Our power has been out so I haven’t been able to get online. Our phone service has been limited. No internet on my phone either. I’ve been doing a lot of nothing. We are in the dark, even during the day. We were out of batteries, so we had to limit use of the flashlights. We relied on candles for light and a little warmth. We are down to one candle. Our power has been on for a few hours now, but we aren’t sure if it will stay on. Road closures, traffic and demand have made it impossible to find basic needs. Now city officials tell us we might be dealing with water issues. My granddaughter, in Prairie View, Texas has not experienced power outages but had been without water since Monday. She just text that her water was finally back on. Praise God! It’s been snowing for almost four hours here. Is this going to be over soon? We can only hope that it will end soon.

I have lived in San Antonio the majority of my life. I can remember some cold nights, freezing nights, light snow, freezing rain, iced roads, down power lines, hours long outages and even rolling outages. Extreme cold weather doesn’t last long here in San Antonio. It’s rare to get snow, or really cold temps. Down power lines and extended power outages have mostly been attributed to thunderstorms and significant flooding. Not too long ago CPS Energy started these rolling outages to deal with the hot summers and triple digit highs. They were designed to be short power interruptions to help maintain the integrity of the power grid. They are nonetheless inconvenient. Most of what I recall are long hot summer days – hot days that often lingered into late October. And it’s not unusual to experience a warm Thanksgiving Day. My 18th birthday was a pretty hot day. My birthday is a week before Christmas. So, even though I have experienced more than a few freezing nights, cold temps is not the norm for San Antonio. Winters are generally pretty mild.

I admit, I love it when snow makes it down here. The kids get to see and play in the snow, even if only for a day. After this ordeal, I have to say I much prefer it to stay that way. As you might imagine our family is not prepared to handle heavy snowfall, much less the pitfalls that accompany such extreme weather. We don’t have the warm clothing, shoes, or equipment to deal with extended power outages in freezing temperatures. We are not outdoorsy people either, at least we are not into fishing, or camping, or anything else that would require the need to purchase special equipment, i.e. cold weather gear. If we travel, we travel during the summer and not winter months, for obvious reasons. I hadn’t owned a heavy coat until last year. I live in open toe shoes, and summer dresses. And I am the type that doesn’t believe all the weather reports. The weathermen predict rain, thunderstorms and flooding, but most times, eh… the forecast does change. Now the high temps – those reports I believe. So, for rain and snow, I believe it when I see it. That saying, “If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait a minute, it will change.” It’s more true than not. So, I can say that this year will be one for the books.

When the weather guy predicts snow we wait for it with slight anticipation, but more hesitation. It’s disappointing if we don’t get snow, but we get over it real quick. I have to say, this year will not be so quickly forgotten. Snow was predicted, anticipated even, low temps were probable, but the resulting catastrophe, I have to say I could not believe that Texas, the largest energy producing state could fail so miserably at keeping Texans heated through this arctic storm. The snow is finally slowing down on this day, February 18, 2021. I am sure the clean up is going to be messy, messy, messy! Check out these photos from the last couple of days.

Be blessed. Stay warm. Stay safe.