One more Texas update (North Houston)
I don't normally complain about weather, or for that matter discuss weather. Weather is one of those topics that you resort to when you really don't have anything better to say. "How's the weather?" is a sure fire sign that it is not a 'real' conversation.
Well, like others who have posted here, I live in Texas, a bit north of Houston. We got hit like everyone. We ran our faucets (mistake) to no avail and our pipes ended up freezing and bursting - more about that in a bit. We have a pool so we got plenty of water available, along with a couple large 5 gallon jugs.
The roads were shutdown for the first 36 hours and now they are passable, but it is a challenge. You need to drive carefully and my experience living in Minneapolis MN for 20 years has really come in handy as I know how to drive on icy roads.
Construction standards suck in Texas. 20 years in MN and -30 below and never a problem with power or water. Once or twice the power went out for a few hours, once for a couple days (it was warm and due to straight line winds destroying everything), but nothing we could not handle. Move to Texas and lo and behold, there are no real construction standards that prepare any home for severe or even mildly severe cold dips. The water enters EVERY house from the outside. EVERY HOUSE. The pipes that enter most houses are PVC and then turn to copper inside, but that is not the real problem. Texas builders like to put that water main in the garage area and most times it runs up an outside wall and then through the ceiling (or in our case a vented attic space off the library/playroom) of the garage.
Unless your garage is heated (or the attic crawl space) your pipes will freeze. Even with water running. We were running water and about 8 am Monday morning I had the kitchen sink going full and then all of the sudden, it stopped. Frozen pipes in the crawl space above the garage near the library/playroom. Yee Freaking Haw.
The pipes in that area burst. Talking to my plumber, he said we were supposed to shut off the main and then drain the system on Sunday. I asked him why this was not something that was widely taught to homeowners in Texas. He just said, we hardly ever get hard freezes.
So yesterday, things thawed a bit and all the water in our pipes backed out from the burst pipes and destroyed our garage ceiling and a ton of papers stored in the crawl space...yay!
As far as going to the store to get some water, forget about it. The stores look WORSE than during the beginning of the pandemic. No shipments for the last 3 days. Today the store I went to had got a truck this morning and it had nothing but milk.
That's it for now...just wanted to add my little tale of cold and woe. Rolling blackouts are common, we originally lost power for 24 hours and now we have power but it goes off every couple hours for a few more than that...just peachy.
We will survive and mostly this is a first world problem, but lesser prepared and people living in trailers near our place have been hit very hard and had to go seek warm shelters.
Stay safe and warm everyone...peace and love to all.
= new reply since forum marked as read
for your troubles. 
Thank you!
She sent me a videos and the water is just pouring through her indoor ceiling. She said it was running down her light fixtures and she had to shut off the electricity. She also said that there was no water shut off valve located anywhere, she had professional people to look for one and they could not find one and that her neighbor had to install one in his house.
My father was a custom home builder, I grew up having to help. Back in the day building codes were more strict, now not so much. He built houses mostly in the D/FW and surrounding areas.
I still live in Tarrant County and was without power for over 24hrs. It was no laughing matter as so many of our DUers appear to think it is. People are dying and suffering because of things out of our control.
Regardless of who people vote for we are still all human beings just trying to make it one day at a time.
Let me know if your plumber is affordable. My friend is going to need sub contractors to rebuild the inside of several rooms. We don't want to talk with contractors as they just siphon money from the home owners. She already was told it would cost her $60-80,000. She has no insurance.
I hope things improve for you.
