I am one of the few that has not lost power ...... yet. But I have had no water. Since I live alone, it is not too bad. I stockpiled the water before I turned it off and drained the pipes. I called my plumber Saturday and he said, do what you want, but I'm draining mine. So I did too. I guess we will see if I got enough out of the pipes. My Son is hopefully going to build a house in the next year or two, and he is going to have a main drain for the entire house water system at slab level, for when this happens again, maybe in thirty years. At his current house, the central heat went out a few weeks ago, and he figured he would just "wing it" for the last month of winter without it, just use camp stoves. Then this happened. He was really busy with work and when he finally went to get extra propane canisters and kerosene, EVERYTHING was already sold out. A kind young man from his Church brought him a pickup load of firewood. Erich offered him $100 and he wouldn't take it, just said, "Try to stay warm." My heater downstairs is wounded from the flood, but my heater upstairs works fine. I live mainly downstairs though. Both of my units are on their last year or two of life. It would cost about $1000 to fix the downstairs unit, the heating part, but then the air part may die this summer, and the entire thing will have to be replaced. So I too thought that I would "wing" it through the Winter, and I did fine. But now this Arctic blast comes rolling in. Me, Reeses, and the cat toughed out the first couple of nights of this Arctic blast, but last night, it was forty-five downstairs and I finally headed upstairs and cleared out some room on an old bed. Reeses looked at me with that look on his face that said, "Thank God we're going upstairs." The cat followed us up too. The cat is a porch cat, but I bring it in whenever temps get under forty-five or so outside. He snuck out the other morning, went about eight feet in the snow, and then trotted back inside. This was as Reeses was taking me for my walk and exiting the front door. We are supposed to have two milder days, then one more blast, but this next blast is only supposed to go down to the mid teens. It has been eight degrees outside for the last two nights. I just hope that when I turn on the water, I will have no leaks. Most people let their faucets drip, but then ERCOT, Electric RELIABILITY Council Of Texas, started doing rolling blackouts, and water pressure subsided, the dripping ceased, and then their pipes froze. It is going to be one big mess about Saturday. Usually, weather like this causes outages from downed lines. That is not what is causing the outages. It is because of mismanagement of the power grid because of failing "Green Energy Generators". All of this is courtesy of greenie weenies from out of state, telling the ERCOT agency that runs the Texas Power Grid, that we need more renewable wind and solar generators. Texas now has 10,800 wind turbines supplying about 17% of the State's power. But almost half of them froze up. And snow is covering solar panels. That is why we are having the rolling blackouts. NONE of this had to happen, but they had mothballed the gas and coal power plants. As one person put it, "It takes a certain kind of stupidity to run out of energy in Texas." Five members of the board of directors for ERCOT are greenie weenies from out of state. Of these board members, one from Toronto, one from Maine, one from Michigan, one from California, and I forget the last. What in the hell do they know about anything in Texas, let alone the weather. Fifteen people have died so far, and almost everyone in the State is suffering in some manner. There is going to be a big stink when we finally get out of it. My cousin and her partner in Dallas have not had electricity or water for several days. They are surviving with a little generator on the porch that a neighbor is tending, and they are living in one room in their house with three dogs and a chicken. It has been around zero there. MM