Massive Texas power outage

[Subdood]

Was just visiting the weather channel and saw that over 1 million customers without power in the Houston area from severe thunderstorms, most of those (+800K ) are in Harris county alone, comes out to about 40% of customers are without power.

The storms are moving into extreme SE Texas, and Louisiana, so expecting more outages there.

I don't think I've seen so many outages in such a short time, outside of a hurricane. Most of the damage seems to be from +70mph straight line winds. There was also a unconfirmed tornado. Widespread damage obviously, even some skyscrapers had windows blown out.

Makes me wonder if my array could handle such winds. But, we have had 60mph winds, and my ground mount seemed to handle it okay.

Any SE Texas forum members want to report in? Maybe @EastTexCowboy?

 

[Q-Dog]

We are on the edge of it. Lots of thunder and lightning and heavy rain. Grid still up so far but the UPSs are beeping. Our batteries are charged so we are ready. It seems we get it every few days for the past month ... lost a tree and some shingles and lost the grid for 36 hours during one about 3 weeks ago.

 

[Subdood]

lost the grid for 36 hours during one about 3 weeks ago.

How did y'all fare during that outage? Did you have enough battery/solar to get thru it?

I think we could have 2 days without the grid with our present setup. But we'd need some sun on that 3rd day to recharge the batts. We've had lots of rain this month, but it's usually scattered enough to get enough sun to top off the bank during the day.

 

[Q-Dog]

How did y'all fare during that outage? Did you have enough battery/solar to get thru it?

I think we could have 2 days without the grid with our present setup. But we'd need some sun on that 3rd day to recharge the batts. We've had lots of rain this month, but it's usually scattered enough to get enough sun to top off the bank during the day.

We had sun both days during the outage and didn't need lots air conditioning so we were fine. I loaned our gasoline generator to a neighbor because we didn't need it.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Wow, hope all you down in the that area are ok.

 

[Q-Dog]

Grid went down for us about an hour ago. The poco outage map isn't working for me at the moment so can't tell how extensive this is. I can see the neighbors across the street waving flashlights around inside their house, and I hear at least one generator running somewhere out there. We have lights on and the local news stations to tell us how bad the weather is.

We still have some wind and lightning and thunder but the rain has slowed significantly for now.

 

[rhino]

http://poweroutage.us is a good source as well.

 

[#40Fan]

From a post on another site.

 

[wpns]

Wow! That’s not getting fixed overnight!

 

[meetyg]

From a post on another site.

Wow!
I guess it'll take quite some time to fix those.
I hope you all are OK, meantime...

 

[740GLE]

From a post on another site.

That’s gonna take a hot minute to get back up in the air.

My biggest fear is multiple lines in one ROW all getting cleaned out like that.

 

[Subdood]

I don't think straight line winds took those out like that, unless it was 100mph+ winds, looks like a tornado knocked those over.

Still 800K without power in TX, 700K in Harris county, plus 170K in LA.

 

[OffGridForGood]

800K without -Utility-power in TX

joking asside, hope everyone is ok, and they get the utility back up soon.
Maybe we will see a flurry of new DIY Solar memebers sign up in the months afterwards.

 

[ChrisG]

That’s an incredible amount of damage to those transmission lines. I lived in Houston area (Cypress TX) years ago and everything was built to sustain hurricane force winds. Truly hope everyone is ok there.

Weather has been crazy all over. We have a cabin at a high elevation in the NC mountains and just had two tornados in a single storm, F1 and F2. First time in recorded history in that area.

 

[Q-Dog]

Woke up to the hum of our neighbors' generators all around us. Grid still down here in Louisiana plus our internet/phone went down during the night. Cell phones have intermittent connection. Rain started up again this morning and no new damage that I can see at my place now that we have daylight.

Our batteries are at 69% as I write this and we couldn't be more pleased with our backup power. I haven't heard if there were any tornados around us, or just straight-line winds. I hope everyone is safe out there.

 

[Subdood]

Sorry that everything thing is down, but it must be reassuring that y'all have power. I imagine lots of folks who live on the Gulf Coast would be prepared in some way for situations like this.

 

[houseofancients]

Hope everyone is well and keeps safe !

 

[Bluedog225]

It got a little sporty. Fortunately, the ground mounts held.

 

[DPC]

y'all

In no way diminishing the gravity of the storms....
I hope everyone is fine.

American English makes up new words you hear but often don't see..
I have heard people on TV say " Y'all " but I don't think I ever have seen it typed out .

Cool...
It rolls off the tong nice and its a two letter word!
Ял...
I'm going to through that into an email to a relative and see how she reacts too it.
That Y'all in Cyrillic text...

Its a nice contraction of the word and you would be surprised how many borrow words work their way into non English speakers daily lives.
Like Hi or stop...
Here's what a Ukrainian stop sign says...


literally just stop...


Next time you fumble with spelling, and I do it all the time think about borrow words.
How many are actually foreign words we have adopted a long with our version of their spelling...
Sorry for being off topic

 

[Sanwizard]

It got a little sporty. Fortunately, the ground mounts held.

View attachment 215956

Wow. Those are bridge supports, not ground mounts! You should be fine my friend.