I’m sorry you and your wife have to go through this. My mother had dementia. I can’t imagine going through a disaster while taking care of her. We had to have a new water well drilled while she was still at home and she and I stayed in a hotel. I woke up about 3 one morning and she had disappeared from our room. Thankfully, we found her before she got out of the hotel. That’s when I realized I would not be able to take care of her at home. I don’t have any advice for prepping except the meds are a big deal so try to have a supply built up. Eventually, incontinence will also be an issue, so that’s a prep to stock up as well. 

The case was straightforward. Six people witnessed it. However, the defendant was elderly and the victim was young. The defense, who like in the OJ. Simpson trial was very good, argued that the old man was afraid for his life & felt threatened by the young man, even though he was armed and the victim wasn’t. We did find him guilty of 2nd degree murder, but ended up giving him probation as a sentence. The case was simple. The group dynamics of 12 people making one decision is not. There were only 2 of us who thought he needed to serve prison time. In hindsight the best I could have done was hang the jury. If I could do it over I would do that. However, it was a learning experience that I was able to apply the next time. The 2nd murder trial had some similar circumstances and plenty of witnesses. When the jury went to deliberate, again people were all over the map and there were only 2 of us that thought the murderer should go to prison. The difference was this time I was older, wiser, & prepared for it. Fortunately, I was able to help achieve a better result.  The moral of this story is that if you do serve on a jury, understand that the opinions will literally go from one extreme to the other. There will have to be compromise. How close that compromise comes to your own opinion will depend on your willingness to respectfully stand your ground and convince others. 

Mike, that’s a good question. I was very young (early 20s) when I served on the first one. That one bothers me to this day, and it was 40 yrs ago. There was no question that the defendant was guilty and we ended up letting him off. I did learn a lot from this experience and that allowed me to do a better job on the 2nd one. One of the most important lessons I learned is that 12 people seeing and hearing the exact same things will have vastly different views and opinions when they sit down to make a decision. I was shocked by that the first time, but I was prepared for it the second time. 

Mike, this is excellent advice. I’ll add that parking can be an issue, so plan to arrive early. At our courthouse there is very little parking close to the building and parking in town is limited to 2 hours. There is an overflow lot, but it’s a pretty good hike. Also, we have to go through a metal detector and can’t take our phones.  I’ve served on the jury for two murder trials. They were both highly stressful. Thankfully, they were short. 

Redneck, I’m sorry to hear your garden hasn’t done well. Here in East Texas we’re Zone 8b, so our climate is similar to yours. This summer has been pretty brutal. However, as hot and dry as it is, it is nothing compared to the summer of 1980. The temperature wasn’t just above 100, it was relentlessly above 110 for about 6 weeks. Everything fried. There are a lot of poultry farms around here and they lost a huge number of chickens that summer from the heat. I haven’t heard of any this year. Last year we didn’t even have any days above 100. It was great! My garden this year has done OK. The onions, green beans, and potatoes came in before the heat wave so they did great. The tomatoes are kind of struggling, but they are still producing. I put up a 40% shade cloth this week. I think it’s helping. I planted the Celebrity variety, which is designated as a Texas Superstar by the extension service. I think one of the criteria is the ability to produce in the heat. I planted purple hull peas after the potatoes and they look great. There was even a bee buzzing around them pollinating yesterday. I’ve also planted peanuts as an experiment. I don’t know if I’ll get any, but they look good so far. My blackberries are Ponca and Prime Ark Freedom. The Poncas were planted in January 2021, right before Snowmageddon. I’m just glad they survived. They produced some this spring. The PAFs were planted this year and I’m hoping to get some berries from them later, but I’m not seeing any blooms yet. What are you putting in for fall?

Thanks for posting this. I read this blog many years ago after Katrina/Rita and learned a lot from it. I live in an area where many of the evacuees ended up after having to evacuate twice in the space of 3 weeks. To say things were chaotic is an understatement. It was when I realized how fragile civilization actually is. 

Redneck, thanks to your recommendation, I sprayed my tomatoes, which were suffering from aphids, with spinosad and it worked great! I bought a small amount to start with but I was very happy with the results. I’ll definitely add it to my preps.

Alisa, We’ve lived here for a long time and decided that there has to be a sign somewhere that says stop here if you have a problem. 😉 Actually, I don’t even want to think about what could have happened to those girls if the wrong kind of person had happened by. The most disturbing part is that the deputy stopped and then left them there stranded, in the dark and in a storm. On the positive side, I’m so proud of the high school kids that came out in the middle of the night to help a couple of strangers change a tire. They were awesome!

This is a very interesting and timely topic. I live on a pretty busy highway and a few nights ago during a storm 2 college girls had a flat in front of my house. They tried calling the roadside assistance number on one of their driver’s license and were told to call 911. They did and a sheriff’s deputy stopped, but didn’t help. Eventually, he left and they called their insurance company and were told someone would be there in about 30 minutes. Finally, they decided to walk up to my house, which was definitely taking a risk since they had no idea what kind of people we would turn out to be. I seriously doubted my ability to break the lug nuts loose (and it was raining really hard), but we were able to find someone to help, 2 high school kids, a boy and a girl who lived close by. Also, by now the insurance company had called back and cancelled. Even the boy had a hard time with the lug nuts, but eventually he was able to get them off and change the flat and then they were on their way. They were about 6 hrs from home and had this flat happened a little sooner they would have been in a stretch of highway that had NO houses and very little phone signal. They literally didn’t have anything; no umbrella, no rain poncho, no flashlight except their phones, and had no idea of how to get the spare off. As I thought about all this, I came back to the issue with the lug nuts. I was talking to a friend about it and he mentioned a power tool that runs on the 12V in a vehicle. It’s called a torque wrench and I found it on Amazon. I’ve ordered one to keep in my vehicle in case I’m ever in the position where I have to change a tire myself. Has anyone on here ever used one of these?

Thanks!

Is there a way to read this article without having to subscribe to the Houston Chronicle?

Gorgeous! I hope this is going to be a good peach year. We certainly got the chilling hours for it!

Thomas, I also have a well that serves 2 households. Another thing to consider is having multiple crises at the same time. We had a major well issue in the last 2 weeks of 1999 leading up to Y2K. We thought there was a skunk in the well! It turns out that there wasn’t, but that’s a story for another time. 🙂 Friends and family allowed us to take showers and haul water for the toilets. However, all bottled water was gone from the stores so buying it was not an option. I really like your water catchment ideas. I get a lot of water run off from my roof. That’s definitely an area I need to explore.

Downunder, how big is your tank?

In 1983 in Texas we had a similar event; snow on the ground and the temperature didn’t get above freezing for 2 weeks. I don’t remember electricity being an issue, but that was 38 yrs ago and I’ve slept since then. 😉 However, there is one very big difference. During those last 38 years the population of Texas has literally doubled and clearly the infrastructure has not kept up. As bad as the lost of power has been, the failure of municipal water systems is just as bad or worse. I’ve only recently joined the prepper community, but I grew up on a farm and my parents grew up during the Great Depression so I like to think prepping is in my DNA. 🙂 It seems to me that this current crisis is exactly what we say we are preparing for. The first two steps in TP’s list for beginners are 1) Build a solid personal finance and health foundation and 2) Get your home ready for two weeks of self-reliance. That was exactly what we needed for this event. Just those 2 steps would have saved a lot of people a lot of grief this week. All 254 counties in Texas were under a winter storm warning. There was literally no where to go to get away from it. Yes, there are warming stations, but the roads are impassable. I saw a road crew pass by my house last night with a grader. We don’t have snowplows in Tx. But even if the road is drivable, my driveway is not. It’s way too long to shovel by hand and purchasing a snow blower that I might use twice in my whole life is not practical. Making sure we could survive being stuck at home for a week is. By Monday the temperature will be in the 50’s F with the lows above freezing and hopefully, all this mess will be gone. I hope our elected officials use this crisis to determine what changes need to be made to the infrastructure and implement those changes. However, if they all (on both sides) just continue to argue and blame each other then nothing will get done and the next event will be worse.

Bill, that is absolutely the truth. 

My plumbing is under the house and yes it’s wrapped I also have insulation under the floor.  We are dripping everything so hopefully no pipe issues. I recently had the house replumbed with PEX so I think we’re good there. I also have 3 of the Mr Heaters (thanks TP for the review!) so we’re good with heat. Just now discovered that water is dripping on the inside of one of the windows in my enclosed back porch. Can’t do anything about that now but it’ll have to be addressed when this is over. The joys of an old house!

I’m in Texas and this is truly a historic event. I’ve never seen -7° F at my house before.  It’s definitely been a prepping educational experience as well. So far my preps have worked, and thankfully our power has not gone off. We’re expecting ice tonight so depending on whether that’s sleet or freezing rain we may not have it tomorrow.  My house is not a “normal” Tx house because it’s old…1911 built on pier and beam. Most modern houses here are on a slab. My house is totally electric except for the gas stove in the kitchen. I had it moved so even though it originally had fireplaces it doesn’t now. My HVAC is a heat pump so it was 56° in the house this morning. I also have my own well. I don’t currently have a generator for the well, but I will soon.  This event is exactly the reason I started prepping. As just an ordinary person I have no control over what the government or the electric companies do or don’t do. I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure we survive it. I think this event should be and hopefully will be a wakeup call for people. The grid is way more fragile than any of us want to think about. It’s one thing for us to be without electricity for a few days or even a couple of weeks. It’s quite another if we were without power for months.