Eivion 4,220 Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 Hearing how many pipes have bursts made my father happy he got the pipes redone after the long wait in fixing the house up after Harvey. They apparently did some stuff that prepared us for times like this. I am curious as to why the water pressure is low. They put us on boil notice this morning. Glad my brother bought bottled water already before this. Link to post Share on other sites
Raziel 9,075 Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 3 minutes ago, Eivion said: Hearing how many pipes have bursts made my father happy he got the pipes redone after the long wait in fixing the house up after Harvey. They apparently did some stuff that prepared us for times like this. I am curious as to why the water pressure is low. They put us on boil notice this morning. Glad my brother bought bottled water already before this. Because it didn't snow fast enough and with as much accumulation to insulate the ground from freezing, and Texas' water system isn't insulated like pretty much anywhere else it drops below freezing, so the water's either frozen at the source, the well's aren't getting power to the pumps, or water's frozen in the pipes and it's like the arteries of a 50 year old McDonalds eater without the Lipitor regimen. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Robert C 2,161 Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 26 minutes ago, Raziel said: Because it didn't snow fast enough and with as much accumulation to insulate the ground from freezing, and Texas' water system isn't insulated like pretty much anywhere else it drops below freezing, so the water's either frozen at the source, the well's aren't getting power to the pumps, or water's frozen in the pipes and it's like the arteries of a 50 year old McDonalds eater without the Lipitor regimen. Sounds about right. There are also power issues affecting the treatment plants, and a shit ton of leaks from the ice as well. Link to post Share on other sites
Ryan 6,127 Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 1 hour ago, RIPPA said: Tagging does me zero favors so I will just repeat that I closed the other thread for a reason and that doesn't mean moving the conversation here. I didn't notice it in the other thread until after posting this. Link to post Share on other sites
Curt McGirt 13,750 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 I hope there aren't a lot of nuclear plants down there Link to post Share on other sites
odessasteps 14,552 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 (edited) 26 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said: I hope there aren't a lot of nuclear plants down there "Nuke-u-lar" #GWB Edited February 18 by odessasteps 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Eivion 4,220 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 And my power went out after that last post only to return about 15 minutes ago. Link to post Share on other sites
Ryan 6,127 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 The rapid heavy warm up isn't going to be pretty with the melting coming up. Link to post Share on other sites
Lawful Metal 1,824 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Power went out again around 6 pm, we all got really sad. Came back on at 10, and has stayed on through the night. Still no water, and now no internet (using my personal hotspot). Has there been any explanation as to why the cell phones stop working when we lose power? Link to post Share on other sites
Raziel 9,075 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Because facilities managers for the phone companies (and other Data Center things), decided to save some money not putting the proper winter kit onto their generators. Since pretty much all large scale generators are Diesel powered, and you can't fire up a diesel engine cold, when they lose utility power, they lose power too. It's why generators in the North all have heating elements in the starters/combustion chambers so that if it's running below freezing, they'll start up. tl;dr: The phone companies didn't winterize their backups and don't have power either. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Robert C 2,161 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 That's why you put a 2-4 hour battery backup in place, so you have an instant bridge supply available until the generator comes online. And you do a test run on the generator every week, even in summer. Our little (by tech company standards) site has had that in place forever, even when we were in a leased building. Scale might be an issue I suppose, since data centers eat huge amounts of power. Update for today: We've got power (mostly) and water (barely). Still have our houseguests. Kid's having a great time with somebody to play with, so taking them in has been a Godsend. Parents still melting ice to flush toilets, but at least their power has been on for a record 5 hours straight. In-Laws have power but also no water. A friend of mine lost his roof yesterday in the ice storm. It's supposed to start snowing again any minute, but at least it's supposed to get into the 40s tomorrow. Link to post Share on other sites
Raziel 9,075 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Pretty much all Data Center sites run through a UPS system so that it's always running with an instant bridge. The issue is yeah, they only last a couple hours, and if the Generator is frozen, you can hit the starter all you want, it ain't gonna turn over. If you don't have a core heater in there, you're fucked once those batteries run out. What most places *should've* done is fire up the Generators before it got cold and had them running standby. But then you're paying to burn the fuel. And if the roads are fucked, that's a whole other issue as you can't get tankers to the sites. But then again, major network hubs have tanks that'll carry enough fuel to run for 7-10 days on a full tank.... Link to post Share on other sites
Eivion 4,220 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 So what I basically am getting is that all our companies in Texas suck because they tried to save money hoping shit liek this would never happen? 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Zimbra 4,616 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 1 minute ago, Eivion said: So what I basically am getting is that all our companies in Texas suck because they tried to save money hoping shit liek this would never happen? More accurately: they suck because they knew something like this would happen and figured (probably correctly) that someone else would pay for the consequences. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Dolfan in NYC 17,703 Posted February 18 Author Share Posted February 18 Then there's this thread. Capital Y, YIKES. Link to post Share on other sites
Craig H 14,932 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Figured I'd post something positive here with all of the bullshit going on with the winter storms, but Perseverance landed on Mars! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
OSJ 5,701 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 On 2/13/2021 at 6:59 PM, Ryan said: You also barely survived Reagan. The horror...the horror... If you remember the Reagan years you weren't there. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Ryan 6,127 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 My first recollection of presidents would be the 90's as I was just a little kid during Raygun. Link to post Share on other sites
Ryan 6,127 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 3 hours ago, Zimbra said: More accurately: they suck because they knew something like this would happen and figured (probably correctly) that someone else would pay for the consequences. Namely, all of the consumers who they actually hate. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
GuerrillaMonsoon 3,379 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Took 4 weeks off over Xmas. Came back to a heap of spotfires at work. One particular guy had 7 of my clients. All of them neglected to varying degrees, causing errors, financial issues, complaints everywhere. When asked about it, I let rip with both barrels and plenty of evidence to show that the work wasn't done while I was away and wasn't my fault, thinking, OK, at worst written warning and some training. Whatever, management aren't going to care. Few weeks later, he's then announced to the team that he's expecting his third kid. And now today, management quietly inform me he's likely to be let go as the investigation into it came back and exonerated me completely. At best, I feel like I want to vomit about this. 4 Link to post Share on other sites
Lawful Metal 1,824 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Made it 24 straight hours with power so that's good. Still no water. Internet went out, but at least we have our phones and they're actually working. Ready for a normal weekend. 4 Link to post Share on other sites
Robert C 2,161 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Supposed to be 7-10 days before water comes back. Woohoo. Nearly two weeks without a shower. Link to post Share on other sites
Ryan 6,127 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Go roll around in the snow naked after lathering up. That'll do it. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Shartnado 850 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 (edited) 8 minutes ago, Ryan said: Go roll around in the snow naked after lathering up. That'll do it. And if that sounds too rough you can always gather a bunch of snow into buckets and wait for it to melt and at least give yourself a half-decent wipe-down every once in a while until things start working again. Edited February 19 by Shartnado One s too many Link to post Share on other sites
Setsuna 199 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Tanks in the streets, 23,000 released prisoners( some being intentionally released to cause chaos Gotham-style), young students being beaten, arrested and killed for protesting peacefully....it's been a long two weeks with no real end in sight. Not even comfortable writing this but I figure it's safer than venting anywhere else. I'm so tired. Vast majority of people are amazing. Some....aren't. Oh yeah, is Covid still a thing too? 7 Link to post Share on other sites
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