Austin Area TW Chapter (all gens welcome, even T4Rs; heck, just make it a Toyota and we're good)

Not nearly as much snow and temps were a bit better over here. Lost power for several days and that cost me a couple pipes and a frozen line into the house, but all patched up sufficiently for now. We never lost water, but were under a boil notice from Wed through yesterday afternoon. Approaching normalcy now, but still need a plumber to get my caps and quick fixes made right.

 

Nice nice. I'm glad that's behind us now.

 

Snow shovel! I chipped the shit out of my driveway getting all the ice off with the flat blade shovel

 

Definitely, was quite the FU'd week.

 

Yeah, I've had a couple of interactions related to my crazy demand to be able to legally ride on a 6' shoulder. Invariably, they come from some doughnut stuffing keyboard warrior/minivan driver who hasn't exercised in yeeeears. I wear hi-vis gear, with lights on the bike, and as I mentioned, have a mirror on my helmet. None of that stuff is for me, but rather so the dickheads with short attention spans can see me. I've been riding in Texas for almost three decades now, and motorists aren't getting any friendlier, in general.

You mention looking back at historical maps, here is a very cool tool to see how areas have changed, from 1984 to 2018.

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/

Put in an address, and you can use the slider bar to see the changes. Here are two pics of my neighborhood, at the opposite ends of that continuum. The red arrow is the south branch of the San Gabriel, the green arrow is 2243, and the circle is the 'hood.

 

Rookies... what you really needed was an ice chopper!

 

Touche!

 

I gave mine to my neighbor before leaving Spokane.

How foolish was I?

At least I kept my steel-tipped snow shovel and brought it to Texas to assist with yard work.

 

I brought my ice scrapers down from Ohio, never thought to bring my snow shovels. I’ll bet Home Depot starts to stock them this coming winter. Shovel and water main shutoff tool bundle.

 

we had 4" plus of ice (not snow) on the sidewalks around the house/shop. amazingly no busted pipes. At one point we were using picks to break it up

 

I didn’t drip my outside faucets. I wrapped them in some leftover fiberglass insulation, put the styrofoam covers over that, then wrapped them in towels. No burst pipes, pretty sure at least one froze. I couldn’t turn the handle on one when I went to check it, might have just been the handle frozen.

 

I did the same on mine over here, but after I decided to turn off the water and drain the pipes, since I certainly could not trust ERCOT, that pipe was already froze. Then after I unfroze my house feed line, that was the one that burst. At least I expected that one and had a cap ready and waiting.

 

Yeah, I gave mine away before leaving Minnesota the last time, but they sell them here...

Hey, found you a t shirt!

https://www.aafnation.com/products/captain-merica?variant=28582986186813

 

I’m shocked my CPVC line from the meter didn’t burst. When we first lost water on Wednesday I thought it had frozen. I went to thaw it out and realized it was only 1” down right next to the meter. Dumb luck it didn’t freeze.

 

Finally got water back online yesterday. Four repairs to PVC lines.

Well water is restored, yippee! The pressure gauge is toast, my pressure switch for the well seems OK (50 PSI cut off). Need a new shut-off valve, pressure gauge, pressure relief valve. Flushing toilets: priceless.

I did the boy scout method the three pans for washing dishes.

Hindsight:
have extra pressure relief valve on hand (everyone out stock)
20' stick of PVC. Spices and elbows (keep 10 of each).
Fresh PVC Cement (old stuff was five years old, no good)

CPAP - Jackery 1000 or large lithium-ion battery. I have a small travel one, but with super low humidity got a nose bleed as my membranes dried out. The first night with no power I didn't use it, rest of the week it was a scramble for battery supply. Car battery does work, always worry about battery acid and carpets indoors.

Water Jugs:
I've always kept 20 gallons of emergency water but flushed toilets with pool water. We consumed 50 gallons for the week.
10 gallons drinking, 3 gallons dishwashing, but went through 5 gallons a day to flush two toilets (limiting to once a day).

Food:
Did fine. We tend to have lots of soup and canned items on hang (tornado took out power for six days, canned chicken and beans are edible).

Kids raided our house for food. I kept Mountain House ready for camping trips, Emergency prep.

Dates and Almonds: good energy food.

Peanut butter; ditto in case of Emergency good to have on hand.

My "old school" REI flashlight is a candle. Bought this thing in 1980, used for camping and bike packing then. I still have and a spirit stove. Both came in handy. My camping Coleman was great for small pots of boiling water (coffee and oatmeal for breakfast).

The flat-bladed snow shovel I brought from Oregon in 1993 came in handy!

 

I am well versed in that site. Some of their stuff is ridiculous, but some is awesome.

This - this is awesome.

 

I bought these t shirts:

 

I have a bunch of the Merica ones. Because awesome.

 

That is what we were using. I probably spent an hour looking at lake Buchanan and Travis from back in the 2011 drought. Really interesting to see the changes.

Glad you are driver aware. Be safe out there!

Fellow Ohio (Lil'Texas) transplant? I unashamedly claim to be from the Dayton area.

 

CPAP backup- I used a UPS battery backup (normally used for computer backup) for my CPAP...for rolling blackouts with 4-5 hour power outages it worked well. A couple hours with power was enough to recharge for the next outage. This is a slightly less expensive solution but I will look into a more robust solution.