I do not, in fact, have the power.
You may have heard there were pretty bad storms that camd through Dallas Tuesday morning.
I haven't had power until about two and a half hours ago... about 125 hours.
Warning: Very, very long.
TUESDAY
First of all, I was dumb. I was real dumb. I got woken up by the cats and a neighbor's dog at about 5am Tuesday morning, but I mean, that's not unusual. I came out to the office, did a little gaming, and was going to head back to bed around 6.
I heard a little thunder when I was about to head back, and then the warning sirens going off.
I checked text messages/phone calls/emails for any of the THREE weather warning services I use to see if I'd missed any notifications. I hadn't.
I then pulled up the actual weather report just as the winds really started slamming into my area.
A minute or two later, when it was already hitting in force, I started getting notifications. I peeked out a window and holy shit.
I grabbed Fry and threw him in the hall bath. Pemily figured out something was up and ran under the couch. I spent the next like two minutes trying to get to her. Just as I grabbed and started lifting her, the lights flickered, then went out. Plunged into total darkness.
I managed to grab her and my phone... and then in trying to get us INTO the hall bath, in the pitch black, Fry got out. And when I tried to get him to come in, Pemily almost got out and... I settled on hoping he'd run under a bed or do something safe because I could only get one or the other in there. The wind was RAGING and the house was creaking a little. I heard cracks and booms booms that weren't thunder.
I was seriously scared that the roof would fly off. It's old, and was going to need replacing soon anyway.
And there I was in PJs and no shoes with just a cat and a phone in the bathroom. Not exactly the model of preparedness.
After awhile, the wind subsided. I crept out of the bathroom and looked through a few windows. I used my phone flashlight to look for ceiling damage/water and thankfully saw none.
After a bit I put on jeans and shoes and went outside.
Tons of shingles all of my yard from my house.
Then looking up... the one remaining tree in my yard was uh... angled. Greatly. Resting on the chain link fence between me and my neighbhors yard. It had taken down a big branch on one of their trees and... oh great.. the top branches were tangled in the power wires.
In addition to this, I had a couple of lines yanked partially from my house and laying across my yard, with some of it still attached to my house.
My neighbors across the street had their big tree in their front yard laying into the street and covering one of their cars that they street park.
I texted/checked in with my neighbors, and everyone was OK. I put in a ticket with my city's utility company, though that took about a half hour to get through. I logged onto Teams on my phone and told my bosses and team what happened and sent pictures. I expected it might be awhile til I got power back.
I would have no idea how long that would be.
I contacted my handyman and he said he'd be able to get some guys to help with the tree when it was safe to do so.
I'd needed a plumber to come out for a couple of days and confirmed with them that they can't come out til we have power.
I texted the roofer my parents had used a year or two ago and he said he'd be out the next day to take a look.
Annnnd... then I waited. Ate some protein bars, didn't open the fridge. Internet sucked so I played on my Steam Deck some.
After the Great Freeze of 2021 I'd done some stuff to be more disaster prepared including buying a 500w high capacity rechargable battery, some LED headlamps, an extra phone charger, etc. I could run a small hotplate that I bought off of the big battery and recharge most anything.
Day one passed, the 5G was terrible on my phone since everyone was using it, but that's fine, still no power. Our city utilities has a power outage map that I started refreshing nigh constantly. I started playing Hades on my Steam Deck and sat outside for awhile..
Eventually it was bedtime. It wasn't too bad, though I missed my white noise. Kept the spare bedroom window open for air and got through it.
WEDNESDAY
Day two the 5G was better. I spent a lot of the time sitting outside letting my big battery recharge via solar panel.
I felt pretty genius for thinking that far ahead. It worked pretty well. Played more Hades, the roofer came and evaluated things. Helped me file a claim with my insurance.
I started trying to figure out a solution for the two lines laying in my yard, still attached to the house.
Eric helped me figure out via pictures that they were old telephone and internet lines and were no longer in use. I called the power company, they said they didn't own them and couldn't touch them.
So I called an electrician to come out and take a look. He wouldn't get there til Friday.
The other thing that happened Wednesday was that... during the storm my cattycorner-alley neighbor's fence blew completely down in the storm. And then... he just left it there.
Look, my tree was half blocking the alley, but I was told by the city not to touch it. But like... this guy's fence was laid out in the near-center of the alley. and he Did Not Care to move it I guess. Like my dude, take some pictures for insurance and then stop blocking shit. You Could drive around/next to my tree OK, it was very difficult to ignore his fence. You can kinda see it in the solar panel pic a little bit above.
There are only 2 or 3 houses that use that alley, I had driven down it maybe once or twice in the 21 years I've owned this house, but those couple of houses NEEDED IT for access.
So like, the white truck that I most often see driving by it stopped on Wednesday night, and just picked up this dude's fence and moved it himself. And he was not gentle. There was wood cracking and the fence was pretty much non-functional.
I was outside for the whole thing and heard the homeowner come out and start yelling at him.
My next-door neighbors had their generator going and it was kinda far away (and in Spanish which, well, I am not so good at anymore) but the argument was pretty clear.
Bonus appearance in the pic by my feral friend Peter.
About ten minutes later... they were laughing and slapping each other on the back. I had to leave before it was all over but it was an entertaining few minutes.
That night I went to my buddy Eric's place. He let me store my meds in his fridge, throw a protein shake in there to cool as well. He let me leave my Steam Deck charger there to charge and lent me his phone charger.
I stopped and got fast food for the first time in awhile on the way home. Grilled chicken, but still. I was tired of plain Protein food.
THURSDAY
Thursday it was overcast. But it looked like a HUGE number of people had gotten power back in the last two days so I was hopeful.
Got some well wishes and funny memes in Teams when I didn't make our Thursday staff meeting.
And then it started raining at 10 and didn't stop til 4.
Not a lot got done that day. From the city or from me. There wasn't much to do. I mostly sat/laid in bed. Played Hades a little, but mostly scrolled Reddit and checked my city's Twitter.
Two great things happened not long after though. First, my boss told me that he and his boss had talked and told me not to put in PTO for this week. It was out of my hands, they didn't want me to stress about it. I just got the week for free. I love a lot of things about my job, tbh.
I'll be honest, I'd started feeling pretty low that day as the rain went on and I knew that not much was getting done in the city. Most people who live here have municipal power, including me, so I just kept refreshing the map and taking screenshots two or three times day so I could see progress. I cried when my boss told me that, it was so kind and such a relief.
And then, an hour or so later, the Conviction happened, 34 for 45... it turned out to be a pretty great day after all.
And our across the street neighbors got their power on Thursday night! I was very happy for them, but sad ours didn't come with it. I knew for sure the Tree was the problem.
On the way to Eric's I saw work trucks in my neighborhood for the first time. I took pictures and texted both sides of my next-door neighbors. They didn't come to my house, though.
I left my big battery at Eric's overnight to charge since it couldn't solar charge. I also went to Sonic and got a Big Bag of Ice and a little food I did not enjoy. But the ice kept the freezer at refrigerator temperatures and I filled all my smaller thermal mugs with ice, so I had cold water with no worries from then on out.
By then I'd maxed out my Data plan for the month and the rest of the data would be free, 5G was working great by then, so I just watched the Taskmaster Season Finale and TMAustralia S2 E2... ending the night on a high note.
Until it rained for several hours at night and my across-the-alley neighbor let their dog bark for two hours straight because its terrified of lightning.
FRIDAY
Surely, I thought, today would be the day.
I was wrong.
Anyway, Friday I had an electrician out to the house. The city twitter said that if there was damage to the meter, that we had to get that fixed first. I had also been hoping he could help fix the two downed cable/phone lines running through my yard and all yanked out at the house.
First, he said that my power lines are completely fine. He also took a look at my neighbors who's yard my tree is in and he said theirs are fine, too. He also said he couldn't help with the lines, but to call my phone company. I've literally never had a landline, at this house, he said to try Verizon since they serviced the area when I bought the house.
Kindly, since he did no actual work and said I had enough to deal with, he didn't charge me. I plan on giving him some work later, anyway.
Called Verizon, they no longer operate in Texas.
I called my current internet provider, they have someone coming out this Wednesday, hopefully they can fix them. And by fix I mean just remove completely.
It's a mess. And still Like That.
Well that was a project that took like half the day. At least it was something to do.
When he left, I went to Eric's and spent about an hour working. Convenient since Eric and I work at the same place. We've worked together at four jobs since 2020. Basically my career path is "Eric finds job, Eric convinces people to hire Tori". We met at the first job in 2020. He left in 2006, I stayed. In 2012 he got me a job that we were both at from 2012 to 2018. I had a job I got WITHOUT his help 2018 to 2020, and then he and our old boss got me a job where they were. Then Eric left job #3 and in 2023 got me to move over to where we are now. He also lives like a mile away.
So after working I got lunch, got to keep the leftovers in the freezer-fridge, and cleaned out the fridge a bit. I need to do more of that. It's super annoying because trash day is Tuesday and ours didn't get picked up on Storm Day Tuesday so now my trash can is very full and I don't feel like I can put any more fridge stuff in there. Bleh.
I truly cannot think of anything else that happened Friday. It was in the high 80's and I mostly just closed up the house early (because it's actually well insulated) and stayed in bed all day refreshing Reddit.
I went back to Eric's that night to swap batteries and grab a protein shake I'd put in his fridge and on the way out there were a ton of work trucks in our neighborhood. I took pics. I texted people, I showed Eric and his family, I was SO excited.
SATURDAY
SURELY, I thought, Saturday would be our day for power. The power outage map said all of the big outages were taken care of, there were just a couple of medium sized ones left and a bunch of small ones like ours... about 5 - 10 house outages. The nicer neighborhood to the west now had NO outages big or small, and there was ONE small outage in the north side of our neighborhood now (also nicer than our side. Hmmm...) THIS was surely OUR DAY.
I spent a couple of hours that day out of the house. I met my friend Stephen for lunch and to loan him a bunch of D&D stuff halfway between his house and mine.
When I left my house to meet him it just started raining.
I drove up to meet him in the rain. It rained the entire hour+ we were in the restaurant. It rained most of the way home.
Not much got done in the nearly 3 hours I was gone.
I got home and drove around the neighborhood when it hadn't been raining in awhile looking for work trucks and there were none.
I'd gotten like 4, maybe 5 hours of sleep every night that week.
I was hot, tired and exhausted. I felt very... done.
I looked for work trucks when I left to go to Eric's and only saw a couple of brush clearing trucks trimming trees in an area that had no outages.
I was tired, y'all. Real low energy when I got to Eric's. They were really nice to me.
I went home, got more Sonic ice and cried as I refilled the stuff in the freezer with it.
Pretended I felt fine when I gave my updates to friends and family that night and that all was well. Truly, I didn't feel all that well. And there was one friend kinda snarky, saying more or less that I was soft and asking why I didn't go to a hotel. I was just like... find me a nearby hotel where I can take my cats and OK. Maybe. I'd looked into a few. Then he wanted me to abandon my cats there and just go myself.
No, I don't think I'll do that. I wasn't even whining in that chat, just giving updates as to the power situation in the city and me specifically. Pretty rankled about that still.
But I didn't feel like arguing, I didn't feel like gaming. I just caught up on Hacks, glad that even after maxing out my data plan the free 5G was holding up well, and went to sleep right after.
ANNND I finally slept decently even though it was the hottest night yet (high 70s which still... wasn't bad.)
SUNDAY
Woke up around 8 and felt... better.
I just spent the morning in bed, not really hoping, watching the map, seeing that some of the outages near me had been resolved. Wondering if my job would be cool with me missing more work and now thinking about tethering my phone to my work laptop, or just seeing if I could work half the day at Eric's tomorrow.
And then around 11 I heard work trucks.
Not unusual, lots had driven by my house many times a day almost every day.
But these were close. And they stopped.
Hoping against hope I looked out my back door and... there they were.
The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
I put on shoes and went out to ask them if they needed anything from me. They said nope and that they'd have us back up soon. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart.
I went inside. Texted people. Cried a tiny bit in relief.
About twenty minutes later, I felt a cool breeze... and heard a buzzer going off.
Air conditioning and haha.. my stove timer. I turned it off then went back outside and thanked the workers again, sincerely. I wondered if they were just happy that they weren't being yelled at.
After getting my PC and internet back up and letting just about everyone know the situation, I headed to Eric's one last time to get my meds and shakes out of his fridge and give him his charger back.
It's over, here I am, sitting enjoying the full spoils of civilization again.
So here's a few lists.
Things I'm grateful for:
Eric & family, first and foremost. This would have been a lot rougher without having him to rely on for even the small stuff and he really helped keep my spirits up.
Honestly, the Tree situation could have been worse in SO many ways. It's something I'm still dealing with and will be for a couple of days -- the workers detangled the branches IN the wires but the rest of it is still there. But it fell on the shared fence and not into the alley, not onto the neighbor's shed, not on anyone's house or other people's property except that most of the tree is, ya know, IN their yard.
The roof looks ROUGH, there are a LOT of missing shingles and damage but it's still whole, as in, no leaks into my house. That is a FREAKING miracle to me. I've checked the ceilings and see no damage and I think by now I'd know. IDK if it'll withstand another storm like that but... it's fine for now.
I have good tradespeople who were helpful and I think will do a good job when I can employ them fully soon. My parents really liked the roofer and if my dad likes him, he's a good one.
My neighbors are being very kind and patient about the tree. I am of course going to take on all the expenses above what the insurance will pay for (and will be paying out of pocket for it and getting reimbursed for a lot of it.)
TBH I've been wanting to put up a sturdy wooden fence for as long as I've owned the house. Now I have a reason to and hopefully at least some seed money to do so from insurance.
The weather could have been a lot worse. At night it was in the low 70's most nights and stayed in the 70s until late morning almost every day. Today it's 86 out but overcast... this is the hottest day we've had I think. Maybe Wednesday it was like 88? But not that bad, for Texas this time of year. We could have done without the extra rain delays but... at least the temperature was decent most of the time.
Like I said earlier my house is well insulated so it never got too bad even on the hottest days. Later this week it's getting into the 90's though. Hopefully EVERYONE is back up by then.
I had plenty of nonperishable food and water to get me through the week if I wanted... and more. But honestly, gladder it didn't have to.
Lessons Learned:
Even when you look at the tree and think "Nah it's fine, it doesn't need to be trimmed this year." maybe think again. Of course... that no longer applies to me because I now have ZERO large trees on my property. When I bought the house I had... four. I'd like to plant another one where that one went down and one in my front yard to replace that one I had cut down several years ago but just... keep them relatively small this time.
Had to order batteries for the headlamp Friday. Keep more batteries in stock. The LED Headlamp is extremely useful and maybe I should order another one or two.
Keep rechargeables charged. I mean, I did well with that this time! Also I still have plenty of candles. Probably need another lighter.
I definitely needed to be more prepared at the very beginning. I didn't really take action when I heard the sirens go off for too long. I think I could have gotten both cats in the hall bath, clothes on, shoes on, supplies and a heavy blanket in the bath much sooner. In fact, I should keep some supplies under the cabinet in that bathroom in the future, and maybe a collapsible cage so I can get one cat secured while I go get the other one.
Stuff to do:
Call Plumber. The sewer situation isn't great but it's still moving. That just added to the stress this week but it was manageable.
Get garage door serviced. I didn't realize how much I needed to. My garage door is solid wood with real glass windows and it is FREAKING heavy. It's not bad when it's serviced and the springs are tight, but nigh impossible to open when it's not... and right now it's not. I can barely lift it. And now I can't get it back on the track to lift automatically.
Have already texted my handyman to take care of the tree, idk when he's coming though. May be a day or three =\ I don't love that.
Insurance called like Friday just to tell me they got my claim and are assigning an adjustor, but since my house is habitable and I'm not in immediate distress, I'm lower priority. I get it, but I don't love it because another bad storm and I may be in distress. But for now, just deal with all that.
I need to talk to my neighbors about the fact that I'm going to get a wood fence put up to replace our chain link one. It's time. They are lovely but I want the security of having my back yard fully fenced in. I've never done much with it back there and have shitty furniture because I'm like ehhhh.. it'll just get stolen if I put anything nice out there. I want the security and privacy of a full heavy fence. Gotta find someone to do that, too.
Get the electrician back to wire up the house for a generator.
Buy a generator (and gas cans) to run the fridge, an outlet for charging things, and either a window AC unit or space heater depending on season. That's all I need.
Clean out the garage, for real. This might wait until fall when it's cooler out. I can park my car in it but it's otherwise filled with clothes and just... stuff. I need to do a major wardrobe purge soon anyway. Need someplace to store the generator that I can easily pull it out and get it to the porch next time this happens.
So yeah, there's still a lot of work to be done.
This week sucked, but also it coulda been much worse and I had a lot of people being very cool with and/or concerned about me and that made it a lot easier.
And now I'm tired of typing. I hope anyone who actually read all this had a much better week. :D
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