Texas82GP's GMT900

[motorheadmike]

There already is a serious uproar. Folks are livid. Will anything come of it? Is anyone held accountable now days? I'm pretty jaded.

I'd like to hope that the lost money from not being able to generate and sell power would drive change but who knows the extent of intended/unintended consequences from regulation (or perhaps lack thereof) that lead to this. Is it just stupidity? Could it really be as simple as nobody thought we'd ever have a winter storm in Texas? Keep in mind, this was not a huge ice storm. Our situation isn't from power lines being down.

People need to be better prepared to handle events like this. Friends, colleagues and family members have been living in miserable conditions for the past few days because they were completely unprepared for this disruption. They need to do better or they will suffer the consequences again.

Admittedly, when this storm was rolling in, I really didn't expect to loose power. The trees in my area, near electric power easements, were all recently aggressively trimmed by the local power distributor. They've only done this twice now since Hurricane Ike in 2008. I figured the roads would be icy for a few days, we'd all hunker down at home and that would be that. I never dreamed of an electric generation shortfall. I had no idea that wind had become such a significant portion of the power generation and that those wind turbines freeze up like that.

Still, we had a generator and 10 gallons of gas in the shed and food in the cabinets. We weren't helpless like so many are today.

Our strategy is to be increasingly prepared and self reliant. When we move 40 miles north of here, we plan to have a whole house standby generator and a vast tank of propane. We'll have a gas stove, gas water heater, gas furnace and gas fireplace. We'll have an onsite septic system. While we'll have City water instead of well (not allowed), my sister-in-law wants a pool so we'll have plenty of water on hand for flushing. We'll see to it that we have plenty to eat and drink.

I hope I never live to see a frozen sewer line.

Natural gas is king.

We had an electrical outage a few years ago. Gas fireplace on. And gas BBQ for food preparation.

We sit on a decent supply of food and water for just such occasions. We got ahead of the pandemic (something something military planning) and fortified our stores the moment the news broke.

Our house has a lot of redundancy for the sump... because that would be bad.

 

[Texas82GP]

I'm not aware of a shelf life for the propane. Vast supply was an exaggeration. There is no natural gas service to our new lot so we'll use propane.

We have a built in gas grill as part of our patio kitchen. My brother cooks on it most nights. It's a terrific asset when there is no power as is the gas stove. We'll have both at the new house.

 

[scoti]

North of Houston in the Dallas/Garland area we lost power ~8pm Monday night until about 6pm Tues. I turned the heater on (small radiant heater) to heat the room & the power went out again @ 3am then didn't come back on until ~9pm last night. Water pressure dropped out w/pumps freezing & mains breaking. The neighborhood adjacent to where the commercial complex I live/work had no electricity or water flow for sewage purposes. We had to fill a 10gal mop bucket to 'flush' toilets @ work & it took some time to achieve that volume of water.

Currently have power & internet access (first since Monday night).

I've seen the memes & read some of the smack talk about Texans being 'nancy's' because of a "couple inches of snow & sub zero temps". Thing is, these areas don't have the infrastructure to deal w/all of the issues. Far too many 'all electric' homes & apartment complexes that need the electricity just to be able to boil what water they can get out of the tap. Rolling blackouts that last over 12hrs? Crazy thing about this storm is the entire state was below freezing temps which is unheard of & there was SNOW, on the beach.... in Galveston.

No biggie for me. My work is across the street & has back-up generators for emergency requirements. There was no power but the generator kept emergency lighting on & the core of the building never really dropped out. I slept in sweat pants under my cargo pants; t-shirt, sweatshirt+ hoodie, & 2 layers of socks. A couple of blankets scrounged from the shop & I was ok on my futon.

 

[Texas82GP]

North of Houston in the Dallas/Garland area we lost power ~8pm Monday night until about 6pm Tues. I turned the heater on (small radiant heater) to heat the room & the power went out again @ 3am then didn't come back on until ~9pm last night. Water pressure dropped out w/pumps freezing & mains breaking. The neighborhood adjacent to where the commercial complex I live/work had no electricity or water flow for sewage purposes. We had to fill a 10gal mop bucket to 'flush' toilets @ work & it took some time to achieve that volume of water.

Currently have power & internet access (first since Monday night).

I've seen the memes & read some of the smack talk about Texans being 'nancy's' because of a "couple inches of snow & sub zero temps". Thing is, these areas don't have the infrastructure to deal w/all of the issues. Far too many 'all electric' homes & apartment complexes that need the electricity just to be able to boil what water they can get out of the tap. Rolling blackouts that last over 12hrs? Crazy thing about this storm is the entire state was below freezing temps which is unheard of & there was SNOW, on the beach.... in Galveston.

No biggie for me. My work is across the street & has back-up generators for emergency requirements. There was no power but the generator kept emergency lighting on & the core of the building never really dropped out. I slept in sweat pants under my cargo pants; t-shirt, sweatshirt+ hoodie, & 2 layers of socks. A couple of blankets scrounged from the shop & I was ok on my futon.

I figured it was worse up there. Glad to hear you are getting through it ok.

 

[motorheadmike]

Thinking of you guys and gals:

 

[axisg]

Yeah, I just take it for granted and don't realize when others are not as well "acclimated" to being without power or food for a couple days. Farm mentality here. My parents would be snowed in for up to weeks at a time in the Maritimes. So it's ingrained in me to have at least 6 cases of water and enough canned and frozen food to last at least a couple weeks. Also we have access to Natural Gas here so like you said the gas fireplace and even a bbq become a massive asset. Glad to hear you are so well "set". Guy I spoke to said his sister moved her office to the family minivan and was zoom chatting for work from the back seat LOL

be well, stay safe ! George

 

[Texas82GP]

Last Saturday, after spending the late morning dialing in the carb on the Galaxie, Dad and I went over to my house. Our plan was charge up the A/C on my step-mom's 2016 Acadia. By the time we got there, my brother had fixed the broken CPVC plumbing above the Camaro Bay (hood end of the car), had fitted the sheetrock patches and had done the tape and float (first skim of mud). I admired his work and started getting organized on the next project. He took Dad in there to show him. I followed and unfortunately noticed a big wet spot on the ceiling which would roughly be over the rear window of the car. Yep, another busted place. We unloaded most of the attic and took up about half the decking to find a busted 90°. It was an easy enough fix. My brother, sister-in-law and nephew then went to "lunch" (it was 4 PM by now). I left the water to the house off and Dad and I moved forward with charging the A/C in the Acadia. It was pretty flat and took two whole cans.

While waiting for it to take the charge, I multi-tasked and changed the belt tensioner on my Sierra. I was careful to by the "OEM GM" part (AC Delco) as the one on the truck doesn't seem to be that old and is making noise. Turns out it was exactly the same as the replacement. Still, it's quit now and that buys me some time. I will likely revisit the replacement brand next time.

Got the water turned back on and no more leaks. It was only busted in 4 different places. We still have a few weekends of smoothing out the sheetrock patches and painting them and the ceiling. Then we can move the car back over to where it belongs.

 

[Texas82GP]

I bet you looked majestic...

So my Panda roll on the ice seems to have left me with two bulging dics in my neck. Getting old is hell. $1200 later, I feel a bit better but I'm not pain free. I'm exploring my options. I say all this since I haven't felt up to doing anything in about 6 weeks.

Today the truck got serviced and cleaned up. I said "come what may. F-U neck." I changed the oil, rotated the tires, poured two 12 oz. bottles of Chevron Techron in the tank and topped up the windshield washer tank.

Then I ran it through the carwash in front of our subdivision. You run it through yourself and then the detail work (wiping it down, vacuuming it, etc.) is up to you.

None of this is a big deal, it just feels good to go from neglected to in good shape.

It has 190,600 on the clock. That's 21,310 on the 4L85E swap (probably the best thing I did to the truck), like 108,000 miles on the cam swap (thank you LS6 valve springs).

The tires have 42,800 on them and are pretty much done. I'm going to try to get another 3-5k out of them though.

When we get out to the country and have our shop I want to build the bare 6.0 block I have into either a 408 or a 370 for it. This 5.3 is easily the best engine I've owned though, so it will be a tough act to follow. I'll probably punch it out to a 5.7, overhaul it and put it in something else though.

I guess that's it for now friends.

 

[Supercharged111]

The only thing that helped my messed up L5-S1 disc was surgery. They did a microdiscectomy and a laminectomy. Basically they cut some disc material out and ported/polished the vertebrae to get rid of the interference with the sciatic nerve. Is your pain nerve related or muscle spasm related? That would likely be a different treatment.

 

[scoti]

So my Panda roll on the ice seems to have left me with two bulging dics in my neck. Getting old is hell. $1200 later, I feel a bit better but I'm not pain free. I'm exploring my options. I say all this since I haven't felt up to doing anything in about 6 weeks.

Today the truck got serviced and cleaned up. I said "come what may. F-U neck." I changed the oil, rotated the tires, poured two 12 oz. bottles of Chevron Techron in the tank and topped up the windshield washer tank.

Then I ran it through the carwash in front of our subdivision. You run it through yourself and then the detail work (wiping it down, vacuuming it, etc.) is up to you.

None of this is a big deal, it just feels good to go from neglected to in good shape.

It has 190,600 on the clock. That's 21,310 on the 4L85E swap (probably the best thing I did to the truck), like 108,000 miles on the cam swap (thank you LS6 valve springs).

The tires have 42,800 on them and are pretty much done. I'm going to try to get another 3-5k out of them though.

When we get out to the country and have our shop I want to build the bare 6.0 block I have into either a 408 or a 370 for it. This 5.3 is easily the best engine I've owned though, so it will be a tough act to follow. I'll probably punch it out to a 5.7, overhaul it and put it in something else though.

I guess that's it for now friends.

I get flack over wanting to use a 4l80e behind a 5.3. But the logic of building once & building HD seems solid to me. I'll have to go back through & see if you have more info on the cam & other changes as I'm not recalling them @ the moment. Getting older does suck.