Heating and power outages

[Ken]

We have two gas fireplaces that will work in the event of a power outage as long as there is gas coming to the house. And natural gas supply is rarely interrupted by normal power outages.

Unless you're in Texas

Thankfully I'm not still in Texas

[ohio jones]

We have two gas fireplaces that will work in the event of a power outage as long as there is gas coming to the house. And natural gas supply is rarely interrupted by normal power outages.

Unless you're in Texas

Thankfully I'm not still in Texas

Maybe not, but nearly every thread ends up there anyway. I think it's a corollary of Godwin's law or something.

[Ken]

Unless you're in Texas

Thankfully I'm not still in Texas

Maybe not, but nearly every thread ends up there anyway. I think it's a corollary of Godwin's law or something.

Texas is a strange place. It is where all schoolkids from K-12 recite a pledge to the Texas Flag every single day after the regular pledge of allegiance. And it is the only place I have ever seen where HS kids will fly a giant Texas flag from the back of their pickup trucks and college kids will hang it in their dorm rooms. When was the last time you saw a HS kid from Ohio or Oregon do such a thing?

[ohio jones]

The Ohio State flag, sure. The Ohio state flag, not so much.

[ken_sylvania]

Thankfully I'm not still in Texas

Maybe not, but nearly every thread ends up there anyway. I think it's a corollary of Godwin's law or something.

Texas is a strange place. It is where all schoolkids from K-12 recite a pledge to the Texas Flag every single day after the regular pledge of allegiance. And it is the only place I have ever seen where HS kids will fly a giant Texas flag from the back of their pickup trucks and college kids will hang it in their dorm rooms. When was the last time you saw a HS kid from Ohio or Oregon do such a thing?

Now that you mention it, I don't think I ever have seen the young folks from OH or OR hang Texas flags in their dorm rooms.

[JimFoxvog]

We have our winter camping gear so we'd be OK, but an extended power outage would cause pipes to freeze. We could close off our kitchen and have water heating on our gas stove, but the oven doesn't work without electricity, nor does our furnace.

I don't think we've had more than two or three days without power and have been fine.

[Somebody]

We have natural gas heaters that work while the electricity is off. The furnace won't work without electricity, though. The gas stove works but the oven doesn't.

We do have a generator we can use if we need to run things with electric.

[ohio jones]

Unless you're in Texas

Thankfully I'm not still in Texas

Maybe not, but nearly every thread ends up there anyway. I think it's a corollary of Godwin's law or something.

Prisoner living conditions & treatment, page 1:

Especially in places with blazing hot summers like Texas.

[Szdfan]

We joke, but 5 million Texans lost power thanks to Hurricane Beryl.

Frustrations are mounting across southeast Texas as residents enter a fourth day of crippling power outages and heat, a combination that has proven dangerous – and at times deadly – as some struggle to access food, gas and medical care.

More than 1.3 million homes and businesses across the region are still without power after Beryl slammed into the Gulf Coast as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday, leaving at least 11 people dead across Texas and Louisiana.

Many residents are sheltering with friends or family who still have power, but some can’t afford to leave their homes, Houston City Councilman Julian Ramirez told [He Who Shall Not Be Named]. And while countless families have lost food in their warming fridges, many stores are still closed, leaving government offices, food banks, and other public services scrambling to distribute food to underserved areas, he said.

As residents desperately try to cool their homes with generators, carbon monoxide poisoning has become a serious concern. At least two people have died in Harris County from carbon monoxide poisoning and fire departments have received more than 200 carbon monoxide poisoning calls in 24 hours, local officials said.

I'm...not impressed with the Texas power grid. It's my understanding that most of the grid is seperate from the rest of the country and that the state's independent streak has led to resistance from federal oversight. Yet as both Beryl and the winter storm in 2021 show, the power grid is more vulnerable to devasting outages than other grids in the country.

[RZehr]

We had a power outage in liberal, regulated Oregon on Monday with 100+ degree weather. And yesterday they intentionally cut power as a safety measure due to fires. And they are asking for a 20% increase in power rates next year in order to pay for green energy.
So I’m not sure we are all that much better off than independent, unregulated Texas.