Winter Wonderland 2021: Texas edition

Just another shit post,

I’m going to hijack the first quarter of this article and talk about Oregon for shits and giggles. Consider it, an appetizer.

Yes, these places might get a bit chilly but they didn’t expect much snow. At least, until it snowed.

So the recent severe weather (probably somehow related to an abreaction to the also recent mass wildfires releasing gasses in the air; which ((the wild fires)) were probably caused by lack of CO2 from quarantine restrictions because people were on lockdown and NaTuRE was HEaLiNg) caused a lot of pain and trouble.

For Oregon,

It’s a bit short, but a lot of people got snowed in. Work slowed down, people called off. The typical snow day.

Farms may be affected in Oregon, so we could have some issues. And these are the possible issues;

Thing about Oregon, they don’t really invest in snow-plow insurance, so they use gravel plows to remove the snow on the road. Resulting in some delays and possibly a lot of accidents.

Near Oregon City, people lost power and faces hard choices. Some were snowed in, water froze, and electricity and gas were shot to shit. Welp.

Oh, also the rural areas and Woodburn, Oregon, is also without power. So they’re probably a little chilly.

And there are probably more areas affected, besides Portland that’s also being threatened by various bullshits and infrastructure problems that I don’t care about.

There’s been talks and logistics of a lot of Lumber being moved into the state (from Washington). Rumors are suggesting that there is going to be a somewhat emergent need for building a fuck-ton of powerlines and restoring the electrical neurology of the state of Oregon.

So, if you money, track that lumber price.

Also, this is a thing:

This was made on February 18th, so, Yay for Hi-Society. Where Police are paid to guard from vandalism of recycling one person’s trash due to freezers failing. I mean, stealing trash is still stealing, right?

At the same time, people (and activists) thought it was a great idea to repurpose and serve spoiled food at emergency weather shelters. How spoiled? Idk, man, probably good enough to not-starve. But I can’t solicit medical or dietary advice (or any advice).

So, like, it’s fucked on both sides.

Also the DEQ is telling you to freeze,

Oregon’s mini-EPA, called the DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) is telling you not to burn bonfire-sized-piles of fallen timber.

Well, they want you to not burn debris and other toxic stuff into the atmosphere. Because they care a lot more about the environment than you freezing to death. So keep that in mind in case you want to hate another three letter government acronym.

In actuality, they probably just want you to not wastefully burn things. But I don’t like them for no reason, so you should definitely do what you need to do to survive and keep warm.

Cheeky bastard, aren’t ya?
You found the secret words?

For the main course,

Texas,

Everything is bigger in Texas, so that means natural disasters are a lot worse.

You see, Texas got hit with a godly one-two combo, hit with one storm and then another. Which exponentially made things worse.

Energy crises

They had to resort to rationing electricity, yes. Welcome to Cyber Punk Texas.

Through Rolling blackouts, certain parts of Texas that was supplied by the Texan Electrical grid were without power.

You see, there’s the east coast grid, west coast grid, and the Texas Electrical grid. So instead of nationalized electrical grids that can handle some of the pain, they had their own closed off private/state grid ran by ERCOT.

ERCOT means Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and they are the ones flipping breakers to supply homes and stuff. Ironic, because ‘reliability’ is in there name, but they’re trying to make do with what they got.

They had to ‘share the pain’ by deciding which sections of the grid had power or not. However they determined that, well, the people are going to be upset regardless. Because they most definitely favored certain region over another, whether that was political, or self-serving, we’ll learn more after the Texans weathered the storm.

Because gas lines were fucked, generators were too super-cooled to operate (ha, so much for ‘air cooled’ systems) and renewable energy is a joke. Because water freezes, so there goes hydro, and the windmill’s turbine’s blades freeze, so their goes wind.

Also solar needs the sun. Severe storm => clouds => limited sun, and also winter means less sun time in general due to the flat-earth’s tilt. So Solar too is also fucked.

So Texas had less supply of electricity due to generation being shot to shit. Then they had a raised increase in electrical demand, because ceramic plug in heaters and electric vibrators to wait out the storm.

They’ve invented a thing called ‘warming centers’ where people can go to and try and keep warm. Because winters are harsh and cold, and this would be equivalent to an extinction event were it not for technology and human tools.

Well, this reminds me of them hurricanes, what a time. What, a, time.

Failed infrastructure

Piping is frozen.

Bruh, people out there are flushing toilets with snow-water.

“Water pipes frozen, no water or juice anywhere to be found, having to flush toilets with melted snow, literally nothing in this Walmart or any stores nearby. Power blackouts. Wtf why did I move to Texas” -a friend

And you know what, I was actually thinking about moving to Texas, glad I didn’t. I probably won’t now, instead, I’ll just go to a place with guaranteed snow instead of this lying cuckery. (I hear Austin is still nice)

Fires

Well, it’s cold. People want to stay warm, and they can’t use their piping or electricity.

So people resort to starting fires or turning on their oven or something to squeeze a little bit of heat.

Well, they turned it too high and went to sleep or something, now they caught their homes on fire.

And the firefighters can’t fight it, because the water mains are frozen. So the best they can do is show up and say ‘yep’. They might even be equip with some Anti Fire foam(AFFF stuff or PKP, etc.) or other agents, but that can only suppress small fires. Ain’t enough to continuously stop an inferno.

A lot of deaths caused by this, families affected. Real rough times indeed.

Farm stuff

Cattle and livestock all around the big Texan ranches are probably not doing well, because it’s fucking cold.

Besides free range cool cowboy angus steak stuff, and whatever. Point is, I’m speculating.

There’s these, uh, ‘unethical‘ factory farms that keep Sow and Female livestock for breeding for life. Basically, just getting raped to deliver you delicious bacon or veal, or whatever. And the infrastructure likely can’t support these. What, with the lack of water, electricity, and other crucial things in some areas.

So we’re looking at probably borderline billions of deaths, a crippling blow to the food industry, and a shit ton of money loss.

Which, if you ask me, is a merciful death than a merciless life.

So we could probably speculate and imagine that there is going to be a huge shortage of meat (on the bright side, the cold sort of preserves the meat). Assuming that livestock, well, ‘stock’ goes down, that means there will be an excess of feed.

Over supply of feed for farm animals that died, so the demand there will probably go down. Which will probably hurt a lot of farmers that try to sell their byproducts or dumber low-yielding crops of soy or some shit.

Speaking of, farmers who tried to grow crops year round are going to take a hit. Some of their crops, if not most, are probably going to die out in this or the next quarter. This is, of course, me speculating and bullshiting, but it sounds cool.

Anyways, the US is a major Exporter of food and agricultural goods because something about land space and resources and globalization. So US Exports about like 130billion-ish in agriculture, and 50% of world’s supply of corn and 50% in world’s supply of soybeans.

What about Texas specifically? Well, here are some 2019 made up numbers:

Also Texas has a lot of land, so it has a lot of farms (about 127 million acres of farm/ranch). Taking first place in all the states with about 250,000 farms and/or ranches.

So, Texas is made of a lot of space, ranches, and farms. The severe cold fucked most of that. They have frozen water lines, and little to no electricity.

If you combine this shit recipe, then you’re either going to see one of a shit ton of possible things;

  1. Nothing Changes, because Late winter means nothing to agriculture and people decide to not care about meat for some reason. This is the most unlikely, because I don’t know shit about shit.
  2. People could be ‘forced’ into being more vegetarian or something, because it’s now going to be expensive to eat meat.
  3. There could be a shortage in fast food and the restaurant industry, which was arguably already affected for Covid response. (Covid means restaurants were shut down, which means the demand for meats was low already. Farms may or maynot have regulated supply to meet demand).
  4. Texan livestock deaths cause a devaluation and inflation of agricultural markets internal to the US, so we end up globally exporting more at a greater supply for the same-ish demand. Possibly even at cost.
  5. We HODL our reserve or excess crop, because that’s the path forward and someone said ‘this is the way’.
  6. Maybe the government bail outs happen and farms get saved, Idk, if it works for banks, it might work for not banks.
  7. Something I didn’t consider or care about because I’m now bored of this list.

Anyways, I’m against most of globalization, and this recent weather snap will definitely make people starve and die indirectly.

Ironically, the anti-nationalization of Texas’ electrical grid fucked them. So on one hand, you’re fucked, and on the other, you’re fucked.

Complete side note, a lot of semi conductors are made in Taiwan, if some unnatural hurricane/tsunami/meteoric-fuckashima accident happens. We would have crippled the world’s supply of tech. Food for thought if you still think GlObAliZaTioN is a flawless victory.

Senator Ted Cruz

Yea, this politician is a real class act. Like most politicians, but this guy serves as a caricature of why people don’t trust or have faith in politicians.

This dude saw Texas fail, and was like ‘I’m out’. Taking a vacay to the Bahamas/Cancun/not-Texas while everyone is suffering.

Rumor has it, he called upon police to escort him through panicked people at airports, to cut in line and get on a plane to some warm place.

Whatever the case, just know that he was selfish and took it upon himself to abuse the government to leave.

And then he came back realizing the ‘error of his ways’ and also called the police, once-again, to escort him out of the airport this time.

He apologized with some pseudo-non-admitting-remorse because he wanted to send his daughter to the Bahamas to keep the family warm.

Yes, because the average American family can drop about 5 grand for a weekend to go to the Bahamas on a whim to avoid work. Including fixing the state that may or may not be, like, their job.

As that Chairmen and Supreme Prime Chancellor of the Anti-Political-Political-Club, I endorse this reminder, that politicians are clowns running on a circus show. You’re welcome for the reminder.

Important Texan stuff,

People are still buying beer because that’s what we do in cold winters.

Yes, my boomer ass uses Fabe-cook

It’s the same in the mid-west, where they drink beer and eat things called Pasties. Or how Russia drinks vodka for water, you know, winter survival-viking stuff. Beer = good survival chances.

I mean, besides the beer, people just offloaded all the food supplies on the store shelves. A lot of the stores are empty. Just take a look at Wally World (Walmart for you lesser intelligent Philistinian heathens):

EM
TEE
Empty

And there’s not really going to be much of a replacement shipment, seeing as logistics is slowed down because of Ice and Snow. So Trucks aren’t delivering and there’s a huge scarcity of food. People aren’t getting something they NEED, so this Desperation-thing usually leads to a thing called Crime. So, be on the look out for that.

So people are realistically going to starve, and many of them are already starving.

The struggle is real in Texas,

Photo from Austin Tex-ass

The path forward

It’s simple, overhaul infrastructure and build more redundant electrical grids.

Have better thermal coefficient building material, to keep heat and cold seperate (which would work better in both warm and cold seasons)

Stop relying on ‘air cooled’ anything as a primary source, because that can back fire. So atleast have a back up, that can also prevent super-air-cooling or super-cooling.

People should go into trade for more electrical licensed and professional work.

Embrace Nuclear power so we can stop with this bullshit, Gas pipe failures or Frozen Wind mills.

Prep for winter, because you don’t know when it’s coming, but it’s coming. Even in Texas.

I remember 2017, I was there, with a cold beer in my hand

Yes, that also means you should stock pile food. If you’re one of those assholes that decided to stockpile food DURING the catastrophe, then you are a fuck boy and are hurting survival chances of other people. All because you didn’t think you needed to, and then decided that you needed three times the amount of goods, while others suffer.

Look, you can buy supplies, just don’t buy all of them.

In Closing

People are hurting, and this would serve as a grave wake up reminder to all those summer birds down there.

These sort of catastrophes remind us of the mini-apocalypse. Just bite sized. Totally a non-safe bet.

Like every other American, I probably will stop caring after a week or so passes.

It’s just in our blood.

Also, human resiliency, crazy that we survive through all of these things. A virus, Cold Texan Winters, what’s next?

So, cheers,

*Not Valid Financial, Legal, Life or Any Advice

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