Valentine's Day Winter Storm

 

In Texas we don't get much snow and when it does snow it's best to stay home because Texas natives have a difficult time adjusting to driving in it. Roads are sprinkled with sand. Yes, the magical melting properties of sand. Basically, everything shuts down until the bad weather passes. When my husband mentioned that we would be getting some bad weather, I thought how bad could it be. We have seen snow and ice storms here before. No need to leave the house with us working from home so I didn't really worry much. That is until I started seeing the warnings. But even then I thought, we will be fine.

We had lots of snow on Feb 14, 2021. Ron made sure our feral cat had as much warmth as possible. Her cedar house with warming pad and heater was set up in our greenhouse. This was her first snow and she didn't seem to mind it much.

As the snow picked up again that evening it just looked magical in our back yard, especially with our outdoor lights. 

Having had surgery at the end of January, I was still hurting and had actually gone for an MRI the Friday before to try to identify a new issue. This was not the best time for a winter storm. At around 2 am on Monday, Feb 15h our power went off. Not good. Did some research and learned that there would be rolling black outs. About an hour later our power flickered on for a moment and didn't come back on. 

Monday morning was all about playing in the snow. Lucie LOVED snow so much. I didn't want her outside in it too long because we still had no power and I didn't want her or any of my girls too wet. But they had the best time.

After playtime the focus was on keeping the girls warm. Lucie has the best fur so I was not too concerned about her getting cold but Addie's fur has been thinning out with no undercoat any more.

By late afternoon, we knew we were on our own. Reporting the power outage did no good. We had no generator and our fireplace had never been cleaned so we couldn't use it. 

We felt completely helpless and by late afternoon it was getting cold in the house. Ron had an idea to bunker down in one room. We picked the room which felt the warmest to us. It was our upstairs spare bedroom. He put a mattress down and I got every dog bed and blanket we had. He covered up the window to trap in as much warmth as possible. We did all we could for our feral cat, Gypsy as well.

This was the night I thought we would all die. I checked on Ron and the girls constantly all night making sure everyone was warm enough. Everyone was responsive. And then we had no cell phone service at all. Couldn't make any calls to find out what was going on. We were completely cut off from the world. It was the worst feeling.

Now Addie was already having issues with her lower back which effected her back legs. When we took them out in the middle of the night, Addie was starting to limp on her front legs as well. Addie was going down hill fast.

By morning it was freezing inside our home but we all were alive so that was good. Got the girls downstairs, looked out the back and immediately saw our feral cat, Gypsy. I yelled for Ron and started crying. She had made it through the horribly cold night.

 A friend of mine messaged me through Facebook from CT. I responded but it didn't show it went through. At some point later that night it did go through and my dear friend became our only link to the world. She contacted the power company on our behalf, told us the bad news and said there are warming stations around. I'll be forever grateful for her support during this difficult time. We all got in our FJ Cruiser to warm up. Ron then drove us around until we could get a cell phone signal. Once we did we found out that all hotels were booked. I called a local boarding facility to see if they could at least take Addie as her health was going down hill quick and they said no, were full. 

Completely desperate, I called a local friend of mine to see if she had any local info on when power might be restored. She did not but she did us one better. She said, I have an idea. Give me a moment and I'll call you back. My friend (who already had 10 plus family members at her place) reached out to her neighbor asking if she might have room for us to stay with her. Her neighbor said, of course, send them over. Even with three dogs, a complete stranger welcomed us into her home during a pandemic.

She was retired and welcomed the company. She made us feel like family. When I think back about this time I am still overcome with emotion. This amazing lady saved us all and for that we will be forever grateful. If we would have stayed in our home one more night I'm certain we would have lost Addie. The second wave of the cold weather was coming and that would have done us all in with no heat at all. 

This time was terribly stressful for us all but it hit the girls extra hard. The lady we stayed with never lost power but we did have to start boiling water. Boiling water is manageable and Ron had a solution for that.

When it was all said and done, our home was without power for 4 days straight through the worst part of the winter storm. Rolling black outs only applied to everyone else in the Metroplex. We learned that we were on the same grid as a significant amount of lower income areas. The last to be fixed for anything major like this. 

Our make shift covers to protect our outside faucets worked. We also had faucet insulators but I wanted to make sure they were double protected. We left slow drips on all inside faucets as well. We were lucky and came home to no burst pipes.

Our feral cat, Gypsy survived just fine through it all. We believe she had another cat to help keep her warm. For living through her first snow storm she has shown just how tough she is.

And just like that, all the snow was gone by Feb 21 and the temp was in the 70's. The weather was looking all pretty like it just didn't try to kill us a few days ago.

This event had lasting impacts on us all. From the day we moved back home, Lucie slept with us in bed every night until we started sleeping downstairs. This was not typical for her but I enjoyed having those extra snuggles with her.

We learned a lot from this experience. We now have a generator and had our fireplace repaired and cleaned. We will not be left helpless again.