Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

Mon Feb 22 18:48:21 UTC 2021

When I lived in Oklahoma, the mantra of the locals was "if you don't 
like the weather, wait five minutes."  As a member of a Boy Scout troop 
in the northern part of the Sooner State, we were told, repeatedly, to 
expect anything from broiling to deep freeze on our campouts.

One such outing was on fallow farmland.  Because the campsite was in the 
middle of nowhere, we were a small group, and came in three cars.  We 
pitched four tents.  During the night, a gullywasher came through and 
dropped several inches of water in one hour.  Three of the tents were 
inundated with water, and the campers ended up sleeping in the cars.  My 
tent was dry inside, because my tent-mate and I had seen the storm 
clouds, dug a trench around the tent, and loosened the ropes.  It helped 
that we had pitched the tent on a slight mound.

Some disasters are unavoidable, like tornados.  Others allow for 
mitigation by the thoughtful.

On 2/22/21 9:18 AM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 12:23:22PM +0000, Bret Clark wrote:
>> Texas doesn't generally experience this type of extreme cold.
> 
> That was then; this is now.
> 
> As scientist Jeff Masters put it most of a decade ago:
> 
> 	The atmosphere I grew up with no longer exists.  My new motto
> 	with regards to the weather is, "expect the unprecedented."
> 
> In the years since he's said that we've seen a number of unprecedented
> events: Sandy, Harvey, California wildfires, last year's midwest derecho,
> and so on.  This event in Texas is just another one; there will be more;
> they'll get worse.
> 
> We should probably get ready for that.
> 
> ---rsk
> 