Knomad

Minimum Viable Preparedness

2021-02-18

I’m Not Saying Texas is Illidan Stormrage But…

Texas wasn’t prepared https://youtu.be/_p73PZIDQuA . In general this statement probably shouldn’t surprise anyone. The state prides itself on radical self-reliance and capitalist free market excess to the exclusion of almost any functional social safety net. Still. Even the free-market capitalists expect the power to stay on and the water to keep running. And Texas wasn’t prepared.

It turns out the overwhelming majority of Texas’ winter power generation comes from Texas’ natural gas, and natural gas likes to freeze and become natural goop when it gets cold outside. When the power generation grinds to a halt in the middle of a record-setting winter storm, it causes a catastrophic cascade of dominoes to fall. I was without power, and therefore without heat, for the coldest 24 hours of it. People far less fortunate than I are still without power four, five days later. Some aren’t forecasted to have electricity back on for another day or two yet.

I wish I could claim that I was more prepared, and in some ways I was, but mostly by accident as a consequence of things I had leftover from the RV or otherwise had acquired for some purpose unrelated to my survival in an emergency. One of the nice things about an RV is that they’re self-sufficient for up to two weeks at a time; perfect for the kind of emergency the average person is likely to encounter. I had forgotten, or never really considered, that I no longer had the benefit of a 100+ gallon water tank, backup propane heat, or gas generator.

While it’s unlikely we’ll see another storm like this in 2021, I don’t think it’s unlikely we’ll see another storm like this ever. Texans are quick to forget that the polar vortex shifted south and wrecked things in 2019, and they lost power to a cold snap like this in 2011 https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/2011-blackouts/ . Self-reliance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when the state can’t be relied upon to provide essential necessities like, checks his notes, literally keeping the power and water running.

Three is Two, Two is One, and One is None

Famously, the Navy Seals Less famously, arguably, CGP Grey. have a saying: “two is one, one is none.” The idea is that you should have a backup for your backup, in case a backup fails. And it will. Because the universe is trending ever towards entropy.

A related concept comes up in the world of information technology, called the 3-2-1 system of backups. For any file you really care about you should have three copies, on two different kinds of storage, one of which needs to be somewhere else. Back in the day this usually meant something like a copy on your hard drive, a second copy on a backup hard drive, and a third copy stored offsite on tape. Every data center I know of is still backing up to tape these days because it’s ridiculously good at this one specific thing that we all hope to never need and which we nevertheless are almost certain to need eventually.

When we start talking about emergency preparedness, the concept of “two is one, one is none” sometimes applies to equipment, sometimes applies to capabilities, and sometimes applies to skills, but nevertheless always applies. This concept’s going to come back shortly when I start talking about backup power and how to address the challenges I faced over the last week when the primary electric grid failed in Texas, and why some of the most common suggestions for mitigating that risk may not have helped.

Problem 1: Electricity

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

Epictetus

For better or worse I have natural gas heat. It would seem like I should still be able to heat the house if there’s no power. Except without the various fans and blowers that move air through the furnace, this ends up being useless. So even though I had gas to burn Literally. , the temperature inside got below 40°F at its lowest because I couldn’t move any air through the system.

Though it’s something I’d like to fix eventually, I currently have an electric range and oven. Fortunately I had a backup to the oven that I hadn’t even considered. I also have a small butane burner for making hot pot. This provided us with warm meals through the worst of the storm, and my only regret is that I didn’t stock up on more butane canisters before the weather arrived.

Solution 1: Solar Power

I would very much love to have solar power. It’s on my long term list of improvements to make. However, with almost a foot of snow on the roof, it wouldn’t have helped in this situation. Nor would it have been able to keep the house warm as it got dark outside and temperatures fell. It’s a good idea, but it’s not going to protect against the next major winter storm.

Solution 2: Natural Gas Generator

One of the earliest recommended solutions I heard was a natural gas generator. There’s a lot to recommend them. In terms of cost per kWh they’re one of the cheapest solutions to keeping the lights on. The strongest counterargument I have is that the precipitating cause of the power outages was a lack of natural gas at the generating plants that were meant to power Texas. I would be relying on the very infrastructure that failed.

Let’s call those two solutions the Mama Bear and Papa Bear of energy generation. What I’m looking for is the Baby Bear solution. Something that’s “just right.”

Solution 3: Goldilocks Ate All My Porridge, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gasoline Generators

A company I’ve been aware of for many years now, even before the RV, Goal Zero sells what they call “Portable Power Stations” which can best be thought of as self-contained Lithium Ion batteries masquerading as generators. They also sell integrated solar solutions. They’re probably the most expensive way to get into solar power, but they’re significantly cheaper than a Tesla SolarWall in terms of power storage.

Goal Zero has a home power backup solution that consists of a stack of their portable power attached to a panel that a licensed electrician can install which provides power for up to four circuits in a house. Four circuits is enough to power the furnace, the refrigerator, the garage door opener, and one other room’s regular outlets. It’s enough to comfortably survive. The battery stack is somewhere in the neighborhood of $5000-8000 depending on capacity. You can read more about it here.

The Goal Zero stack can then receive supplemental power from a gas generator and / or solar panels that could be deployed as necessary. By putting the solar panels on the ground and using them only as needed in power outage situations I don’t have the cost of permanently affixing them to the roof, and they can be kept clear of the snow that would have made regular rooftop solar unhelpful in a winter storm.

This is the “defense in depth” solution to making sure the lights stay on. 48+ hours of battery backup paired to two different ways to recharge the battery stack if the main power remains out.

Problem 2: Heat

This is where I admit something shameful. I have a fireplace.

Yeah. I know.

Listen.

  1. I never thought it would get cold enough in Texas to warrant using it.
  2. It needs repairs that I put off because I didn’t have a lot of money to spare, and I didn’t think I’d need to use it.

So that’s going to change. I need to have a professional chimney company come out and sweep, plus take a look at a crack in the firebox. Once I figure out how much it’ll take to fix, I also need to find somewhere to store up to a week’s worth of firewood. This is my heat-specific defense in depth in case of issues with natural gas rendering my electric backup of the furnace moot.

Problem 3: Food

I have a pretty reasonable amount of shelf-stable food by deign of being a pescatarian who cooks. Nuts, seeds, lentils, grains. This probably put me better off than many. What I didn’t have, at least until I remembered my butane stove, was a way to cook any of it.

Solution 1: More Butane

My little butane stove is perfectly adequate to cooking quick meals and boiling water. What I need is more than one butane canister. This is a problem I’d want to solve anyway because hot pot is delicious and healthy and I want to make more of it.

Some people might be concerned about using a butane stove inside, and for all the usual liability reasons I’m not going to tell you to do that. Don’t try to heat your house with things that will give you carbon monoxide poisoning.

I feel like I shouldn’t need to say this, but based on the preliminary death toll from this storm it does need to be mentioned. Don’t use a car in an enclosed garage to heat yourself or your house. A pile of blankets can do a lot to ward off shockingly low temperatures. An emergency blanket can do even more than that. Don’t use gas appliances as heat.

With that warning in mind, consider that in many Asian households using a small butane burner to heat a pot of soup for an hour or more is a normal custom. Possibly your house is more airtight than mine. Mine definitely is not, and the draft at every window is obvious. So using the butane stove for 20 minutes to cook dinner isn’t something I’m worrying a lot about. If you have even the slightest concern about this, the safest thing to do is use a camping stove outside. Don’t put yourself at risk for a pot of soup.

Solution 2: More Cold Storage

When the power went out to the fridge I only had a tiny cooler to store some essentials in. I left several things that were in unopened containers sitting on the back porch. A larger cooler is a cheap way to buy more capacity for the next power outage, whether it’s because it’s too cold or too hot.

Solution 3: Mason Jars and Canning

I’ve already expressed an interest in getting into canning. I suspect it’s necessary to make the good pickles, but it’s also a great way to maintain supplies of good fruits and vegetables once the growing season ends. It’s a natural extension of my desire to build a garden, and almost an unintended benefit to future disaster preparedness.

Solution 4: Freeze Dried Emergency Meals

If all else fails, a freeze dried emergency meal can be made with nothing more than boiled water. If there’s snow on the ground then I’m just heat away from boiled water. As a defense in depth against going hungry, this is a relatively low cost way to store two weeks of last ditch meal options that are often good for up to a decade from the date of manufacture.

Problem 4: Water

We lucked out. My boyfriend had a package of bottled water in his trunk for regular drinking purposes. Texas tap water is generally safe but rarely delicious. The water pressure in my neck of the woods is barely a trickle, hopefully enough to keep the pipes from freezing but not much else, and we’re under boil notice which means it’s not really good for anything.

Solution 1: Bleach

I usually have some bleach on-hand because my personal uniform involves plain white t-shirts and I like to keep them looking good as long as possible. Bleach was also a needful in the RV where I had to use it twice a year to sanitize the fresh water system. A small amount of bleach can be used to render water safe to drink, or in the case of a boil notice, we used it to sanitize all the dishes after washing them in what trickle of water could be captured from the sink.

A gallon of bleach is like $5, good for basically forever as far as I know, and one of those things with too many potential uses not to have around somewhere. Make sure it’s the regular unscented kind. There’s a big push now towards “no-splash” bleach, which has other additives in it and which I honestly don’t know whether it’s safe to use for these purposes.

Solution 2: Buckets

I have exactly one 5 gallon bucket. I mostly use it for pool chemicals. Right now I’m using it to melt snow for taking “showers” or flushing the toilets. There are a lot of uses for a bucket of relatively clean, relatively safe water. When all of this blows over I’m probably going to buy a whole stack of these buckets at $2/piece because they’re too handy not to have more of.

Solution 3: Storage

The American Red Cross sells packaged, shelf-stable water. Good for five years, it comes in 100x 4oz packages for a little under $50. That’s a little more than a two week supply for a single person, the amount they recommend for sheltering in home.

You can buy regular bottled water. Observe the expiration dates provided by the manufacturer. If you store your own water, make sure you’ve sanitized the containers and replace it every six months. For the time and money involved, I’ll probably look first to regular bottled water in gallon bottles and then eventually to the shelf stable packets. Storing my own water hardly seems worth the effort for how little it’d save.

Problem 5: The Rest

There are a few other lessons I’ve learned that I want to capture somewhere.

  1. Emergency candles. I had flashlights and I had tea lights. At one point I was using tea lights to melt frozen water. Proper emergency candles would have been useful for general lighting during the worst of the power outage.

  2. Winterize the pool. The advice of my pool guy was not to winterize and instead just run the pump if it ever got below freezing. That’s great advice for the climate of 20 years ago. My pool isn’t heated and there’s no reason to keep it open all winter if nobody can use it anyway. So starting next year I’m going to close it in the winter like they do up north.

  3. All wheel drive. Because of the RV I happen to have a Jeep that still has snow tires on it. The one time I had to leave the house was to buy more bleach because of the boil notice. I still need to replace the Jeep because its lack of air conditioning makes it unsafe in the summer, but I’m now committed to replacing it with a Subaru Outback. Anyone who’s known me long enough knows I loved my pre-RV Outback. They’re capable, and a set of snow chains is a cheap investment in being the one person who can drive safely to the store the next time this happens.

  4. Emergency blankets. The silver foil kind. They can keep you safely warm in ridiculously low temperatures, take up no space, and have no expiration date.

  5. A hand-crank weather radio. I didn’t need it this time, but what if this happened during tornado season? What if this happened because of a tornado?

In Conclusion: A Summary

The problem with calling it “global warming” is that the average person thought that meant it would get exclusively hotter. While the average temperature is climbing, the world is in fact getting warmer, what it means practically for most of us is that the extremes will get extremier. Slurm Loco: It’s the extremiest!

That means that weather like this will happen again. Hopefully not next year, but probably some time in the next five. Next time, I plan to be considerably more prepared for it.

Action Plan

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