Early in the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, much of the U.S. was pounded by unprecedented winter storms, and nowhere bore the brunt of it quite like Texas — mainly because it’s so out of the ordinary for us. The temperatures were historically low for our area, with eight straight days failing to rise above freezing, six of them setting record lows (including our coldest lows of all time: 5°F on both Feb. 15 and 16). At the same time, we received nearly five inches of snow, and more than a half inch of freezing rain. Precisely because such weather is so rare for most of Texas, we were unprepared. And be “we”, I mostly mean state and local governments, publicly funded infrastructure, and the corporations that run the state. (Individuals were often surprisingly prepared, but can’t do much in the face of catastrophic infrastructure failures.) The electric grid failed and millions were without power for days, in homes heated entirely by electricity. Water pressure failed. Phone lines and internet went down. Streets were mostly impassable for days. Gas stations ran out of fuel and stores ran out of food.

I haven’t seen an official name for the event. Some called it the Texas Blackout; others referred to it as a snow storm or ice storm or local television news style names like snowmeggedon or ice-pocalypse. Someone called it the “result of GOP governance”, which seems accurate — the party is well-known for standing against infrastructure spending, fighting safety regulations, promoting profits at all costs, and doing little or nothing for anyone who isn’t wealthy.

But this blog entry isn’t about who’s to blame, or why things happened the way they did. This entry is about what it looked like from the inside for my middle class family of four.

The upshot is that we survived, partly due to quick thinking but also because we were (fortunately) in the kind of financial state that allows for some level of flexibility and spontaneity. We recognize that not everyone had the same type of resources we had — modern and capable insulation in our home, multiple driveable vehicles, days worth of backup food, money in the bank, multiple credit cards with zero balances, etc. Even so, for us, our house was without electricity for just over 81 hours and we had to ration food and water. We lost hundreds of dollars worth of food (spoiled in unpowered refrigerators and freezers), hundreds of dollars in hotel bills, and possibly some other damages we’re not yet aware of. Not to mention a week’s worth of education for our kids and a week of total life disruption.

The Wind-up

In early January, we got 2.5 inches of snow, which is a once-in-ten-years occurrence for our area, so it was natural to think “winter weather” was over for Killeen. We expected a few more chilly days and then spring. The growing things in our lawn thought the same: our shrubs began to bud as temperatures climbed into the 70s in late January and even 81°F on Feb. 4. Parts of the lawn started to turn green.

Then on Feb. 11, a Thursday (the day after we dropped off our income tax paperwork), a tenth of an inch of sleet and freezing rain shut down the city for most of the day — school was canceled and my wife was given a day off work. But that mostly melted off and my wife returned to work the following day (but was given the afternoon off). Seeing forecasts of more possible winter weather, she grocery shopped on the way home that Friday (Feb. 12), stocking our pantry and freezer with stuff for stews and cornbreads and other things to help us stay warm over the next few days. It didn’t get above freezing here on the 11th or 12th, which is rare for us, but there was no precip and the roads cleared quickly. Friday afternoon, we drove over and signed our tax paperwork so it could be filed. (That turned out to be a big deal — knowing the exact amount of our refund throughout the coming week helped soften the blow of unexpected expenses.)

Saturday and Sunday (Feb. 13-14), we stayed at home and things seemed fine, despite temps outside staying below freezing. I did laundry on the weekend, which is unusual for me, but I figured it was possible there would be “rolling blackouts” over the next couple of days — that’s what our grid here does when it gets really and truly cold — and it’s difficult to get a bunch of laundry done when the power shuts off at random times. I’m glad I did. Saturday, we took RnB on a walk despite the cold, and they found plenty of ice at the playground and around the walking path.

Sunday evening, it began to rain in earnest with the temperature dropping from the 20s into the teens. Every drop froze on impact, coating cars, sidewalks, roads, plants, roofs, etc. By midnight, there was a half-inch of ice on everything.

The Collapse : Monday

That half-inch of ice from Sunday night would have been enough to shut down the city for a day or two, but that wasn’t all. Also during the night we got 4.5 inches of snow on top of the solid ice sheets, blowing into drifts over a foot deep. And the temperature dropped to 5°F by Monday morning. And the electricity went out in the middle of the night.

A couple of our alarm clocks buzz loudly when the power returns, and that woke us, first M and R and eventually me, because the power came back on a few times. I switched our heat to “emergency heat” because the regular electric heat uses a heat pump that won’t work below a certain temperature. Then the power went out for the last time at about 04:30.

We snuggled in and slept until daylight. With the power still out, the temperature in our house had dropped to 62°F. We dressed warm, RnB had cold cereal for breakfast, and we gathered blankets to happily wait until the power came back on. See, the powers-that-be had warned of the rolling blackouts, 15-45 minutes at a time they said, and we’d seen them before in previous cold spells — once when R was an infant and another time when B was a toddler. It usually takes a couple of hours and then everything’s fine. So we continued to wait, wasting valuable time. ERCOT, ONCOR, and other entities responsible for our electricity grid continued to tweet the lie that the power would come back on at any time (M and I were checking for updates via our phones, because Verizon’s 4G internet never wavered for a moment during any of this).

We played board games and did other things to keep ourselves occupied.

At lunch (sandwiches) we began to grapple with the possibility that the power wasn’t going to come back on. My mind was sluggish, having had no caffiene for the first time in years. It took me far too long to look up how long food is good in a powered-down fridge (four hours, according to the FDA and CDC). I also forgot my “parent filter” — the thing most parents have where they don’t discuss the worst possibilities in front of children — which I usually do very well but not this time. M was wide-awake and clear-thinking as always. She carefully redirected or interrupted when I needed it, and suggested calling hotels. I was more worried about food, knowing we wouldn’t freeze in the house (the master closet has no exterior walls and would stay warm nicely with our body heat; I figured I could nail a blanket over the doorway), but that we might go hungry with so much of our recent grocery buy wasted. (Someone said “should have put the food outside”, but all four sides of our house get sunlight at varying times of day; I didn’t think that would work.)

Anyway, M started calling hotels. The first one she called, the closest one, didn’t answer. Then she got the Hampton Inn — the same one where she and I stayed a night on June 23, 2009, when we drove down from Oklahoma for her job interview. (It was 106°F that day.) They said they had rooms, but they were filling up fast. They had power and TV, but no internet. We booked a room and hoped we could get there. By then, officials were being quoted on Twitter as saying they had no idea how long the power would be out, that it might be days. We booked for two nights, thinking that would be plenty, filled one suitcase with three changes of clothes each, packed up some snacks, device chargers, toilet paper, and more.

I think adrenaline had kicked in for me by that point; I do remember suddenly thinking more clearly. I got the minivan running and defrosting, and spent quite some time scraping off snow and then ice. Only the passenger side would open — because I’d backed in the driveway and the driver’s side was thus facing north, which is the direction the freezing rain came from. (The Soul was safe and dry in the garage, but [1] we worried it wouldn’t handle as well in the snow/ice and [2] it doesn’t have enough luggage space for a suitcase and kids and backpacks, etc.) I did remember to grab my external hard drive — which contains every word I’ve ever written and every photo I’ve ever taken.

We left the house at 13:25 — the power had been off for nine hours.

Arriving at the hotel just before 14:00, we passed many people in the lobby asking about rooms and heard the clerk telling them all rooms were booked. We’d called just in time. We got everyone and all our stuff up to the third (top) floor and into our room. Last time M and I stayed here, we had a king suite, so there was more space. This time, with two queens in the same size room, there was just enough space to put down our things and walk between them.

As soon as possible, I took a short nap, then risked the tiny coffee maker in the bathroom. It wasn’t terrible and I soon perked up to my normal, lovely self. RnB were happy to have “normal” TV again, and even enjoyed commercials. Plus we’d thought to bring M’s old laptop (circa 2007?) that still plays DVDs. The hotel, as promised, had no internet, but M and I began using up our tiny monthly allotment of Verizon 4G bandwidth to check the news, read and send emails, etc. I’d brought a power strip so we could keep our devices charged (hotel rooms never have enough outlets in convenient spots).

That’s when we heard of the coming “third wave” on Tuesday night. Fortunately, that turned out to be a dud compared to what had already transpired. That’s also when we heard about all the plans for assistance and relief our state and local governments were announcing. I’m kidding, of course. None of them had anything helpful to say.

The afternoon high was 21°F.

Though we’d brought some food from home, there was little in the way of things we could cook for supper. We weren’t going to starve, but hoped to find an actual meal somewhere. So at 17:00, we began to drive around. McDonald’s was closed. Burger King was closed. And so on. We were about to give up and go eat slices of dry bread when we saw cars pulling into Hunan Palace, a Chinese food place on the edge of Harker Heights. We crunched into their snow-covered parking lot and were able to order to-go meals, which we took back to the hotel to eat. It was more than filling — enough was left over to re-heat for lunch the following day.

Living Like A Refugee : Tuesday

Again, it was 5°F outside when we woke, but this time the skies were mostly clear — which makes a difference and looks like hope.

The hotel was offering “box breakfast” (no hot breakfasts due to the pandemic), consisting of a plastic-wrapped bagel and a half-size cup of yogurt. B enjoyed the bagels and M ate the yogurt. They did have hot coffee downstairs, of which I gladly partook.

Neighbors still in their houses texted us to report the power was still out and indoor temps still dropping, so we asked the hotel if we could extend our stay. The clerk said we could, so we renewed our room through Saturday morning, just in case. This is where it came in handy to be financially stable with no balances on high-limit credit cards and a stockpile of savings. I’m not bragging; I’m saying we were fortunate. Many others, I know, were making the same decision — to stay longer in the hotel — but did so knowing they couldn’t afford it.

We drove to the Walmart Neighborhood Market nearest our house, which was cleaned out of bread, milk, eggs, butter, bottled water, and many other items. But we were able to buy one container of shelf-stable milk, several microwaveable meals that don’t require refrigeration or freezing, microwaveable paper plates, plastic cups, and so on. (We had brought plenty of plastic flatware from our house.) Just before leaving the store, I saw a pallet roll out and a stocker began filling an empty shelf with gallon jugs of “spring water”. I asked if there was a limit (there wasn’t), and grabbed four of the jugs.

From there, we drove to our house to pick up more items now that we expected to stay longer in the hotel. We filled another suitcase with clothes, got the rest of our covid masks, a bag of board games, a couple of stuffed animals, and more snack-type foods. It was 50°F inside the house (49°F when we left), which I attribute to outstanding insulation. It gave me hope that our water pipes wouldn’t burst — our house has the Manablock system, with flexible polymer pipes running just above the ceiling, buried in insulation. Any heat escaping from the interior through the attic will first pass through those pipes and keep them from getting too cold. While there, we chatted with a neighbor who said the entire neighborhood was still without power — at that point, it was about 29 hours since the outage.

Back at the hotel, we used the tiny microwave to reheat Hunan leftovers for lunch, and then played a few games. With my phone, I was able to keep my 330-day Duolingo streak going, and then signed out and let RnB use it to keep their streaks going as well. I’d also been in the middle of multiple chess tournaments online, with 24-hour time limits — I managed to not lose any of those games on time (I did lose a few the old-fashioned way). Those things might sound silly from the outside, but it did establish some tie to normalcy and helped fill time — what do you do when you’re stuck in a hotel room with three other people in the middle of a global pandemic and it’s too cold to do anything outside?

In the afternoon, we bundled up RnB and walked across the street to Academy Sports And Outdoors, which still was full of electricity, with hundreds of lights burning and plenty of heat. Mainly, this excursion was to give the children room to walk (and run, honestly). The children took off their coats and used the display exercise machines for half an hour. Bought a hoodie for R and some fashionable workout clothes for B. (Retail therapy.)

Back at the hotel again, we received messages from the school district (via text, email, and recorded phone calls) that school would be closed the entire week.

At some point during the day, we overheard an older man down the hall yelling at an employee and demanding to know why “the government” wasn’t helping. From the sound of his complaints, he’d been fed a lifetime of lies that conservatives are competent leaders and was only now learning otherwise.

15:00: Realizing we’d forgotten a few things at the house, I went back alone to pick them up. It was 51°F inside — I assume direct sunshine helped with that. I saw people clearing their driveways and asked if they had power — they said no; they were camping inside their homes and using the exercise as a way to get warm. I saw extension cords running across streets and heard the sounds of gasoline-powered generators.

Leaving our neighborhood, I saw the gas gauge at the halfway mark, and realized the car might be our last ditch method of staying warm or charging phones later in the week, so I went looking for gas. The first six stations I checked were either closed outright or had their gas pumps wrapped in emergency tape. Other cars were pulling in to check the same thing. I finally found the Valero at Trimmier and Elms fully functional and got gas a few minutes before everyone else on that side of town found the place. By the time I left, there were lines down the street in all directions.

While I was doing that, M was keeping RnB occupied by running up and down the hotel staircase, which they thought was great fun.

Not yet ready to dig into our small cache of food supplies, we again ordered supper from Hunan Palace, tipping lavishly, and I drove solo to pick it up.

The high for the day was 27°F. As the temp began to fall, a light mist began at 21:00.

Mid-Crisis : Wednesday

We woke to a 7°F morning on Wednesday (Feb. 17), with about a tenth of an inch of new ice over everything, from freezing rain during the night. Somehow all four sides of the minivan were iced, though this time the driver side was better off.

I had hotel coffee for breakfast, while MRB had dry cereal and bagels. (There was no yogurt in the boxed breakfast this day, because the hotel’s delivery truck hadn’t shown up.) We learned the hotel employees were staying at the hotel too — some couldn’t get home and others had no power at home. All remained friendly and helpful throughout the ordeal.

I recalled that I’d been about to pay our city water bill that day the power went out, and that it’s the bill with the least amount of leeway between the bill date and the due date, so I managed to connect to my account using my phone, see the amount of the bill, and then log into our bank account to send an electronic payment. Downloading the bank app was a chore via 4G, which chose that moment to get sluggish, but just about that time the hotel’s WiFi kicked in. And logging into the bank app was nearly impossible due to the “we don’t recognize this device” warning, which required a couple of password resets, but I finally got it to go through and sent the payment for the water bill. (Again, kind of a small thing, and I knew the city offices were closed due to the weather, but I didn’t want to come home in a few days and find late fees piling up.) Note: I normally do all our bill-paying and bank stuff on my PC, which has all the passwords and other log-in details saved in a secure file. I never do it on my phone because: I have thick fingers and my phone is more than four years old and will barely run any of these apps.

Before lunch, we noticed the water pressure at the hotel diminishing. Soon thereafter, we received messages from the city that capacity was “diminished” all over, asking us to conserve water. Soon the pressure was just a drip from the bathroom sink — not even enough to rinse out a toothbrush. Those gallons of water I’d bought the day before were going to come in handy.

M and I got the idea that our homeowner insurance might cover some of the costs (though we’re relatively cynical people and were understandably pessimistic about insurance companies doing anything they’re not absolutely forced to do). We couldn’t remember the name of our insurance company, nor did we have any paperwork with us to look up our policy number. But we brainstormed and internet-searched and finally got the right company, which M called and they started a claim for us. The person M talked to indicated they might cover the hotel stay and possibly spoiled food and any other damage. It surprised me that they didn’t immediately pass the blame to the electrical grid people, and I decided not to hold out any hope that they’d actually come through in the end.

It turns out that one of the hardest parts of being shut up in a hotel with two children is keeping them occupied. They can only stare at tablets and TVs for so long before they (especially the boy) need to run and shout and do things. Running them up and down the stairs is only fun the first few times. So we walked across to Academy again. This time it wasn’t crunchy snow; most of that had melted and re-frozen into a very smooth, very slick sheet of inch-thick ice. We all held hands — because an eight-legged creature is more stable on ice than a two-legged one — and skated our way across the street and then inched our way up the very mild slope of the parking lot. Again, the store was open with full heat and lights. M bought hiking boots for her and R (B and I already have some). We bought a first aid kit because B had cut himself and we had no bandages. We bought a pack of “Dude Wipes” (which I’ve laughed at on Twitter in the past) so we could “shower” that night in the absence of water pressure. Bought some wool socks.

Back at the hotel, the water pressure had fallen to zero. M and B made multiple trips to the only working ice machine in the building (second floor) with a trash can and the ice bucket, getting as much ice as possible into our room’s bathtub, hoping to melt it so we could eventually flush the toilet. When that machine was exhausted (we weren’t the only people raiding it), M and B went outside and began gathering snow and ice from the sidewalks to add to the tub. Later, we got the tub faucet to trickle, and used that to get even more water in there. We rationed our flushes until absolutely necessary.

Microwaved meals for supper, then four hands of Uno (RnB each won two).

That evening, I saw on Twitter that FEMA was finally (?) mobilizing, bringing generators. But I learned that because someone had retweeted a New York Times article. None of our local sources, nor any emergency government folks in Texas, said anything about it.

The high for the day was 26°F.

We used “Dude Wipes” that night instead of showers.

Some time on Wednesday, M was interviewed via phone by a Texas Tribune reporter. She was quoted for a few paragraphs in this story published Friday.

Settling In : Thursday

Thursday (Feb. 18), it was 22°F outside, by far the warmest morning of the week. MRB again breakfasted on cereal and some fruit we’d brought from the house while I again had hotel coffee.

09:00: Took RnB “ice skating” in the hotel parking lot.

10:30: I skated down the slope in front of the hotel to Applebee’s to see if they were open. (They weren’t.) While there, I found an old man in a Chevrolet crossover spinning his tires in the parking lot. I was able to get my feet on a dry spot on the curb and push the front of his car sideways until his tires could grab some snow and he left with a wave. Meanwhile an ambulance was stuck in the ice on a side road, and firefighters in a red pickup were helping the EMTs get it moving again. When I arrived back at the hotel, a couple was trying to park but they were sliding toward the nearest car. I was able to push their vehicle sideways and they got into the parking lot safely. My good deeds for the week.

Microwave meals for lunch.

12:45: Insurance called back and said they would take over the billing for our hotel room, and telling us to report any damages once we returned to our house. Again I was surprised, and again I decided to not place too much hope in that.

One of the hotel employees brought boxes of donuts and kolaches from the Shipley’s Do-Nuts that was miraculously still open to our west, so we each got glazed donuts (the kolaches were all out by the time we made it to the lobby).

13:55: Across-the-street neighbor texted me to say his power was back on. He wasn’t at home, but could access his exterior security cameras via his phone. He said the road looked very slick on his camera view and he could see cars sliding on it. I decided to not risk it that day.

14:30: All four of us walked past Academy to Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, which we’d seen open last year in the old Toys R Us location but hadn’t yet been to. It’s kind of a “fell off the truck” type store, but we did buy some cleaning wipes, flashlights, a book (for me), and an activity book for B. R wanted some Post-it notes, so we bought those too.

Microwave meals for supper. Played charades. Couldn’t keep RnB behaving, so they lost their devices for the next day (usually just the threat of that is enough for them).

Instead of showers, we did sponge baths with washcloths.

Beginning Of The End : Friday

Friday (Feb. 19), the low was 19°F, another daily record low.

We decided to try driving to the house. I prepared myself for the worst: leaking pipes, another power outage, even ridiculous things like looting or our tree missing because someone in the area needed firewood (because thinking of the worst-possible outcome is how I survive the merely kinda bad outcome). So when we got home at 09:00 or so and found everything fine, it was quite a relief. The power had indeed been on since the previous afternoon and the heater had re-warmed the house. (I had turned down the thermostat before we left, so it wasn’t warm in there, but it was in the low 60s.) The sun was shining on the front of the house and the outdoor temp was already up into the 30s. We dropped off bags of dirty clothes, turned up the thermostat a little, and headed back to the hotel.

By then, ERCOT and other electrical-type people were claiming the blackouts were over, that the grid was stable. Though they’d clearly been full of baloney earlier in the week, we decided to trust that the power would stay on.

We packed up our room in record time and checked out just a few minutes after 10:00, and then drove home. Our house seems so LARGE now, after five days and four nights spent mostly inside that hotel room.

I decided not to strain the electrical grid any more than necessary and saved laundry for later. We didn’t plug in anything that wasn’t necessary. While M unpacked and RnB did whatever they do, I got a shovel and a tough-bristle garage broom and started breaking up the snow and ice that remained on our driveway. By lunchtime, it was 45°F outside and I was getting good melt. I finished the driveway while M drove to Hunan Palace for lunch — mainly so we could tip them again, but also because it’s actually decent food.

Water pressure was low at the house, but it was better than the hotel had. I don’t remember exactly when we learned of the boil-water notice, but I think it was sometime Friday. So M started boiling water, and I filled part of one tub for toilet-flushing water, which it turned out we didn’t need. We continued to ration toilet-flushes, but the tanks filled up each time we used them.

For evening showers, we did the thing where you get just wet enough and then turn off the water while you scrub, and then run the water just long enough to rinse off. Which we probably should have been doing anyway, in the interests of conservation.

I did a load of laundry after RnB went to bed, and then let it air dry on racks during the night.

Getting Back To Normal : Saturday

Saturday morning’s low was 27°F, another daily record low (a total of seven in the past eight days), but we saw upper 50s by afternoon. I started working on this blog entry and M started trying supermarkets. Even worse than the beginning of the pandemic, all stores are out of bread, milk, eggs, and all other dairy products. She was lucky to find a couple of gallon jugs of water. She found meat at locally owned Cosper’s Meat Market (which we’d heard about in the past but never tried).

In the afternoon, we went to Target. Again, all staple grocery items were gone, but we weren’t really expecting any. We bought the electric kettle we’d been looking at for a year or more. Not only will it help us boil our necessary water, but M can use it for her tea and I have begun using it for pour-over coffee.

M spoke to the insurance company again, and just as I had suspected, they decided they would not cover the hotel stay or the spoiled food; only damages to the actual house — of which there are none that I can tell.

We had sloppy joes for supper, and things began to feel more normal.

Again, I did a load of laundry after RnB’s bed time and let it air dry on racks during the night.

Keep On Keeping On : Sunday

Sunday, we awoke to a balmy 44°F low and a warm, humid south wind was blowing, getting us into the 60s by noon.

I worked to conclude this blog entry. M went to two more supermarkets in the morning, finding a few items, but almost no produce and of course no meat and dairy. When she got home, I went to three different supermarkets, finding another gallon jug of water, some bananas, sugar, more paper plates, and a few snack items. But no meat, bread, or dairy. I did see that some of the previously closed gas stations have re-opened, and all had long lines. Others are still closed.

In the afternoon, M took RnB to a playground.

The school messaged to say all KISD schools would be closed through at least Wednesday. I assume the ongoing boil-water notice is part of it. Probably some pipes froze at some schools, and likely many students and teachers are still without electricity. (I read in the news Sunday morning that 16,000 households in Killeen are still without power.)

All In All

Each time I think back over the past week, I’m reminded that this went fairly easy on us due to our financial circumstances. I know that not everyone was in such a position. And by “easy”, I mean we’re out some money (in the thousand-dollar range, counting hotel, spoiled food, supplies we wouldn’t ordinarily have bought), some time, and the not-insignificant emotional trauma. But in a few months, our budget dent will have smoothed over. (We’ll have to wait until early March for any possible surprises in the next electric bill — apparently prices have surged.) Within days or weeks, this will just be a story we tell, like the ones I tell about the 2000-1 winter I spent with my grandmother in Oklahoma, when we lost power for four or five days and it didn’t get above freezing for weeks. (It’s difficult to believe that was twenty years ago.) Our children might forget about it entirely within a few years.

And I know we lucked out a few times. Like getting the hotel room just before they were all booked up, getting enough ice to melt for toilet-flushing before the ice machines ran out, and so on. It helped that our home was relatively new and thus had top-notch modern insulation and the Manablock plumbing system. Our 14-year-old minivan held up valiantly through the week, defrosting and heating like a champ and handling the slick roads about as well as my Oklahoma ice-driving experience could make it handle. We were further fortunate that none of us had any health conditions that required care during this time, and that we didn’t have any pets. (Many people snuck their pets into the hotel anyway, because pets have to stay warm too, but I know it was extra trouble for them. One neighbor’s dog eats prescription food due to a stomach issue, and they ran out during the ice storm, for example. If we had bought the guinea pigs that R has been begging for, what would we have done with them?) More than one family in our neighborhood had pipes freeze and burst — some due to poorly installed water softener equipment, some due to non-winterized lawn sprinklers, and others for some other reason.

We further lucked out with hotel choice and timing. Several hotels lost power, while ours did not. The Hilton Garden Inn (next door to the hotel we booked) burned down just a few hours after we returned to our house. Even the hotel we stayed at reportedly lost power not long after we left.

Then there are minor inconveniences like trash pickup being canceled for the whole city all week — so next week everyone will have far too much, especially once we count all the spoiled food. And I think our shrubs out front died. They’ve handled all our previous cold snaps, but this is the first time they’ve turned a sickly brownish-red color. I’m going to clip them back and see if they resprout as spring moves in. If not, we’ll find a replacement.

As of late Sunday (Feb. 21), we’re still under a boil-water notice, but the pressure is back to nearly normal, especially just before dawn when everyone else is still asleep and just after bedtime — which is why I’ve been doing laundry at those hours, trying to catch up.

But we made it intact, with some lessons learned. And now, back to our regularly scheduled pandemic.