Grocery situation in Austin and Central Texas is pretty rocky. Trucks can't get to the stores. Nearly half the HEB stores in Austin were closed earlier this week, by a combination of no electricity, no water and nothing to sell. Some stores were limiting purchases to no more than 14 items. A disaster is serious when it can bring HEB to its knees. Stores still open have been stripped bare. No shortages except of anything to buy. Lines to get into Aldi in Pflugerville were 15 minutes long, while lines for Costco were an hour long. An hour wait, just to get into a store with no guarantee of any food. There were stories on local media earlier this week about lines at HEB stores being four hours long. People were shopping for water and anything to eat. Trucks simply could not get to supermarkets because the highways were impassable.
My wife and I were astonished. Really? Can't keep a case of water in the back bedroom? Couple of boxes of Pop Tarts? Cans of soup? Vienna sausages? There are things all through a supermarket that can be stored and eaten dry or cold. Just couldn't buy a bag of rice or beans? Many people were just helpless in the face of a breakdown in the food distribution system. Again, with feeling, many people were helpless in the face of a breakdown in the food distribution system. This fact is something to consider going forward. This fact has huge ramifications for those of us who had prepared for events of this nature.
We prepped for an extended lockdown back when we were getting for the pandemic, but our preps worked just as well for this natural disaster. We had no lights and the house was cold, but we still had gas and water. The meals were simple but hot and tasty. Bowl of pinto beans and cornbread. Eggs and bacon. Chicken leg quarter and Rice-A-Roni. We were prepared to melt snow if the water died, which it did for many people. The lines of helpless people at the supermarkets surprised and disheartened us. People seemed shocked and surprised that the supermarket didn't have any food and wasn't going to be getting any more until the roads cleared, which was today in Austin. Snow here still hasn't melted in many places.
We'll be adding a generator to our household. That would have been nice for a space heater in the living room and for some light. We were bored because it was dark, and we couldn't read. We had two phones and an iPad, so we could communicate and see what was happening in the world. But the house stayed too dark to read, which was annoying.
The freezers and refrigerators stayed cold, even with no electricity. The house was cold, probably between 35-40 Tuesday morning, while the temp outside was 7. The power was off for about 60 hours here in our neighborhood. Nothing in the two freezers even started to thaw. The refrigerator freezer still had ice cubes in the bin. The weather was cold, and the freezers would have been a problem in the summer months, but we were very pleased. A generator would solve that problem in all seasons.
Another issue. We were charging the phones and the pad in the car. We started the week with half a tank of gas, and ended the week just under a quarter. Mistake on my part not keeping the car topped off. Service stations everywhere were down with no power and no tankers bringing gasoline.
Batteries. We found that all we had in the way of batteries was in the flashlights and lantern. Need more candles. Overall, however, we did okay. Not completely comfortable, but we ate hot food and had hot showers, both of which helped keep morale up. What happened this week was a test of our preps, and I think we did pretty well. We learned some things, and we'll be adding items and making some changes. This is just a report that might help others.
