A Frigid Mother

Dawn set the blanket's sleep timer for eight hours, ensuring Aaron would be comfortable all night at the expense of about ten or fifteen watts of juice powering my MacGyver 'ed contraption.

Given the cloud-cover and total absence of electricity to the entire development, it was pitch black in the house, so I also put a battery-powered decorative candle in Aaron's room since his normal nightlight wasn't powered.

"You're my hero, Will," she said, giving me a kiss after we left and closed the door.

We passed the study on our way back to our suite, so I ducked in to check the weather station's display which indicated the outdoor temperature was six degrees. The forecast low for the night was zero.

Dawn placed a few more blankets she'd taken from the unoccupied guest bedrooms on our bed. I took another walk around the house to ensure everything was secure, then stopped in the kitchen for a few minutes.

"What on Earth are you doing?!" My wife laughed when I returned to our bedroom carrying in an oven mitt a sixteen-inch cast-iron skillet which weighed probably twelve pounds.

I pulled all the covers back and ran the griddle over the top of the bed as if ironing wrinkles in the fitted sheet.

"Move your heinie, honey," I said, encouraging her out of her spot so I could do the same for her half of the bed.

I returned the effective bed warmer to the kitchen and sat it on the extinguished gas burner I'd used to heat it up, then checked on Aaron one last time.

"You're not just my hero," Dawn said when I slipped into the toasty bed. "You're a genius."

She snuggled close to me. We were able to fall asleep comfortably warm.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021 (Time unknown)

Dawn awakened first and went to check on our son who was still comfortably sleeping while I made a few adjustments to myself. She climbed back into our bed.

"The display in the study says it's minus two outside and fifty-one inside," she said.

"I'm surprised it's not colder inside. I'm glad you suggested better windows and doors."

"Well, it's cold enough. I haven't had more than a sponge bath since Sunday. I'm craving a shower, but I don't want to be chilled when I get out all wet," she said, shivering slightly, pulling the blankets high over her shoulders, and snuggling up to me.

She laughed. "Are you out of your freaking mind?"

"Basic survival skills, Devo," I calmly answered. "If one is stranded with someone else, both should occupy the same shelter. Sharing body heat is important, and it's more efficient if neither party is wearing clothing. Especially chilled clothing like yours is now."

"Oh, is that so?"

"It's a fact. Check Wikipedia."

She shuffled and scuttled under the warm bedding. A mass of clothes was deposited on the floor.

"Crap, woman! Your hands and feet are cold!"

"I know!" She chuckled, tucking her frosty tootsies under my calf and her hands under my arm and deeply sighed. "You're toasty," she said in a comfortable sigh, placing as much of her naked body as close to mine as she could.

"I'm glad you still think so."

"Will, you'll always be the hottest man in the world to me."

I grinned happily with her praise.

"Give me a kiss?"

I responded with exactly two. Or three. Maybe four.

"Have I told you lately how incredibly blessed I am to be your wife?"

"I feel the same way about you," I answered, then wrapped my arms around her even tighter. "I love you, Devo," I whispered in the absolute stillness of our nest.

"I love you more, William."

I smiled in the darkness. "It's not even possible."

"Yes, baby, it is." She giggled before she shuffled her tiny body atop mine. "I … love … you … so … fucking … much."

She whispered her love-words between deep kisses. As she positioned herself to be intimate, there came a cacophony of beeps and tones as various electronic devices in the room came to life. The bathroom's lights, apparently having been left switched on, shone brightly, making me squint.

Dawn's eyes widened. "Electricity! Hurry!" she exclaimed, shuffling out of the bed.

"Dangit !" I groaned in frustration, our interlude aborted by matters more pressing than pleasure.

I scuttled into my clothes as did Dawn, and we shuffled through the house plugging in everything that needed recharging. The two thermostats indicated indoor temperatures of 56 and 59 degrees in the warmer interior hallways. Both showed the natural gas-fired heaters had ignited and would shortly begin warming their zones.

The sounds of our commotion awakened Aaron, and he walked to the kitchen as if little was out of the ordinary. I watched as he sat at the table and waited for breakfast.

"I'm cold," he said.

"I know, buddy. Did you sleep warm?"

A nod was his reply.

I approached the pantry door to fetch a box of cereal but stopped when I saw Dawn's uncle walking slowly to the back porch.

"Give me a minute, kiddo. Your grandfather is outside."

I met Binh at the door and beckoned him inside.

"Everyone is okay?" he asked.

"Grandpa!" my son shouted.

"Hello, Aaron! You okay?"

"I'm cold."

Binh nodded. "Me too!"

"Yeah," I agreed with both of them. "We're okay. How are you and Huong?"

"We are okay, too. It is colder in this house than the little one," he said. "You come get warmer."

"I'm in!" Dawn yelped. "Let me get coats and boots."

She fetched mine and Aaron's as well. Even though we were underdressed for the elements, the short walk didn't pose too much of a challenge.

Dawn carried the box of cereal and the jug of milk, and I carried Aaron as we carefully made our way through the snow to the guest house. It was, indeed, about five degrees warmer there.

Aaron hopped up to his grandparents' table as I undertook a quick walk-around inside to ensure things were safe and secure. The sink in the second bathroom was dripping faithfully.

Dawn helped her aunt finish a traditional Vietnamese breakfast, one she knew my palate would enjoy, despite its unfamiliarity to most westerners.

Rice was steeping on the cooktop instead of their electric cooker, and I smelled whitefish and tangy vegetables being steamed. Aaron's was a bowl of cornflakes and milk with half of a sliced banana topping it all. He was equally satisfied with his as the four adults were ours.

Not two minutes after we were done eating, the electricity cut off again. It'd been on for barely forty-five minutes.

"Rolling now?" Dawn asked.

"Who knows?" I groaned. "We'll see."

The LTE network was dog slow, probably due to tens if not hundreds of thousands of people depending on it as their only source of connectivity to the world.

I was able to retrieve a local TV affiliate's website to read an article.

As of 6:15am, more than four million Texans are without electricity, and safety of water is a potential threat as pumps are failing to fill towers, and water treatment plants struggle with the near-zero temperatures. As the forecast high for today is only ten degrees, the challenges will continue to mount.

Oncor, Texas's largest electricity distributor, reports more than one third of its customers are without electricity this morning, and the problems are, in part, due to failures in its load-switching systems which are making rolling blackouts impossible in places, meaning many customers may be without electricity for much longer than the thirty-minute intervals previously expected.

Milton Bagness, the CEO of ERCOT, advised in a report, "We have seen nothing like this honestly in Texas, that has covered the state like the storm has. It increased demand to an extreme, extraordinary height, and then the storm also made it difficult for the supply to be provided. The supply side of the equation has been challenged, too, whether wind turbines froze or natural gas supplies that got tight or solar farms that really couldn't produce because of the heavy cloud cover and snow.

"Liar," I muttered under my breath. "Ten years ago, remember?"

"What's that, babe?" Dawn asked, hearing my exasperated sighs.

"A news article is showing how the CEO of ERCOT is playing CYA. He's blaming everyone other than his own organization. He keeps using words like unprecedented , like it never happened before. You and I were talking about it. Yeah, it wasn't statewide, but the same sort of thing happened ten years ago, on his effing watch! I doubt they did a damned thing different after 2011!

"Municipalities are issuing boil orders because of potentially unsafe drinking water. How are people supposed to boil water if they don't have a gas cooktop? Even if they do, people are now being begged to curtail use of natural gas and water if they have either anyway! People are being told to melt snow for water to flush their toilets!

"Natural gas condenser pumps got too cold to function? Automated load-balancing systems froze because they didn't winterize them or any of this other crap? Some of the systems get too hot because others are too cold or the other way around? Half the wind turbines are frozen solid?

"It's absolutely insane, Dawn. Absolutely insane . Heads are going to roll. Outside of hurricanes, this may rank right up there as one of the most expensive weather disasters in Texas history. All because of ERCOT and the electricity distributors.

"ERCOT  ! Electric Reliability Council. Reliability is in their freaking name! What an epic failure ."

Dawn quietly listened to my rant, then slid her hand over mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. I looked up at her and saw her eyes glance quickly toward Binh and Huong who were staring at me, as was my son.

"Whoa. Sorry," I said. "My frustration is getting the best of me. I mean, we are all relatively okay. Yeah, the pool is going to be a mess. But it's just a swimming pool. I'm more worried about our neighbors, our employees, some of which have family members who are suffering from COVID or its aftereffects and need electricity to power nebulizers for breathing treatments, you know?

"Or those who have or are about to have water damage in their homes and are staring at big insurance deductibles."

It was at that moment my cellphone rang. The display indicated it was Cheryl King, my boss, the CEO of the corporation which had employed me for more than two decades.

I took two deep breaths to even myself as I walked away from the table into an unoccupied room.

"Hey, Cheryl," I answered calmly.

"Will, I'm so glad you answered. You're the first who has. How are you and yours?"

"Our pool will be out of commission for a while, but otherwise, not terrible. You?"

"Not great. My husband and I are at a hotel right now. One of the water heaters in the attic burst yesterday, so the house is without electricity and water. The hotel just went dark again, too, but at least … well. That's a subject for another time.

"I'm calling to tell you that in yesterday's emergency meeting, the board of directors approved certain relief programs for Extecha employees. The company will provide assistance to employees whose homes aren't safe. We'll pay for hotel rooms if their insurance companies won't, and zero interest loans for any needed repairs or deductible relief."

"How's that even possible?"

"It's an extended part of Extecha's business continuity plan. This type of thing was anticipated a long time ago, probably even before either you or I were employed. It's just never left paper until now. I want you to send a blast email to your division. Don't get into specifics because we haven't ironed them out. Be a little upbeat. Let them know Extecha has their backs, and they can expect more details by end of business tomorrow. Avoid any of the political nonsense of the past two months, okay?"

"Of course I will. This is great news," I replied.

"I hope it gets better, Will, I really do."

"I'm so glad you called."

"All my best to you and your family, Will."

"You and yours too, Cheryl."

I returned to my family.

"What's going on?" my wife asked.

"That was Cheryl with some good news."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Extecha's gearing up to financially assist its employees through this."

Dawn smiled warmly. "Feeling a little better?"

"I am."

The electricity came back on. It'd been an hour earlier when it disconnected.

The cadence repeated throughout the day. One hour on, one hour off.

My wife and I returned to our own house late that afternoon. Aaron, at his grandparents' request, stayed with them. He adored them as much as they him.

Dawn and I thoroughly showered together during a stretch of provided electricity, utilizing the steam generator to add some much-needed humidity to the desiccated air. We dried as quickly as we could, anticipating the electricity might disconnect at any point.

"I'm going to chop this all off," Dawn barked, furiously employing her dryer.

I adored her back-length black hair. But, given the current situation, I could certainly understand her frustration. The power held out barely long enough for her to complete her task.

I was in charge of making dinner. In the lantern- and flashlight-illuminated kitchen, I prepared one of my favorites. It consisted of a pound of ground beef plus a half-pound of ground pork. As the meat browned in a wok, I added a tablespoon of red chili flakes, two cloves of minced garlic, ginger, and a few heavy dashes of tamari .

After it all melded, I added a half-head of shredded cabbage, scallions, and julienned carrots. I tossed the contents of the wok until the cabbage was tender. The last thing I added was a few tablespoons of duck sauce. I tested a sample with a fork to confirm it was perfectly cooked.

I'd dished my creation into two bowls before my wife returned. She sat next to me at the lantern-illuminated table. It would have been romantic if not for the state of emergency.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021, 6:52am

I was warm when I awakened. I looked at the clock. It was illuminated. We had electricity, at least at that moment.

I left the bed and checked the thermostats. The heaters were off. The house had recovered its set temperature of seventy-two degrees. I dialed them both back to sixty-eight degrees to ease the demand for natural gas.

I went to the study and brought up the security cameras' NVR on the computer. I was able to see the power had returned and had been uninterrupted since about four o'clock that morning.

I added up the duration of the recording gaps. We'd been without electricity for forty-seven of the prior seventy-eight hours. I'd been receiving reports from employees whose power had been off the entire time since Sunday, so I counted us as kind of lucky. I checked the Oncor outage map. The situation was slowly, slowly improving.

I heard heavy knocks, more like pounding, and the doorbell rang twice.

I quickly hustled, seeing a neighbor from across the street at my door, in her pajamas, with mussed, damp-looking hair.

"Abby! What's wrong?"

"Help! Please! There's water coming out of the ceiling, and I don't know how to turn it off! I was making breakfast and water started spraying everywhere! What do I do!?"

"I'll go shut it off. Stay here and try to warm up and dry off. Are your kids safe?"

"I think they're still in bed," she answered, shivering. She was soaked to the bone in what had to have been very cold water.

"Dawn! Abby needs your help !" I yelled across the house. "I'm going across the street to shut their water off!"

I grabbed my coat and gloves on my way to the garage. I removed the meter key from its hook on the wall, opened the garage door, and made my way as quickly as I could across the hundred yards of snow and ice to her curb. I had to poke around through the snow with the end of the key's steel bar every twelve inches or so until I felt and heard it hit the cast iron cover of the meter box. A few moments later, I had the valve closed.

Dawn and Abby began walking across the street. Abby was wearing Dawn's Texas "winter" coat, clutching the lapels with one hand to protect her modesty because she was carrying her wet pajamas in her other hand. She wore a towel over her head. She was crying. She was absolutely beside herself.

"What do I do now?" she asked.

"Can I go inside and look?" I asked.

She nodded, and I followed her through her front door. I immediately recognized the odor of natural gas, and I told the ladies to go back outside. There was at least a half inch of water on the floor everywhere I could see. The wood floor had already begun buckling. Several square yards of gypsum board had caved in from the ceiling onto the dining room table and floor, and water was dripping from the gaping hole.

I hustled to the kitchen where I saw a pan of scrambled eggs and a lot of water on the stove. The burner's control knob was opened, but the flame had been extinguished by the spraying water. I closed the valve, and the gas stopped bubbling through the water trapped in the burner pan.

In the adjacent dining room, I looked into the wrecked ceiling and saw a pair of copper pipes, undoubtedly headed to an upstairs bathroom. One of them had a two-inch split along its length. Somewhere, a pipe had frozen, and the gash was evidence of the weakest point.

I opened their back door to ventilate the gas from the house, then joined my wife and neighbor in the front yard.

"Abby, where's Frank?"

"He's still stuck in New York. He was supposed to fly back two days ago, but with all the cancellations⁠—"

"Here's what you need to do," Dawn interrupted. "Go pack a few days' clothes and whatever else you need for you and your kids. We have plenty of room in our house. Y'all can stay with us for as long as you need, right, Will?"

"Of course. I'll stick around here while you pack and see if I can figure out some way to get the water out of here before it starts climbing the walls."

"I'm so sorry to inconvenience your family," Abby said and started crying again.

Dawn gave her a supportive hug. "You aren't . Don't think another second about it. Go get your stuff, and I'll get some breakfast started for everyone."

Abby turned and began walking up the stairs.

"Whoa," I whispered. "This absolutely sucks. I don't have a clue what I'm doing."

"Call Marshall. Maybe he can get a van over here."

"Marshall owns a carpet cleaning company. This is all hardwood."

"But maybe they can vacuum out all the water."

"That's a great idea," I said, pulling out my cell. I made the call, then followed Dawn and Abby and her kids back to our house.

Dawn rehydrated some restaurant-style hash browns, mixed in some browned ground breakfast sausage, cheese, and a bunch of eggs. The casserole went into the oven for a half hour.

Abby and her children, aged six and eight, sat and ate the hot meal with toast and jelly.

The road conditions undoubtedly made for the delay, but an hour and a half later, two vans pulled up in Abby's driveway, and four men stepped out of them. I walked back across the street and kept an eye on things but stood out of the way as they worked their miracle.

In less than an hour, the floor was as dry as they could make it, and they'd hauled out drywall debris and dumped it all in one of the garbage carts.

Marshall Hanson stepped in as his employees finished up.

"Ouch," he said, observing the damage.

"Yeah."

"We'll set up a few blowers to try to get the floors to settle down, but it'll be temporary at best."

"I'm guessing the flooring is ruined," I surmised. "It'll be uncomfortable to walk on, but the house will be livable if that leak can be repaired.