go to the orange big box store to get a gas can and she said, “Good luck.” That night, she was running a fever. I don’t know if it was all the pollen in the air, but Paula was both burning up and shivering while in a warm bed house. I had to give her a Zyrtec and acetaminophen to get her fever down. So, I knew that it was important that I try to keep the fans going and take care of all the animals in the house. All the streetlights were out on the way there and there was a long line when I arrived. I discovered the reason for the backup was that half of the lights were out in the store and they needed an employee to escort each person to their desired item to purchase what they needed. Then they were chaperoned to the cash register to purchase the item. I only needed the one item, a $25 plastic gas can, and got it and left.
The next part of the mission was to find a gas station and I drove as far as I could without getting into flooded roads or ones blocked by fallen trees. It wasn’t The Road Warrior apocalypse that I was expecting, but perhaps Mad Max was more like it. So many convenient stores were closed, but I spotted one that a few cars were parked at. The gas station was all torn up and sheets of plywood covered their windows. Spotting one pump that was not dismantle by the storm and looked like the innards of droid, I went up to and it started to beep like I tripped an alarm to someone’s house. The screen had a red X on it, but I still had to try, but without avail.
Giving up hope and heading home, I saw that there was gas station just outside the entrance of my neighborhood opened for business. Of course, there was a line of cars at the pumps, but I managed to find a parking spot and walked with my gas can to a car to ask if I could fill up my container as soon as someone finished. The person said, “Sure, I’m going into the store anyway.” He left his car and I proceeded to pump five gallons into my red plastic container.
Me getting ready to get a canister of gas. Also, the original Mad Max movie was set in 2021. Just sayin’.
I left the parking lot, missioned accomplished, but also sad that so many people there probably did not have the luxury of lugging home a fuel tank for their generator. As soon as I got home, I told my neighbors on either side of me if they needed anything recharged they could. One took me up on my offer and handed me a battery pack and her cell phone. She was probably worried that she could not get in contact with her children and grandchildren tonight. I gladly took these into the house and Paula hooked them up to a power strip with all sorts of dangling wires. I poured the gas into the generator and accidentally pressed the mesh filter into the tank. Paula came out to check to see what was taking so long, and she helped me fish it out. She probably was really good at the surgery game where you had to remove a bone from the guy with the light bulbed nose without touching the sides: Operation! We finally get the thing to work, but burning gasoline fuel was somehow different than propane fuel. It would go in and out, dimming the lights and then coming back on again. My friend, Thony works to get solar power in Africa where in some villages the power is non-existent. I could image a child trying to do homework at night on one flickering bulb and he’s able to grow up and find a cure for cancer. It was all because of Thony across the street.
Our charging station, one light, refrigerator, and two fans.
There are a total of three houses on my street that one can hear the not so quiet hum. Still, there was no air conditioning, but only a couple of fans. I did not have enough wattage to pull off an entire air-conditioning unit and it probably had to be an installed generator double the size, but I was still grateful. The fence that came down between me and my next-door neighbor was his fence. He was at least reasonable about it when I told him that since the pickets were on his side he had to replace it because there was no way my fence guy could fix it from my side of the property. He was able to call a contractor the same day to repair it this weekend. It was old and over due for repair. The last time a major storm hit about five years ago, my entire back fence came down in the middle of night. One of our dogs wanted to go out to pee and I mistakenly let her out. After realizing what happened, I put on some boots and went out with a flashlight into the dark breeze ways in search for her. She made it back to the house by herself.
When I was driving around trying to get gas and probably endangering myself in doing so, I saw the many trees downed and people out cleaning up their yards. There was not too much damage to homes, but I know at least one person whose tree fell on their house and it caused roof leaks and water damage. I’m fortunate, blessed, to have no major trees on my property to contend with. But for many, this was not the case.
I know Houston in general was not prepared—again. CenterPoint did not have enough people in reserve to deal with the outage. Of course, during a press conference, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was quick to point the blame on them and at the same time saying that he knew it was coming, which begs the question if he knew why didn’t he demand more backup? What they thought was 70 MPH winds quickly became 90 MPH. Now, with the summer heat, there might be temperature related fatalities if the power crews don’t get transformers and lines back working in time. To date, there are nine casualties from the storm because of falling trees, CO2 poisoning, or high-water flooding. We are very fortunate that there was no more than this.
After a day of trying to get more gas by going to Katy, TX (22 miles west of Houston) we decided to walk the dogs, pack our things and head out for Waco to Paula’s parents. We did not want another feverish night and if we needed to go to the emergency room. During our walk we received encouragement by one of our neighbors that other neighborhoods around us just received their power. He had walked the area to see where power was on and from his sweat soaked shirt, I could tell that he had been out for a while. We walked home and finished packing when Paula looked at me and pointed at the lights, “Power is back!” I was so relieved. The neighbor who we were sharing our generator power with came by to make sure we knew and that we could turn off the noisy motor (I kept it outside for the night just in case).
The thermostat read 81°F, and said it would take almost 2 hours to get to 71°F. That’s with the fans still running to circulate the air. I cleaned up a little bit, turned on the television just to watch something to take my mind off the heat, and we went to bed. Needless to say, I slept like a baby and woke up filled with gratitude that the power lasted throughout the night.
The next day we went to the market to get some supplies and there were people sitting on the ground with their phones plugged into the available outlets. The other day, I heard that the Texas legislature is spending 20 billion dollars on expanding 800 miles of border wall in the next 30 years. Imagine if we spent that money on infrastructure, what kind of jobs that would provide in our cities rather than building a nightlight so that people would not be frightened of the creature under their beds. Texas is a very big state with land as far as the eye can see. Is there not enough?
As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1.5 million people are still without power (a million less than the day before). There are still plenty of people in Houston who are in desperate need for power. Despite what the politicians say about the electrical grid and making a better city, it can be done. There is the talk and there is the will to do it, and there is a world of difference between the two.