Check back for photos, later.

Shortly after I bought this house in 1983 my wife and I were visited by hurricane Alicia in August. The eye of the hurricane passed over my house and for six hours before and after drove water through all of the windows. After that I replaced the waterlogged paper siding and sealed the windows better by 1999 weathering several tropical storms and hurricanes without any damage. In 2001, tropical storm Allison dropped as much as 34 inches in some neighborhoods on the east side of Houston, flooding the underground Houston and the Medical Center. Although I had to acquire flood insurance, my home was always high and dry in the middle of the block with water flowing away from the house towards the ends of the street much lower in both directions.

In December 1989, I was alone in the house when the temperature dropped to 7° one morning. We had rolling blackouts every four hours and I was freezing upstairs running the hot water in the tub to warm the room. Finally, I called the police and they jumped my fence to help me light my gas fire starter in the fireplace. At that point, the power came on for another four hours and stayed on. Up and down my street and throughout the city many pipes burst. But my house was protected from that by insulation and I was grateful for not having water damage and pipe repairs. The next morning, I drove to the University that was closed and discovered the landscape had changed to look like winter in Wisconsin. Many tropical plants needed a long time to recover from that freeze, the coldest in over 100 years.

In late December, 1990, it rained heavily for several days creating a 100 year flood for much of Texas rivers. I drove from Houston to McAllen the same day that President Bush flew down US 59 to Beeville to the exam and the flooding that reached nearly to the bridges along the way.

In September 2005 hurricane Rita resulted in a mass evacuation of Houston where people died on the road from the heat, lack of water, gasoline and food. We stayed home with a full tank of gas with a plan to go westward when so many drove north and east right into the storm. A bus fire of elderly evacuees accounted for the majority of the 59 deaths. In September 2008 hurricane Ike is ignored by many and as a result 89 people in low-lying areas who did not evacuate lost their lives. We lost power for about four hours. I wrote a news story about "Surviving Ike."

In August 2017 hurricane Harvey arrived at Houston and stays long enough to drop as much as 60 inches of rain northeast of Houston and 42 inches at my house in two days' time. The water did get high enough to destroy a circuit by my living room and cause a scare when smoke appeared before the relay shut off the power. I had to replace that circuit. I also had slight water damage from one leaky window and all of the water quickly flowed away while 750,000 homes in the greater Houston area were flooded. The costliest hurricane or cyclone worldwide at that time with $125 billion damage.

But nothing was to prepare me for what happened this past week.

When I heard that we may have a temperature of 4° on Tuesday morning, February 16, I began to think about the worst from my experience in 1989. But I was not prepared for what actually happened…

6:30 am Monday, February 15

I looked at the clock from my bed and discovered that the power was out. What I did know was that while there was rain the previous evening that was turning to sleet and would freeze overnight, and if colder, turn to snow. But I didn't know that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the electrical "grid" supplying electricity from many power plants throughout the state, had began "shedding load" by closing down power to sections of the grid to prevent what they considered to be a "catastrophic blackout" if the demand exceeded the supply of electricity anticipated very soon.

ERCOT shut down much of the state so that the many power plants, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, could shut down if they had to, to prevent serious damage to their production facilities or the grid, taking months to repair.

The result was that my house, along with over half of the 25 million customers in the state were without power by the morning. All my computers and my phone were down. Beh's cell phone reached the local TV station ABC 13 and we got the temperature, 16° and got prepared to dress very warm to a house that was rapidly cooling. I thought of using the fireplace and told her, but she would have none of it. Let me explain.

One cold day in 1992, we decided to light the fire place. Beh had just started working for me, and didn't know anything of fireplaces. But I had her build a nice fire made of cardboard, kindling, to start and then asked her to open the flue so that the smoke would go up the chimney instead of smoke up the room. That done, I turned on the gas log igniter in the fireplace and she provided the match to light it. The fire was well-built and quickly took hold with lots of flame. Unfortunately, the flue was still shut and the flames quickly grew until they left the fireplace and were licking up around the wood mantle above, smoke filling the room.

Panic set in, it happened so fast. My little Pomeranian, Jazz, was so disturbed by what he saw, he threw up. We threw up our hands unable to put the fire out. Fortunately, since the wood was only kindling, it quickly burned out by itself. After that experience and having to clean the soot off of the white painted mantle that had turned black, Beh would not let me use the fireplace again even though I had stockpiled not only wood that another employee had trimmed from a tree, but some prime white birch logs that my father had cut for me at the cottage in Wisconsin and filled the trunk of my car to bring back in the 1980s. Those logs looked very good in the fireplace and burnet nicely, too.

But Beh, the survivor of having to live three years in the wilderness with her brothers as part of the Vietcong relocation program where they grew sweet potatoes and chickens, none of which they killed it to eat. Also, four escape attempts. One of them where they paid a ship captain only to be dumped on a desert island with no water for five days. Gratefully rescued by the Vietcong to three months in jail. She was used to hardship and had already acquired a charcoal burner which she set outside and lit to start our breakfast.

At some point she came, dressed me in bed much warmer than normal with sweatpants and hoodie. We added a robe I normally wear backwards, and then lifted me by my Hoyer lift, first to the toilet, and then, to my wheelchair, all three charged to the maximum the night before. And then, she produced a poncho that was suitable for wind breaking and rain to put on me to keep me warm in that very cold house. Coming out to view her on the deck through the windows, I could see she was struggling to cook.

Outside, everything had been transformed by a 1 to 2 inch layer of frozen sleet that was white like snow but actually small frozen ice drops that made all of the roads treacherous and covered everything with the same consistency. It did not go away at all that day because it stayed very cold. All of the tropical plants were now frozen and would either have to grow back from the roots or be replanted. The tallest of the two papayas collapsed halfway down its stock from the weight of its fruit above, landing on the concrete wall behind. Our birds were very cold and hungry so we gave them a double meal of birdseed to their delight.

Unfortunately, the charcoal was old and very stubborn to get going, she had to stand out in the cold, below freezing at 16° and wave cardboard at the base for an hour to finally get them hot enough to boil water for my coffee and to fry eggs in bacon for my breakfast and hers. By that time, the coals were finally hot and my tenant came down from upstairs and cooked her breakfast there, too.

My normally busy routine was totally interrupted. So I started to read the  National Geographic magazines that I had not finished. At noon, I had my usual celery, carrots and radishes that did not require any cooking. Beh joined her brother and sister-in-law at her house a block away where they were able to cook rice and provide them with some Vietnamese food on an outside gas cooker. Later, they drove to Beh’s shop on Westheimer and found that there was power. The restaurant next door was doing a booming business, like any restaurant that was able to open throughout the city.

I read until I couldn't read anymore and Beh once again, used the charcoal burner to make our dinner that consisted of spaghetti and greens that were so delicious you couldn't buy them in a restaurant. By that time it was dark and Beh's and my tenant's cell phones were out of power with no way to charge them. But Beh had a charger for my car cigarette lighter that charged both her iPad and cell phone at the same time. My tenant used that charger, too. After charging, with all three cars having a full tank of gas, I had her run my van for 15 minutes to recharge the battery and to keep it up so it wouldn't fail in the below freezing temperatures we were experiencing.

The iPad could only take pictures because it operated on my household Wi-Fi that was down. While we had been able to reach ABC 13 at the beginning of the day, we could not reach it later because servers were down all over disrupting communication on the Internet. Still, we could call long distance and I called my sister to tell her what was going on so that she could contact the rest of the family whose telephone numbers were all on my computers. Something I will have to correct.

I was very afraid of becoming hypothermic. But when it got dark, there was nothing to do but to go to bed. My backup plan was to get in my car where we could bring the temperature up to a toasty 75° and we could perhaps have better communication to find a shelter, or in the worst case, the local hospital emergency room. Hypothermia is a very real possibility for those of us who are spinal cord injured.

Fortunately again, like so many things, Beh had acquired a goose down comforter that made all of the difference along with the combination of sheets and blankets I found myself toasty warm as through the night the temperature inside the house dropped below freezing and I slept a rather normal sleep turning about eight times to keep from getting agitated from pressure and relieving strain.

7:30 am, Tuesday, February 16

Upon waking up we tried to get the Internet but were unable only to get ERCOT with a temperature reading of 16° again and weather for San Antonio and Cupertino, Apple's headquarters. While still in bed, I persuaded Beh to try the fireplace in spite of her fears. With the help of our tenant, we turned on the gas and lit it, creating a small gas stove in the fireplace. She also brought some of that firewood from tree trimming that Maria, the woman I hired before Beh, had done for me and saved the wood for the fireplace in 1992.

Within 15 minutes we had boiling water and Beh was able to make me oatmeal for my morning breakfast. We started putting cuttings from that tree trimming on the fire and I sat there all day in front of the fire to keep warm watching the embers and not much thinking about doing the things I usually do throughout the day. She was constantly having to put wood on the fire because the cuttings were small and more like kindling than logs. The birch logs that I still had burned beautifully but they, too, were gone quickly.

Unfortunately, just when things were going quite well, by midday, our water had turned into a trickle. Once again Beh got busy and found water from her house and other sources. When the water started to run in my shower briefly, she got a large garbage bin and placed it in the shower and filled it with water so that we could continue to flush the toilet without water. I continued to worry about the pipes freezing. At some point in the afternoon, hot water was no longer available. To get hot water, we had to boil it in a 4 quart aluminum pot that I inherited from my grandmother that is probably 100 years old.

At the end of the day, we cooked a baked potato and more greens, along with medallions of pork that were fried to perfection again like in a fine restaurant. It got dark soon and we spent another night in bed early. But at precisely 1:27 am, to my delight, the power came on with our bedroom lights and I felt the warmth of the furnace for an instant, only to have the power go off, come back on two or three times more, but always fail to stay on. We were once again, thrust into darkness for the remainder of the night. Beh's flashlight running low on power and not sure whether she had batteries for it. But it was another good night where I slept warm and got more rest than normal.

7 am, Wednesday, February 17

With the routine down, the morning fare again was coffee, bacon and eggs. Beh drove off to friends’ and brothers’ houses to get water. While some had power that came and went, there were no rolling blackouts which would have helped a lot everywhere and even the power at her shop finally went off line. Some friends had pipes that burst and flooded their houses. I crossed my fingers that it wouldn't happen here. So far, it hadn't, but freezing was predicted every night until Friday according to those that could get the weather on their cell phones and relayed to us. But promises of the power coming back on quickly didn't happen.

By noon, I was tired of the fireplace and started reading again. This time, I pulled out my copy of Odin Rourk's epic 1000 page novel, Echosis, and began to read. I had only reached page 44 by the time it got dark again but I found his diverse New York characters to be worth reading about and how they were all coming together in various ways by happenstance two form the plot that was percolating.

With evening coming once again, we had salmon and rice and asparagus spears for dinner with my usual wine and cookies for dessert. The third night of cold beginning to wear on me and her. Beh was cold and I was hot. At some point my right leg started to spasm and wouldn't stop. I longed to get out of bed by 4 o'clock in the morning. But had to wait.

7 am, Thursday, February 18

I was up and dressed and we started to cook another meal on the fireplace. We just had finished it, frying pan oatmeal, when we heard sounds coming from the house and knew that we had power and heat. Very soon, we had flowing water and hot water. There are no signs of any broken pipes so far. I immediately got on the computer and started to sort through my numerous emails, answering some and deleting many.

All thoughts of my weekly poem were cast off by the thoughts of my writing this saga of our return to the 18th-century where everyone, even the wealthy, cooked on the fireplace that kept the house a semblance of warmth. The lessons learned from a time when everyone lived and cooked like that. My hats off to them. Three days for us wore pretty thin.

Just as I was wrapping this up, Beh informed me that the ceiling in her shop had collapsed. She has frozen overhead broken pipes. I certainly hope that her customer clothes are not damaged. She was hoping to open the shop tomorrow, with or without water. I did hear at one point that the governor said that if we didn't have insurance we could perhaps get some money from FEMA because he had declared a natural disaster for the state.

My dread of going to a shelter was, thankfully not realized. With only a cot to sleep in, or my wheelchair without turning, and all of the noise making sleep nearly impossible. Having to be carried into the restroom by strangers and generally being uncomfortable, if warm, would be difficult enough. But I have not had my COVID-19 shots yet and my exposure to a crowd like that would certainly give me the virus.

I dodged a bullet once more, so it seems like luck is on my side as it always has been throughout my life. My thoughts go out to all of the people in Texas who have suffered so much because of this inconvenience of the fossil fuel system we are depending upon. May we get converted to a more robust and less centralized way of providing basic energy with a hydrogen economy, coming sooner now that the mighty grid can be so compromised so easily.

Copyright 2021 © Ronald W. Hull

2/18/21