Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Snowstorm 2021

While this week has been hard in so many ways we have felt SO BLESSED for so much this past week  - for protection and provision, for our fireplace and for running water, for fully restored power and minimal damage to our house. 

Seeing the utter devastation in our own town and across our state has been gut wrenching and overwhelming but at the same time it's been uplifting to see so many neighbors helping neighbors - people opening up their homes and sharing resources and looking out for each other.

I've been blown away by the huge outpouring of love shown to so many people who are struggling and 
if you're looking for ways to help families directly please check out  this google spreadsheet that was started by Sharon McMahon (@sharonsaysso on IG).  People are sharing their exact needs and how you can help them right now. 

I'd also encourage you to check out  the McKinney Little Free Pantry as they're meeting immediate needs which are increasing daily and will be ongoing as people get back on their feet.
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I wanted to write this post because, honestly, I want to be able to look back and remember some of the details and I know this is going to be one of those events that our kids are going to talk about and remember for years to come.  

Sunday we got a dusting of snow and we knew that we were in for a few long days with record breaking cold and the possibility of rolling power outages.  Dave and I woke up around 1 a.m on Sunday night/Monday morning because our smoke alarms were all chirping.  The power was off and we figured that this was the start of the rolling blackouts.  Mason and Griffin both made their way downstairs after all the smoke detector drama (Luke slept through all of that!) and after about an hour we thought it was weird that our power wasn't back on but we said a little prayer that it would come back quickly and fell back asleep.  We woke up in the morning literally able to see our breath in our bedroom.  Turns out the power had never come back on.  Our pool was completely frozen over and there was a fresh layer of snow.






We lit a fire in the fireplace, pulled our outdoor rockers out to put right next to the fire and started trying to text friends and family to figure out who was out of power and who wasn't.  We got about an hour of power mid-morning but then it was out again for the rest of the day (I think we had about 30 minutes late afternoon but I honestly can't remember).


The next couple of days were a blur of playing games, reading books, coloring, etc. We would get an occasional few minutes of power where we would charge phones, heat water, put Gary until her heat lamp, etc. but internet was super spotty and cell reception was awful. 

Dave and I really tried hard to keep things positive and "normal" around the house as much as we could because even though the situation was scary and stressful we knew we wanted to shield the kids from some of that anxiousness.







Having reptiles during this ordeal was a challenge...  one of us was stationed by the fireplace most of the day keeping Gary warm.  While the fireplace did produce some heat it was still chilly and so we tried to keep her really close to the heat and used hot hands when she got too cold.




I brought the turtles home from school in a temporary home with lots of dirt so they could burrow if/when they were cold.  I had stopped at Petco on Friday to stock up on super worms just in case and was so glad I did.  



So it has to be mentioned since it was honestly the funniest thing to come out of our time at home - but on Sunday night we saw our neighbor out in the cul-de-sac building a snowman.  I mentioned something to Dave along the lines of, "look, how sweet!" to which he responded "I'm not sure it's sweet" (keep in mind this was like after 11 p.m snowman building).  When we woke up in the morning there was a very obviously phallic snow sculpture out in the street and when Mason goes, "oooh, mom! what is that?!?!" I almost instinctively responded "I think it's a rocket!"... so begins the saga of the snow rocket.  Mason decided to add onto it to make it taller, at one point Rosie was on the leash and took off running and pulled Dave into it knocking part of it over (and the kids put it BACK ON) and then on Wednesday a truck came down our street and ran it over - twice.  Y'all!!!  We laughed SO HARD about this multiple times last week and it was just the stupid comedic relief we needed amidst a crazy stressful situation.

Here's Mason "fixing" the rocket.  Y'all!!!  Luke most definitely was in on the funny and we're taking bets on how long before Mason is reminiscing about snowmageddon and makes the connection.  TOO FUNNY!


As far as sleeping went, we all snuggled up on the couch/nugget in front of the fireplace with lots of blankets.  Dogs, cat, kids... the more body heat the better.  Never been more grateful for that giant dog butt than I was last week!


Thankfully I had been to the grocery store on Friday and stocked up on things that we could eat without power (cheese, crackers, deli turkey, apples, etc.) and we ended up keeping  a lot of it out here since it was way colder than our fridge...
 

... and all that cereal on the ground is because there were birds everywhere and I was panicked that they were all going to starve and die.

We reheated biscuits in a cast iron skillet in our fireplace which was an adventure and put hot chocolate in thermoses when we did have power so the kids could have something warm to drink later.

Monday and Tuesday we didn't let the kids go outside except for a couple of minutes to take Rosie out because it was just so cold and we weren't confident that we would have a way to get them warm again.  I mean....



The power came on mid-morning on Wednesday and we did the "scramble" that we had been doing over the previous few days when we'd get random 15 minute spurts of power... plugging things in, heating water, putting Gary under her warming light, WARMING UP FOOD... all those glorious things you take for granted.

After about an hour and a half we got super hopeful that it was going to stay on for a little more time and decided to head outside and let the kids play for a little bit since we would get to come back to a warm(er) house. 

It was the BEST TIME!!! 








Not the best picture below but look how deep the snow is!?!?!?!



We came back from sledding to power STILL BEING ON and Dave and I both did a little happy dance.  We were able to check in with friends who we hadn't been able to communicate with (cell towers were doing weird things without power), make sure the animals were all warm and make another hot meal. 

I refrained from cleaning up the family room where we'd all been hanging out just because I felt like the minute I did that the power would be back out again but that night our house was a TOASTY 63 degrees (we were trying to not use too much power) and everyone slept in their own beds and even though we were exhausted Dave and I both laid in bed until after 1 a.m. essentially waiting for the bottom to drop out.


Thursday we worked on getting our house put back together, helped out a few friends who had pipes burst and flooding in their homes, and met up with friends to sled their hill...


So glad that the kids got to have some fun times with friends after some crazy days.



Things started to thaw out a bit on Friday and we were able to check out the ice on the pool.  This will never not be crazy to me...





A few random thoughts...

I think one of the most difficult parts for me was the lack of communication.  Texts/calls wouldn't go out for hours and hours, we had no way of checking info on the internet and generally just felt really cut off.  We were grateful for the times we did have internet/data but they were few and far between and it was much spottier on Tuesday than Monday.

We had so many offers from friends to abandon ship and come stay with them (seriously... I was half expecting a few people to show up at our door and haul us out by force - hahaha) but we felt like we were stuck in between a rock and a hard place because we wanted to be at home in case a pipe burst and we needed to get the water shut off quickly (we didn't want to shut it off proactively because that can cause other issues).  With the spotty communication we really didn't want to leave one of us alone here at the house either - no decision really felt great, you know? 

Since our house is older our hot water heaters are still the big, gas-powered tanks and so thankfully we had hot water most of the time.  We didn't have it when a few of the hot water pipes froze and when it was running through our showers again we were hesitant to use it because if getting out of the shower on a regular morning is bad enough imagine stepping out of a hot shower into an actually freezing bathroom.  I will say that with it being as cold as it was in our house even being able to run just your hands under hot water for a minute or so was great.  So grateful for hot water!

SO MANY of y'all have asked about my parents and Dave's grandmothers which is the absolute kindest thing.  Dave's parents and grandmothers never lost power (PRAISE JESUS) and my parents were on a "rolling" schedule that they could pretty much set their watches by.  I believe they were 15 minutes off and 30 minutes on for Monday - Wednesday.  THANK YOU so much for asking about them!

Our school sustained a pretty significant amount of damage from burst pipes (this generally happens when pipes start thawing) and Dave and I ran up there over the weekend to help clean up some damage that was already done and prepare my classroom (and a few others) just in case more pipes burst.  


I've been asked a few times about what we did to prepare and what we had that was helpful and the most helpful things were a few battery-operated LED lanterns (since it gets dark early we had some major time to kill in between sunset and kids getting tired) and a really good power bank.  I charged the power bank on Saturday and it had enough charge to keep my phone and Dave's phone charged pretty much the whole time.  It's something that we'll keep charged and ready from now on and I've actually ordered a second one to have ready just in case.  

I had read that having a tent inside your house could help keep body heat in and keep everyone toasty and I bought one to use but we didn't end up getting it out.  Since we all slept together and had lots of blankets we were fine but if my kids had been younger that's something I think we definitely would have used. 

I bought a big package of hot hands last year and they came in SO HANDY for keeping kids and reptiles warm!  I've already ordered a second bulk box to have on hand.

The other things that I feel like were super beneficial were good blankets (Saranoni and Rumpl), good coats and hats.

We're throwing around the idea of a generator around as well as researching ways to actually blow heat from our gas fireplace.  We will probably buy some sort of camp stove as well as a filtered water pitcher and I've already ordered multiple pairs of gloves because there's nothing like having to wear socks on your hands when you play in the snow.

I also ordered a snow shovel from Amazon so if it's anything like my purchase of sleds YEARS ago that means we won't have snow until at least 2026 :)

Whew.  That was a lot.  

Again, from the bottom of my heart I can't thank you enough for all of the kind messages this past week checking in our family - it means the world to me that so many people are so thoughtful and empathetic and the love that we've felt this past week will go down in the memory books right alongside the crazy ice and snow.  THANK YOU!

31 comments :

  1. Thank you so much for your transparency and for speaking from your heart. While praying for all the big concerns across Texas, I'm also praying that your pool is okay so you can enjoy it this summer with the kids!

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    1. Thank you so much! It's an inconvenience but so minor in the grand scheme of things.

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  2. I am so sorry. I love how you took care of the reptiles. That tells me a lot about your character! We have had several times like that as well - horrid ice storm and a few years ago, massive flooding in our area. The kids will NOT forget!

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    1. I definitely think they'll be talking about this well into adulthood! I will say that keeping the reptiles warm wasn't something I had even really thought about logistically beforehand but was a huge issue for lots of people - so glad that they're safe and warm!

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  3. The snow rocket has me cracking up! I’m so sorry your family had to endure that. Our only hardship was having to boil our water; I have a bit on “survivors guilt.” And also mom guilt...on one hand I felt like I needed to make the experience fun for my kiddo, but on the other hand I was so overwhelmed just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

    For us Texans, I feel like being prepared is tricky. We could buy hundreds of dollars of gear and then never use it. I hate trying to find storage room for truly unnecessary stuff.

    Will you link the power bank?

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    1. Agreed!!! I mean - I bought those sleds like 7 years ago and this is the first time we've ever touched them! I don't think you need to have survivor's guilt at all - we were never under a boil notice and I felt so bad for those of y'all who were!

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  4. Thanks for sharing your experience. Every time you were able to make a post, I would pray for your family and others. I live in AR near Memphis and we got a foot of snow and that is definitely rare. My husband and I are making a list of things to buy also to have on hand. We both feel like this will be the year of tornadoes.
    We’re getting a generator and another container of an emergency food kit. Need to add the hot hands and charging station. Thanks for those ideas.

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    1. I'm not ready to talk about tornadoes! What kind of generator are you getting?

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    2. We are in the Memphis area as well and didn't lose power but now have water boil in effect. As northerners transplanted south, a lot of our prep gear has always been for cold weather in upstate NY so we had shovels, adequate winter outerwear, etc. Since moving south, we experience way more power outages and have a small portable generator and two of those power chargers, which we keep in our cars because they can jump the car battery. The small generator's been enough to run our fridge and deep freezer in the summer outages but after this, we want to install a whole house natural gas generator. We would've been able to run our gas furnace on the generator we had but we would've been filling it frequently. I put on my list the bathtub water holder so that we're not just simply filling our tub.

      https://smile.amazon.com/WaterBOB-Emergency-Container-Drinking-Hurricane/dp/B001AXLUX2/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=bathtub+plastic+water&qid=1614109204&sr=8-2

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  5. So glad things are better now, or getting there, at least. I was praying for all my Texas friends last week and was trying to keep up with how y'all were doing. What a crazy, unforgettable time...I saw a meme last week that said, "I don't know about you, but I am ready for some precedented times." I'm sure you would agree with that statement! Take care!

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  6. I was praying for your family and all my Texas "friends" all last week. Thank you for checking in and updating us as often as you could. Your kids will have the best memories of this bc you handled it so well. Glad that the sun is shining and things are looking up!

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    1. Thank you so much! I definitely had a good cry a couple of times but I think as parents we just had to "rally" for our kids. SO GLAD THE SUN IS SHINING!!!

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  7. Last week was such a mess. I’m so glad we all survived it.

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  8. I was praying for all of you in Dallas. We were watching the news and it looked really bad. We live about 15 minutes outside of Houston and were experiencing some of the same but our temps did not get as low as yours. We only lost power for about 24 hours and thankfully with our gas fireplace were able to stay very warm. My kids are grown but can not imagine trying to keep kids warm and entertained at the same time. I have several Barefoot Dreams blankets and they kept us very warm. I have been looking at the Saranoni blankets and want to buy a couple of them. Which ones do you recommend? I have been looking at the XL blankets, but there are so many different types. After last week my husband could care less how many throws I buy?!

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    1. We love the XL Lush blankets. If you love a weighted blanket theres are AMAZING!!!

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    2. Thank you.....I'm buying one right now!

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  9. Thanks for sharing! I've been wondering how all the Texas bloggers I follow survived. Can you link that power bank? Cause girl - for it to last that long! Impressive

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    1. Here's the one we have:
      https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JIWQPMW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

      Keep in mind that we really limited our phone use! But it will charge an iPhone I believe 6 times (and fast!). It's great!

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  10. Thank you for the honest update. But I had to laugh - I live in Wisconsin and we set our heat at 63 at night and 65 during the day! What do you normally set your heat at?

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    1. We normally keep it around 64/65 but after the past few days I totally wanted to crank it way up so that when the power went out again it didn't get so cold so fast :)

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    2. Oh my gosh, I would freeze with those temps! I set my heat to 68 or 69 and I want to go higher but trying to be frugal! (I'm in Georgia)

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  11. Thank you for processing your own thoughts and experiences and writing it for us to read! My family and I live in Rockwall and our experience was similar. I haven't wanted to process it all or even look back but reading your experience helped me realize how it's so needed for my own sanity/healing but also as I help my kids (2 and 5) remember how God was with us every step of the way!

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  12. Thanks for sharing this. We are in Houston, and our temperatures weren't quite as low as yours. But the "rolling blackouts" were really a joke. Most people down here lost theirs for 24-72 hours. We were lucky with only about 12 hours total. It was overwhelming, stressful and draining. Even though we didn't have much damage (a pool leak), it is draining just worrying about pipes freezing, family members, etc. And I totally understand staying in your own house too. We waited til the last possible moment to evacuate for Hurr. Harvey because we had two big dogs, one of whom was elderly. I'm so glad the snowmageddon week is over! <3

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  13. Could you please link to similar lanterns and power banks? I live in Florida so snow is very unlikely but they would be great to have when we lose power in a hurricane! Thanks! Kristen

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    1. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ozark-Trail-200-Lumen-LED-Lantern-4-AA-Batteries-Not-Included/55443504

      I have these I bought last winter at Walmart during a power outage. They came in handy again last week.

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  14. This made me tear up reading this thinking of the stress of wanting to take care of your family but not freak out the kids! Thanks for sharing - so glad y’all are ok. Praying for Texas!

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  15. I’m so glad you all came out relatively unscathed. Phew! Here in Seattle in 1993 we had the Inauguration Day storm and were out power for a week. I know that thing about hot water, and I remember the shaving gel in the shower being almost frozen. We finally gave in when it was in the 30’s inside and the 50’s outside, as it had warmed up...but good insulation was keeping our house the same temp - slept over at my parents and came home to take care of pets and shower for work. We really do rely on that electricity!

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  16. I've lived in TX my entire life and this was for sure an adventure! Praise the Lord we had a generator and no damage! We actually did put our older two kids in a tent (together) over night to help retain their body heat even though we originally got it out just to keep them busy! YES to all the blankets (so many handmade quilts and I'm so thankful my mother in law likes to quilt!) I agree that the hardest/strangest part was not being able to communicate. I couldn't even check the weather and that was so SO hard for me!

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  17. I was checking all of the blogs of the Texas bloggers I follow all last week (and Instagram). I live in Wisconsin where we are accustomed to those low temps, but I can't imagine getting through those temps without power. I was praying for all of you!

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  18. Yes to the generator. We have one here in South Carolina in case we get another major hurricane. We haven't needed it since we bought it but it is so nice to have peace of mind in case that time comes. I think it would be a wise decision to get one. So glad y'all survived with minimal damage. Good job as parents to "keep your cool" too.

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