In February 2021, a month ago, the state of Texas suffered through what was described as a "Polar Vortex". For a week, temperatures got down to single digits with wind chills as low as -20 degrees and there was a lot of snowfall. The cold temperatures broke records set in 1905.
The entire state of Texas was affected
In North Texas, we saw wind chill was low as -20 degrees F
As most people in Texas have electric heat, the cold chill raised electricity consumption to alarming levels. The Texas power authorities told us to all to expect rolling blackouts of up to 45 minutes at a time, a necessary step to keep the grid from collapsing.
To prepare, we bought firewood and stocked up on canned goods and food that would last without refrigeration. On Monday of the Deep Freeze, it was snowing, got really cold, and we had 5 rolling blackouts. The longest was an hour in length. On Tuesday, we had no Internet all day and no mobile data for half the day. Even though we had power and Internet the rest of the week, we were unable to go anywhere due to the amount of snow and ice: the roads were completely unnavigable for most of the week.
View from our front door of the school across the street.
Near the end of the week, on Friday, I experimentally ventured out to a nearby SuperTarget that is only 0.8 miles away, a short trip of a few neighborhood streets. There was hard snow everywhere which made driving challenging; even getting out of my garage into my driveway was rough and slippery. I gingerly made my way to Target and got there, but it was uncomfortably icy. At Target, many of the shelves were empty because trucks weren't able to get through with new supplies. Dairy, meat, and water shelves were empty. What remained, such as frozen food, was being quickly bought out by shoppers. It reminded me of March-April 2020 when COVID caused a buying panic.
Empty Grocery Shelves at Target
While this was an unnerving experience, we hardly suffered compared to others. People from our church, our relatives in Houston, and my boss in Austin reported being without power for days, needing a generator to keep warm if they had one, else relying on the generosity of neighbors. Many had burst water pipes, damage to their homes, and a long wait for an available plumber. We had it easy in comparison.
When we were planning our relocation to North Texas, we were prepared for crazy weather in the Spring, possibly including tornadoes and hail. We were prepared for excessive heat in the summer. We were not prepared for a deep freeze! Fortunately, this seems to be a once-in-a-century phenomenon. The following week, temperatures were in the 70s!
Afterward, we've been hearing reports of consumers getting crazy high electric bills (thousands of dollars in some cases) due to Texas' deregulated energy market which raised rates severely in response to the increasing demand for electricity that week. We seem to have escaped that, with a $300 electric bill for February (50% above normal).
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