To All My Canadian Friends...

Jeez - a few of the towns around us just ran out of water. Our town draws water from an aquifer (which is one of the reasons I chose to live here) and I'm not sure if the other towns south of us get theirs piped in, but damn. We had a whole home filter installed when we moved here so our faucet water is like bottled water. We filled up our refrigerator with it just in case our town somehow runs out.

It looks like we should only get a dusting of snow tonight, a hard freeze Friday morning, and then we are hopefully in the clean up faze of this whole mess and we can get some serious talk going about invading Canada.

 

Not sure how extensive it is but I find the tap water around Houston tastes terrible. That's the only place I've been that I've had to resort to drinking bottled water.

 

The last town we lived in had the worst water I’ve ever tasted. It was also a minimum of $130/month when we left. I grew up on Northern Michigan well water. That was good stuff. Our whole-home filter does a great job here - the water tastes good. Without it, it tastes like plastic.

 

You call nice spring weather a “whole mess” yet somehow want to come for the real deal? Hmm. Even grandiose delusions are bigger in Texas.

 

We got the news from our water company last night, that two days previous, they had screwed up the chlorination process (again). They warned us that we shouldn't have drank that water two days before without boiling it, blah, blah. I'm not too concerned for our health...all of our drinking and cooking water comes from an under sink RO finishing unit that makes bottled-quality water free of protozoa, viruses, or bacteria.

This chlorination problem has been ongoing issue (for me) with our water company. It occurs because the chlorination rate has to be manually controlled to match the level-controlled well pumping rate. (WTH?) It's insane thinking, and I've given up trying to preserve my upstream charcoal filter and softener media from over-chlorination damage. The powers-that-be can't see that it doesn't matter whether you use chlorine gas, or bleach for treatment; whatever medium you use has to precisely controlled. Looks like this electrical fiasco with pumps frozen, pumps up, and pumps down, has proven this old ***hole right, but I tried to warn them.

 

There are other good reasons not to use chlorine gas, though.

 

Absolutely. And, I tried to tell them that. Everyone that has worked in a processing plant knows that using chlorine gas for disinfection is dangerous to operators and the surrounding community. I paid attention during those boring safety lectures.

The convenience of using chlorine gas in bulk has to be offset with strict handling protocols. First off, if they obey good practice and regulations, there must be a Scott Air Pack near the installation, ready to use, with a valid inspection certificate. Now, there's an expense and responsibility that a one-horse, in-frequently attended, water company really needs.

They thought converting to chlorine gas was supposed to solve the control problem because it had worked before at a different plant (obviously a different problem). Plus, using chlorine gas simplified supply from known sources, and also reduced the handling issues for them. My idea of closed-loop control based on regulatory ph analyzer output was rejected because it was too complicated for them.

 

This may be the first operation I've ever heard of that chose to switch TO chlorine gas...

 

Small-time, inexperienced, arrogant, ignorant wanna-be operation that hasn't been sued for neglect yet.

 

And, they have poutine! Oh, Canada!

 

Looks like one more hard freeze ahead of us. My high functioning special needs brother-in-law's pipes burst today. The plumbers fixed it but he still has low water flow in his bathroom sink so I told him, again, to leave the damn faucets on... One more night...

All six houses on my side of the street have had their pipes burst. Today it was a former guitarist for Billy Idol's house - I think he was on the Cradle of Love album. I can't remember.

My bro-in-law rents a house about 3 blocks from us (he's super high functioning and independent). When I drive there, I like to go by one of my favorite houses here in Smithville that goes by the Howard Hann's house. A doctor or somebody well-to-do bought it about 5 years ago but they never lived in it so it's sat vacant which sucks. These old houses need to be lived in. Here's link to what it looked like back in the day https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/207-NE-8th-St-Smithville-TX-78957/2108559096_zpid/

Anyways, when I drove by today, I saw that one of the 2 story windows looked like it was falling off. I got out and took a couple of pics. I can't imagine the damage inside. Really bums me out. It looked like a hole in the roof but there's so much water damage I'm not sure what happened. I didn't hear any rushing water.

 

Our boil water notice was lifted today (nothing got into the cities water supply) and everything seems to be running smoothly. I'm going to crawl all the way under the house later in the week and check for any leaks but our pressure right now is great.

I appreciate everybody who took part in this thread, joked around, and sent well wishes.

I sincerely hope the rest of my fellow Texans come out of this safely and soon.

 

Good to hear you seem to have come out of it OK. Don't forget to keep in touch in a few months for the invasion.

 

Oh, yeah. Most definitely. I'm going to get to the storage unit this week to grab my old "BDU's" so I can look the part. The timing will depend on how much my damn electric bill is - may cut into my fuel fund.

 

Is it safe to exhale now?

 

Maybe for now, we're just waiting for it to warm up a bit.

 

It must have worked as it's warming up here too.

 

Saw a big fat guy walking around in shorts today. There's always one..

 

Well, I'm big and kinda fat and I wore shorts today. Then again, it was 80 here today.

 

Yeah, little different here.

 

I was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans yesterday after work...

 

Just catching up on this thread. I lived in Beaumont in the 90s when we got hit by a freak ice storm for 2 weeks. Knocked out power for over a week (fuzzy memory I was in middle school) didn't get the press because it was localized. Cold as shit.

Also even though the Canucks have to claim Bieber, they still produced Pamela Anderson and Shania twain so all I not lost. Win some lose some lol

 

Ted Cruz was born in Canada but so was Sarah McLachlan so, yeah, I see what you are saying. For every turd they produce, they seem to gift us with someone to make up for it.