We knew the forecast was calling for near zero temps at the ranch this week, but the prediction of 5-8” of snow trumped our better judgement. We prepared as best we could by shutting the water completely off at our Seabrook house, loading up on lots of microwave meals, and restocking tequila and wine. Sure enough, on Sunday night, with temps all day below freezing, it began sleeting. Just as we were getting off to sleep the rotating blackouts started. Fortunately, the local electric coop did a very good job of actually rotating. Most of the time we would be on for an hour, then off for half an hour. That was plenty of time for the central heat to recover.
Monday…
We got up Monday morning to another episode of Winter Wonderland. About 5” of snow had accumulated on the ground and temps were holding in the teens. This snow was unlike any I had seen before in Texas. Instead of soft fluffy snow, this was the dry powder kind you normally see in Colorado. It never warmed up all day, and by afternoon the shallow parts of our lake had sheets of ice forming.
When washing out my coffee cup I noticed that the water pressure seemed a little low. I checked the pump house and found zero water pressure on the line going to the cabin and house. I figured it might just be plugged with ice, but as I was starting to try and thaw the PVC line with a heat gun, I noticed nearly every fitting was busted. That was even with a heating element attached to the pipes and an extra electric heater temporarily running inside the pump house. We still had plenty of drinking water and ice for our drinks since I have a separate bottled water supply plumbed into the two refrigerators. However, taking a shower or flushing a commode was not going to happen until things thawed and I was able to make repairs. I had the parts needed on hand, but the forecast called for the earliest thaw to not occur until Saturday or Sunday.
Tuesday…
At about 7am Tuesday morning, the temps had dropped to 3 degrees. The lake had a solid sheet of ice over the entire 15 acres, except for a 20’ diameter circle over one of the deeper spots. In that circle of water were about 20 ducks swimming in circles to keep the water from freezing.
We toughed it out without running water until Tuesday afternoon when I had a MacGyver moment. I have a 30-gallon sprayer tank with a 12V pump that I can put in the back of a Mule. The free-flowing water well that feeds the lake with supplemental water was still running fine. And I had a hose bib connection inside the garage. All I had to do was shut the valve on the line coming from the pump house, fill the tank with water from the lake well, and connect it to the interior hose bib. First challenge was finding the shutoff valve from the pump house. Its in a valve box right next to the house and should have been obvious, but not today since it was under 5” of snow. I probed for 30 minutes trying to find it but no success. Finally, I pulled out my phone and looked at pictures I had taken earlier this year until I found one that showed the valve box. Once I new where to look, it was easy to clear the snow, open the top and shut it off. I quickly filled up the tank using the lake well, drove it into the garage, and hooked up the hose. Immediately the toilets filled up and started working, and both Laurel and I took hot showers.
Late Tuesday night things went downhill weather wise as freezing rain began to fall. Back in Seabrook, the power was off again, and neighbors were reporting lots of busted pipes especially on their pool equipment. The pool freeze protection depends on running the pumps, but with no electricity the pumps don’t run.
Wednesday…
When we got up Wednesday morning the freezing rain was still falling, and the weather station on our cabin showed that the temp was hovering about 33 degrees. It stayed that way all day. That said, there were still icicles hanging everywhere and the trees clearly had a good coating of ice. The rotating blackouts had shifted to as little as 30 min on, but the outage times were still holding steady at 30 min off. We had used up all the water in my storage tank, so I had to wait until later in the day when the freezing rain stopped to take and tank outside and refill. By the end of the day, the ice on the surface of the lake had started to recede some. When the sun set, we had about a dozen raccoons show up for dinner on the porch, including our favorite coon, “Girlfriend”. I am not sure if any of our porch kittys succumb to the cold weather, but we have found at least 3 birds frozen.
Unfortunately, we got calls from our neighbors back in Seabrook that our pool equipment had busted pipes as well as the backflow preventer on our sprinkler system. We were able to get the power to the pool turned off as well as the water going to the sprinkler system.
Thursday…
Temps dipped back below freezing to 16 degrees overnight. It also appeared that a little more snow and sleet had fallen overnight. The surface of the lake had a little more ice than it did the evening before. The best news of the day is that the rotating blackouts have ended. In fact the last outage was about 5pm on Wednesday. ERCOT is still calling for the rotating blackouts, but for some reason the coop that serves the ranch has not had to cut our service.