Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Trouble in Waco
When I saw that there was snow and cold temperatures in Waco, I was all ready with the predictable snarky "You should see what it is like in Minnesota." That's really not appropriate this time, though-- the storm is especially bad, and terribly dangerous. People will likely die.
In Minnesota (where the low today in Minneapolis was -17), things are built for that kind of cold: houses, machines, people, animals, and plants. That's just not true in Texas (of course-- it is a warm-weather place!), and therein lies the real danger. Let me address each of these things in turn:
Houses
In Minnesota, utility lines are mostly underground and water pipes are buried deep and insulated. You rarely hear about pipes bursting or a water main gushing, because of those precautions. We pay a price-- roads are often torn up for weeks when they have to work on those deep pipes-- but it is necessary for these temperatures.
In Waco, we had electric heat (instead of natural gas, as we do in MN)-- which meant that if we lost power, we lost heat. Right now that is a huge danger, since there are blackouts, and the temperature is going below 10. It's a lethal combination. And if people want to go somewhere else, they will face the treacherous, dark roads. I worry that people will run the car in the garage with the door closed, or light a fire inside or use the stove to heat up a room. All can lead to disasters in different ways.
Machines
Up here, cars have seat heaters, snow tires or AWD, and are chock-full of scrapers, spare hats and gloves, and all kinds of supplies. Not so in Texas-- why would you? I'll never forget watching RWD Suburbans whipping down Valley Mills Drive in Waco in the rare event of snow... and then sliding to a stop as they spun out. Again, it makes sense to buy that vehicle there, in the same way it makes sense to buy a black interior here. But this weather scrambles things, the same way a heat wave does in the North.
People
This morning I went out to get the paper while wearing shorts. I had just woken up and worked out, so I was hot and sweaty. On the short sojourn to the street, the sweat froze. I thought nothing of it-- you get used to it here, the same way that walking down the street on Chateau Ave. in Waco when it was 101 in October became normal.
If I'm going to be outside for a while in this cold, I wear "Big Puffy." Everyone around here has one kind of Big Puffy or another-- a big, unattractive coat with a hood and filled with down, perhaps with fur around the hood. It's what you wear. And it works.
Notably, I bought Big Puffy after moving here from Texas.
Animals
In Minnesota, animals are adapted to the cold. Rabbits--here, they are often Snowshoe Hares, actually, with big feet to stay on top of snow-- find a burrow and huddle together. Deer know to bathe in the sun and where to bed down. Timber wolves, unlike coyotes, have rounded ears that conserve heat.
The cold does a great job of fending off invasive species, too-- they can't make it through a good cold snap. The bugs that eat birch trees, some invasive fish and smaller animals get pushed back each winter by the cold. The problem is what is an invasive species here is a native species in Texas-- and the cold will affect them in their natural home just the same way.
The animals in Texas are tough in a lot of ways, but many of them won't make it through this cold-- they just aren't built for it. The outdoors world may look a little emptier in the spring.
Plants
Every year in Minnesota, we suffer a certain amount of "winter kill"-- and that's with plants that are especially hardy in this climate to start with. Bushes seem to be particularly susceptible, and I suspect that the beautiful holly that graced the front of my old house in Waco would not make it through this cold snap.
There will be a lot of re-planting in the spring, I suspect.
But mostly, people-- stay safe and warm!
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Houses and buildings in the South are often built without insulation. The cold permeates a house in Texas a lot faster than the cold does in Minnesota. Virginia is right on "the line." Some homes are toasty warm on cold days without cranking the heat, while others are frigid, despite a thermostat set at 78 degrees.
Thank you, Mark. We are about to provide shelter/etc. for a family who did sleep in their car with the heater running last night. Pray--they have 22 miles to go on a highway that DPS has said not to drive on.
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