fucking snow
I have a flurries forecast for the next hour in San Antonio.
Fucking snow? Whut?
I am SO glad I moved here. I’m in a pretty solid area in terms of the power grid. I know. I checked before I took the place. I’m downtown on the same power block as a really big hospital and some state buildings. If they can keep any power on, they will keep it on here.
At the old place? I would already be worried power was going down — or power would already be down.
I didn’t used to think of snow as “fucking snow.” I used to love snow. It was rare in Los Angeles. Rare in Seattle. Rare in Austin. When it came I got excited and happy. I would stay up late to watch the snow fall. I always hoped it would stick. Sometimes it did. It was so pretty.
Then in February 2021, the Texas power grid failed. And it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. And snowed.
It stuck. It stacked up. In drifts. It iced over. And it kept coming.
The swimming pools at my building all froze. Three pools of solid ice.
And still it snowed.
You don’t quite get how delicate civilization is until something like that happens. See, with no electricity, even if you had a truck with chains or snow tires, you couldn’t get out. No gasoline. Because —
No electricity to run the pumps.
They didn’t used to have snowplows to speak of here. I think maybe they have more now. But no way could they plow the city of Austin. They didn’t have the plows. Or gasoline for the plows. And they couldn’t salt. Because — no salt. Just some dumb chemical stuff for highways that has to get heated up by tires to activate. That doesn’t activate if tires can’t go fast enough to activate it. Let alone touch asphalt because — too much ice. Oops.
Water pipes froze everywhere. All across the city. Fires started. And nobody could put them out. Fire trucks couldn’t get up hills. Too much ice. And if they could get to a fire? No water in the hydrants. Too many pipes had burst across the city. There was no water pressure to get water to hydrants.
Those buildings just burned.
No post. No stores. No roads. No gas. No water. No light. No heat.
No emergency services.
And it was 10 degrees.
That’s fucking cold.
And still it snowed.
I was one of the lucky ones. I got rolling black outs. Power would come on for two hours. Then it would go out again. You never knew when it went out if it would come back on again. But it did. For two hours. I stayed alive. And the building stayed up.
Some people? Nothing rolled for them. The power went out and stayed out.
Buildings collapsed. Buildings burned. And people died.
I’ll never look at snow the same again.