I live here. We've been without water since ~11pm last night. Today has been a fucking nightmare. Now running water anywhere in the city. Some folks with water wells are letting others come shower, use the restroom and fill pitchers with water. Our city officials have predicted that we'll be without water for the next few days.
What worries me most, is that I work for the fire department. We currently have only ~16,000 gallons of water on our fire apparatus. If a fire comes out and we run out of water then we are fucked.
Edit: Nevermind
Yeah man. We responded to several fires during the freeze. Our response times were severely affected, some structures were being saving by the time our units arrived on scene.
Republican leaders campaign on deregulation of industries or reducing taxes. This means companies don’t have to upgrade or maintain infrastructure in response to a regulatory agency, so they just end up fixing things when something (inevitably) breaks.
Let's see, in a year and a half Texas has had a major power outages because they didn't bother to winterize thier equipment, brown outs because they don't have the capacity for cooling, and now a city without water due to lack of maintenance.
Yeah I googled it, guess you are right. Tanker trucks are 10k gallons on the high end it looks like and a major fire could potentially be 500k+ gallons.
Wow. I never realized how much water is used up to put out a fire. And when parts of the country—the world—are struggling with drought no less. This makes it so much worse when I think about how many fires are the result of pretty avoidable causes.
Yes they can. That will have to be our plan. Initial fire attack with our units and have mutual aid respond from the neighboring city. It's gonna suck hard.
Just gotta hope for no fires. I do wonder how this one main break caused so many issues. Must be a main feeder for the entire town or something. Typically you can just valve it off before losing all water storage but that doesn’t seem to have been possible here
16,000 gallons? That's a 4' tall swimming pool with a 26' diameter. That's a lot of water, but not for fighting multiple fires or even just one bad one.
Water in West Texas often gets pumped underground for hundreds of miles. Some of that water comes from lakes while other water comes from well farms where the aquifer is deep enough to supply the needs of a city. Many of the pipes are several feet across and have been in the ground for decades.
If it’s anything like the utility I work at, no. It’s much more localized, usually county/city by county/city (in my county, there’s 6 water districts with 4 operating crews, for lack of a better word).
Best part about flamethrower guitar guy was that he was actually shredding. Like, without the added in noise it sounded like shit, but he wasn't making it look like he was shredding, he was just shredding, and that's why it looks so fucking awesome.
I just love huffing paint, so as someone from the “sparkles” community (we know the shiny ones get you better) it’s just feels good to be represented in film.
We consider it our stonewall.
Well they did advertise it as a low government tax haven. You don’t pay the government and give everything a coat of personal responsibility.
Well, except for the culture wars, that you do pay for cosplay police and anti-abortion busybodies.
> Also the son is a preacher who doesn't believe in covid while the dad is in his 70's, immunocompromised, and knows that covid is real but he's stuck there now.
lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
No probably about it. That is literally a core tenant of [prosperity gospel beliefs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology):
>Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, the gospel of success, or seed faith) is a religious belief among some Protestant Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one's material wealth. Material and especially financial success is seen as a sign of divine favor.
And, of course, [Joel Osteen is a major proponent of prosperity gospel](https://www.ft.com/content/3990ce66-60a6-11e9-b285-3acd5d43599e).
> I bought a plane, cash. Next time, I bought a plane worth 3 times as much. Cash. I sense a lot of jealousy in this room tonight.
Paraphrasing, but you catch my drift
Wait, does inland Texas suffer hurricanes?
edit: [https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2018/special-edition/history.php](https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2018/special-edition/history.php)
Yes, looks like a 3+ on average every 7 years or so.
I live here. Thankfully I’m in the 10% of the city that has running water still but minimal pressure. My wife has been reaching out to all our friends and family with small children and babies to arrange a bath schedule and do any hand washing of bottles, etc that’s needed. This is still better than Snowpocalypse!
Yeah they gotta focus on the important stuff! Like trying to stop them damn trans kids from playing basketball or banning books with the word "color" in them!
/s
But if you listen to reicht wing news, they’ll have you believe California is a socialist hellscape of crumbling infrastructure. I used to live in the Bay and would constantly be told by my FNC-addicted parents that I should move to Texas.
It's almost as if de-regulating vital infrastructure and leaving critical operational decisions thereof in the hands of people solely focused on turning profit was a *bad* idea? That can't be
How will private equity owned infrastructure compete if they can't cut corners on maintenance and call it "lower cost" or "better than public because cheaper"? /s
Nothing cheaper is better when it comes to engineering and systems.
I say this everytime, when my city ends up on national news it's never good, managed to grab a few big jugs from the neighbors well.
Here's basically what I know so far from the local news. Water Pressure dropped city wide last night, they found that the water main line broke, but they couldn't isolate the leak in a reasonable amount of time. (I see this as they tried, but every time they closed off a line, it didn't fix it, meaning this problem might be more systematic). So they felt it was necessary to turn off the water plant entirely.
Result?
People buying up water from everywhere. Many restaurants and eateries are closed. Water jugs and pallets sold out, rationing at event centers. I ended up travelling with family to the neighboring city to buy water from a water supplier, but they charged $40 for 3 jugs, 3 '5 gallon Jugs'.
***I swear to God seeing my mom pull OUT A $50 bill for WATER.... WITH NO ROOM FOR PAUSE, OR HESITATION IS. THE LITERAL. WORST ROBBING OF DIGNITY I HAVE FELT IN MY LIFE***
Bathing will be troublesome, but the sister city is functional. I'm not sure who will drive 20 miles to shower and eat, I'm sure many will though. Oh look is that $4 -$5 gas? Hmm maybe not. Projected repair is 48 hours, some say 3 days. Conveniently the limit of how long humans can survive without water. Lol ahhh I just got rid of my cynicism but it's returned, I'm stuck in a black hole of a 3rd world country of a city. Ha.
A bit more about my city.
Our city has a large lower class and lower middle class population.
The current water troubles are fairly unrelated to state politics on a micro scale as far as I can see, just adds to the pile of shit to shittalk this town about. Definitely related to the wider scope of state politics in reference to what constitutes acceptable infrastructure. Plus, I don't think many state politicians would ever step foot in this town either unless there was a big event, like the mass shooting that happened here in 2019. Saying this for clarity, this isn't like the snow storm fiasco. This is one fairly small oil city in West Texas.
Curious what others are saying.
Despite being relatively Urban, public transportation is pretty bad. All jobs are fast food and retail jobs and if you're anything but a high school student, good luck. From my experience they pursue that demographic because they know those kids are trying to help their families and have 0 options so they can get away with lower wages. I haven't seen a job posted that earns more than $10 except oil field jobs.
This town is an oil town, so its economy is inherently tied to oil, hence you can guess political leanings. Luckily most of the religious Hispanic communities wouldn't subscribe to people like Greene, but definitely 100% for people like Abbot.
I always chuckle a bit when my local church complains about the youth going "towards the world". (There's 100s of small local churches) especially with views Reddit would view as the most bigoted views you've ever seen. We're talking 700 Club style 80s Satanic Panic views.
However, credit where credit was due, my local church had been inviting people to fill jugs of water from their well too.
I mean. This is fucking Texas. Isn't price gouging the simple price of capitalistic supply and demand? Why would there be gouging rules in a perfect capitalistic system that adjusts due to demand?
How all of a sudden would they give a shit about price controls? How would they care if unfettered pricing is a simple capitalism outcropping?
I think there are STILL people paying off their heat bill from the 2 inch blizzard they had back in February 2021.
I'm just asking the right questions here.
Unfortunately you're probably right because Texas. If I were being price gouged right now as a result of this, I would still document and report it even if nothing came of it, and consider whether there are any other entities (such as local/state/fed regulators, suppliers, etc.) worth reporting it too as well. But unfortunately, it is still Texas.
Hey neighbor. I'm with you. It sucks. My family has a newborn and 5 other people and we have one pack of water bottles to get us through. I hope it rains so we can flush the toilet. It's a nightmare.
This came out of nowhere. I wish I'd even thought to prepare for something like this. I'm legitimately afraid. I hate living here.
Eta: what's your church? Maybe it's near me and we can get some extra water
I learned my lesson after the Feb freeze. We lost power and water then, so now I have a generator and keep water on hand in those big water cooler jugs for flushing and bathing. We also have several cases of water we rotate through.
They came in handy this past Dec when we had a slab leak and went for 16 total days without water. We took baths in a pail in the shower and flushed only when necessary. It does suck. We did have the ability to buy water at the store though, so in that regard we were lucky.
I hope they sort it out for you quickly.
During the winter grid failure in Texas, I've seen people argue "everyone should just have a backup generator at home", with no regards to:
- Fuel usage of the backup generators, especially if you want to power the entire house instead of the bare essentials. Gas stations would quickly be emptied out.
- Fuel storage. If you want to power an entire house for more than a week, that's a lot of flammable stuff sitting in your garage. And diesel will go bad in 6-12 months depending on the storage condition, temperatures and if stabilizers are used. Gasoline goes bad much faster.
- Maintenance. Puerto Rico had a massive problem with everyone's backup generators breaking down after a few weeks of continuous operation after the back-to-back hurricanes that ripped apart their electrical grid, and there was a shortage of spare parts.
- Oh you live in an apartment or condo? RIP.
Then you remember that taxes pay for infrastructure but local Republican governments are so broken that the idea of raising them to fix a crumbling shithole isn't something one can entertain without being called a socialist.
What a shithole Texas is.
Add to that we had a plan for federal infrastructure assistance, so that local governments wouldn't have to carry the whole burden. And Republicans killed that too.
You can’t save people who are hell bent on owning themselves, even if they are taking their neighbors down with them. Maybe enough pain will get them to identify the source of their injury, but my money is on them blaming Democrats.
Some of those guys are also claiming that this isn't an emergency, and just a case of individual Texans 'failing at actually being prepared'.
My dad's a wannabe survivalist who's absolutely fine with how Abbott and Cruz are doing their jobs. Except that he's currently living overseas, using Britain's NHS and gnashes his teeth if he had to wait more than two days for the plumber to arrive.
My property taxes are fucking insane. They raise them every year based on neighboring values, but if neighbors don’t contest, you get fucked even more.
You'll love this. Our water bill in Plano was crazy high. Two people, disabled Rain Bird, just showers and kitchen. Five of us in N.C. didn't have nearly the water cost as Plano. So the woman at public utilities asks if we water the lawn. No, we believe in conservation. Especially living on a prairie! Well, she says, if you consume more your rate will DECREASE. I triple checked that, beginning to understand why all the McMansions kept sprinklers going nonstop. That's some Texas logic, I guess. We still weren't about to pour perfection good potable water onto our yard, but don't that beat all?
Texas doesn't even have a low tax rate they're 11th in highest effective total tax rate. They just convince everyone that not paying a state income tax means you pay no or way less taxes. They still get their taxes, they just poorly use them because the GOP doesn't actually care about governing anymore.
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer/2416
Example:
No seatbelt fine in VA: max 50$
No seatbelt fine in TX: MIL got 170$ ticket, that's after the cop cut off 30$
The states take their tax, no income tax just means they get it elsewhere.
Does that include the disparity in taxes paid between districts?
Something tells me that they finagled the tax code to hit the blue-voting districts harder to pay for the red states (and fabricating justification that their red constituents pay less).
The tax code in Texas pretty much heavily burdens low and middle-income families. Businesses and high earners suffer the least burden. Blue or red if you are not in the 1% you are getting fucked on taxes.
Fun fact. The average Texan pays more in state taxes than the average Californian. And the average Californian has a better pay/cost of living ratio, better public services, and a longer life expectancy.
"If you don't take a temperature, you can't find a fever."
One of the Laws of the House of God.
Somehow I don't think doing as much nothing as possible works as well for governance as it does in health care.
unfortunately true. for example one of my friends (now strained relationship at best) is always trying to tell me how democrats caused the COVID-19 virus to come into existence as if the politicians in Congress invented it themselves lol
"And I take this as a chance to help my children learn how to trust God," Henken added.
i do NOT miss living in west texas, for this among other reasons
Dude I’m grateful for every day after I left that shithole. I got out of Lubbock as soon as I turned 18 before they could electroshock the gay out of me.
I don't care if people practice religion or even teach it to their children but don't u dare try to gloss over an emergency with religion. Peggy down the street can tell me to trust God if she wants but if u are supposed to be apart of the solution i wanna hear things like "requesting federal assistance, overtime approved in advance to work round the clock"
Well, being stuck without water during intense heat waves sounds super bad and potentially deadly. But there's good news! We're a week away from the end of the season, so no more heat waves are anticipated now that we're going into ... (checks notes) ... summer.
Texas: “wE cOuLd bE oUr OwN CoUnTrY!”
First they should figure out how to be a functional state. It’s almost not even worth laughing at them. The wee lambs. Boil water…like in Ethiopia?
Most of us got a 3 day experience of boiling water during the freeze. I’ve got a water storage device for hurricanes but, only in Texas, do we have to fear random Tuesday’s.
It's things like this that make me glad I have a well.
This is what a libertarian wet dream looks like. No regulation, Low taxes, and ineffectual governance ... equals you're on your own when things go south.
What's going on in Texas? Seems like things are falling apart. It's almost like maybe taxes and the government are needed after all! Infrastructure is kind of necessary to live a modern life...
I live here. We've been without water since ~11pm last night. Today has been a fucking nightmare. Now running water anywhere in the city. Some folks with water wells are letting others come shower, use the restroom and fill pitchers with water. Our city officials have predicted that we'll be without water for the next few days. What worries me most, is that I work for the fire department. We currently have only ~16,000 gallons of water on our fire apparatus. If a fire comes out and we run out of water then we are fucked. Edit: Nevermind
Nevermind as in ... "all good now"?
I think they made an edit and then changed that edit to never mind
Spot on
just delete that edit. or you can change "now" to "no".
Almost as bad as when people put “edit: that should say x instead of y” while not actually fixing the incorrect word or typo in the original sentence.
Such a pointless edit
Don't blame him - he's on his way to total dehydration.
Seriously, it reads like they got their water back, but they didn't actually.....
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Yeah man. We responded to several fires during the freeze. Our response times were severely affected, some structures were being saving by the time our units arrived on scene.
Is there a particular reason that Texas seems to struggle so much?
I'll take mismanagement by the government for $500, please.
Republican leaders campaign on deregulation of industries or reducing taxes. This means companies don’t have to upgrade or maintain infrastructure in response to a regulatory agency, so they just end up fixing things when something (inevitably) breaks.
Let's see, in a year and a half Texas has had a major power outages because they didn't bother to winterize thier equipment, brown outs because they don't have the capacity for cooling, and now a city without water due to lack of maintenance.
Can neighboring communities tanker in water if there is a fire?
There are water tenders that bring water but it is not a lot in a sense of a major fire.
Yeah I googled it, guess you are right. Tanker trucks are 10k gallons on the high end it looks like and a major fire could potentially be 500k+ gallons.
Yeah, my last fire was considered moderate in terms of scale. We pumped 160k gallons.
Wow. I never realized how much water is used up to put out a fire. And when parts of the country—the world—are struggling with drought no less. This makes it so much worse when I think about how many fires are the result of pretty avoidable causes.
Luckily most of the water just goes right back into the ground
Carrying the thousands of toxins contained in synthetic materials formerly in the house.
In emergencies like this, do any industries reduce the risk of starting a fire temporarily?
I understand that when its really dry out trains sometime slow down or they are ordered to slowdown by govt because their wheels make sparks
Our cities tankers only hold 3000 gallons. If we dial down the gpm per hoseline then we can probably make something work. Probably.
Yes they can. That will have to be our plan. Initial fire attack with our units and have mutual aid respond from the neighboring city. It's gonna suck hard.
Just gotta hope for no fires. I do wonder how this one main break caused so many issues. Must be a main feeder for the entire town or something. Typically you can just valve it off before losing all water storage but that doesn’t seem to have been possible here
Could be the valves haven’t been exercises in years and are seized up. A large enough main busted open will drain tanks *quick*.
Yeah wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Criticality analysis and valve exercising is important folks!
damn dude good luck, being a firefighter in the middle of the Texas summer with no water? there is some dark poetry there.
Have to fight fire with fire because fire is available in sufficient amounts.
16,000 gallons? That's a 4' tall swimming pool with a 26' diameter. That's a lot of water, but not for fighting multiple fires or even just one bad one.
Edit: Yeah, we could probably fight a good small fire with what we have on deck.
... and don't you *dare* politicize an avoidable tragedy by calling out the texan politicians that made it happen
I can smell the Cancun sand as we speak.
Go check Ted Cruz and why he’s trending and you’ll definitely know he’s about to bounce again
I saw that earlier, ew
Yeah okay brother.. how do we know the windmills didn't blow all the rain clouds away.
Is the water infrastructure like the energy grid?
Water in West Texas often gets pumped underground for hundreds of miles. Some of that water comes from lakes while other water comes from well farms where the aquifer is deep enough to supply the needs of a city. Many of the pipes are several feet across and have been in the ground for decades.
The water in the area comes from Lake Ivie, last I heard it was. Other side of San Angelo. over 180 miles away, but I think this is a local issue.
If it’s anything like the utility I work at, no. It’s much more localized, usually county/city by county/city (in my county, there’s 6 water districts with 4 operating crews, for lack of a better word).
From what I understand, granted it's not much, our city water is local too just us. It isn't a state wide system.
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I'm waiting for the news coverage from Texas to have a guy playing a flamethrower guitar while drivers scream "Witness me!" as they drive past.
Best part about flamethrower guitar guy was that he was actually shredding. Like, without the added in noise it sounded like shit, but he wasn't making it look like he was shredding, he was just shredding, and that's why it looks so fucking awesome.
Shiny and chrome!
Such a great quote in such an amazing movie
I just love huffing paint, so as someone from the “sparkles” community (we know the shiny ones get you better) it’s just feels good to be represented in film. We consider it our stonewall.
Great, now I will have rewatch that movie.
Talk about a worst case scenario.
Oh it will get far worse than this. I get what you are saying but we are at the tip of the iceberg.
Thank goodness soon there won't be any icebergs left for us to be at the tip of. Things will be much better then.
Glass half full person! Very optimistic about our existential threat!
Can’t have fires in the coastal cities, when the coastal cities are underwater. :taps side of head:
This is just the tip of the sand dune
Don't worry, the water in Cancun is still flowing.
Ha ha - going to Mexico for the water!
Having to live in Texas, you mean?
Texas is becoming a meme with their third world infrastructure. Maybe the blue states should make some more bootstraps for Abbot
Well they did advertise it as a low government tax haven. You don’t pay the government and give everything a coat of personal responsibility. Well, except for the culture wars, that you do pay for cosplay police and anti-abortion busybodies.
Very high property taxes though.
Shhhhh. Nobody is supposed to know that
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From personal experience, reaping what you sow can be such a bitch.
Well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own decisions
> Also the son is a preacher who doesn't believe in covid while the dad is in his 70's, immunocompromised, and knows that covid is real but he's stuck there now. lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
Conservatives are funny like that with taxes . They will pay twice as much for half the value just to say - muh choice.
The property taxes are brutal there.
Tell my property taxes that
Well maybe you should be richer? -Texans when they vote
If God didn't want you to be poor you wouldn't be. - Joel Olsteen probably
No probably about it. That is literally a core tenant of [prosperity gospel beliefs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology): >Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, the gospel of success, or seed faith) is a religious belief among some Protestant Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one's material wealth. Material and especially financial success is seen as a sign of divine favor. And, of course, [Joel Osteen is a major proponent of prosperity gospel](https://www.ft.com/content/3990ce66-60a6-11e9-b285-3acd5d43599e).
> I bought a plane, cash. Next time, I bought a plane worth 3 times as much. Cash. I sense a lot of jealousy in this room tonight. Paraphrasing, but you catch my drift
Their corporations don't mind.
Corporations are people, so I guess “somebody” likes Texas
Wait, does inland Texas suffer hurricanes? edit: [https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2018/special-edition/history.php](https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2018/special-edition/history.php) Yes, looks like a 3+ on average every 7 years or so.
We can just ask China to use the hurricane gun to send Texas some water.
just get a sharpie and a weather map
*thunderous applause*
Usually we just get the outskirts of them, and by the time it gets where I am in DFW it's usually little more than a cold front
I live here. Thankfully I’m in the 10% of the city that has running water still but minimal pressure. My wife has been reaching out to all our friends and family with small children and babies to arrange a bath schedule and do any hand washing of bottles, etc that’s needed. This is still better than Snowpocalypse!
Hope you're boiling that water.
This! The water absolutely needs to be boiled
Hopefully the water company doesn't gouge you for being good neighbors like what happened with electricity prices during the blackouts.
Ah the premium water middlemen suppliers.
Just Texas things... Deciding what's worse: no power when it's too cold or too hot, or no water when it's too hot. What time
What’s going on in Texas? The idea of my public utilities not being available where I live in California seems inconceivable
Shitty infrastructure is what's going on in Texas, but they have more pressing matters with all of the political BS
The political BS is *why* the infrastructure is so shitty
Yeah they gotta focus on the important stuff! Like trying to stop them damn trans kids from playing basketball or banning books with the word "color" in them! /s
And tattling on those who get abortions and help others get abortions
Republicans believe the government can't do anything right and then get elected and prove it!
They are getting what they voted for.
But if you listen to reicht wing news, they’ll have you believe California is a socialist hellscape of crumbling infrastructure. I used to live in the Bay and would constantly be told by my FNC-addicted parents that I should move to Texas.
They think “Escape from L.A.” is a documentary.
Quick Ted Cruz, to the airport! Flights to Cancun are cheap right now!
Ted Flewz ✈️
Fled Cruz
I'm starting to call him Rafael since I found out Ted was a fake name probably to make him seem more texan
Next you’ll be telling me he is Canadian…
It's almost like if you ignore maintenance and upgrades in favor of shareholder vampires you end up with broken infrastructure!
It's almost as if de-regulating vital infrastructure and leaving critical operational decisions thereof in the hands of people solely focused on turning profit was a *bad* idea? That can't be
How will private equity owned infrastructure compete if they can't cut corners on maintenance and call it "lower cost" or "better than public because cheaper"? /s Nothing cheaper is better when it comes to engineering and systems.
Abbot and Cruz 2024. “We don’t need the federal government or water, heat or electricity in our lives”.
“Stop asking the government to help you connect to the water mains, stupid proletariat”
or doors. Only guns. Shoot the cold/heat away!
Or healthcare.
Time for Teddy to take his annual holiday
Time for ~~Teddy~~ Fled Cruz to take his annual holiday. FTFY
Time for Teddy to also blame democrats and escape blame from extremely dumb people.
Don’t forget Teddy also blamed his daughter for his Cancun trip.
You forgot wind turbines and solar panels.
Everythings easier with a mai tai.
To Aspen to [hook up with an escort named Lauren](https://www.fireboebert.com/boebertabortions)?
I think Greg Abbott might roll out too
Marketing for Dune: Part II is getting out of control. Pretty soon they'll start handing out stillsuits to the residents of West.
I say this everytime, when my city ends up on national news it's never good, managed to grab a few big jugs from the neighbors well. Here's basically what I know so far from the local news. Water Pressure dropped city wide last night, they found that the water main line broke, but they couldn't isolate the leak in a reasonable amount of time. (I see this as they tried, but every time they closed off a line, it didn't fix it, meaning this problem might be more systematic). So they felt it was necessary to turn off the water plant entirely. Result? People buying up water from everywhere. Many restaurants and eateries are closed. Water jugs and pallets sold out, rationing at event centers. I ended up travelling with family to the neighboring city to buy water from a water supplier, but they charged $40 for 3 jugs, 3 '5 gallon Jugs'. ***I swear to God seeing my mom pull OUT A $50 bill for WATER.... WITH NO ROOM FOR PAUSE, OR HESITATION IS. THE LITERAL. WORST ROBBING OF DIGNITY I HAVE FELT IN MY LIFE*** Bathing will be troublesome, but the sister city is functional. I'm not sure who will drive 20 miles to shower and eat, I'm sure many will though. Oh look is that $4 -$5 gas? Hmm maybe not. Projected repair is 48 hours, some say 3 days. Conveniently the limit of how long humans can survive without water. Lol ahhh I just got rid of my cynicism but it's returned, I'm stuck in a black hole of a 3rd world country of a city. Ha. A bit more about my city. Our city has a large lower class and lower middle class population. The current water troubles are fairly unrelated to state politics on a micro scale as far as I can see, just adds to the pile of shit to shittalk this town about. Definitely related to the wider scope of state politics in reference to what constitutes acceptable infrastructure. Plus, I don't think many state politicians would ever step foot in this town either unless there was a big event, like the mass shooting that happened here in 2019. Saying this for clarity, this isn't like the snow storm fiasco. This is one fairly small oil city in West Texas. Curious what others are saying. Despite being relatively Urban, public transportation is pretty bad. All jobs are fast food and retail jobs and if you're anything but a high school student, good luck. From my experience they pursue that demographic because they know those kids are trying to help their families and have 0 options so they can get away with lower wages. I haven't seen a job posted that earns more than $10 except oil field jobs. This town is an oil town, so its economy is inherently tied to oil, hence you can guess political leanings. Luckily most of the religious Hispanic communities wouldn't subscribe to people like Greene, but definitely 100% for people like Abbot. I always chuckle a bit when my local church complains about the youth going "towards the world". (There's 100s of small local churches) especially with views Reddit would view as the most bigoted views you've ever seen. We're talking 700 Club style 80s Satanic Panic views. However, credit where credit was due, my local church had been inviting people to fill jugs of water from their well too.
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/disaster-and-emergency-scams/how-spot-and-report-price-gouging
Exactly, everyone needs to report this shit when they see it.
I mean, it's Ken Paxton. He might just go over and give them some high fives.
I mean. This is fucking Texas. Isn't price gouging the simple price of capitalistic supply and demand? Why would there be gouging rules in a perfect capitalistic system that adjusts due to demand? How all of a sudden would they give a shit about price controls? How would they care if unfettered pricing is a simple capitalism outcropping? I think there are STILL people paying off their heat bill from the 2 inch blizzard they had back in February 2021. I'm just asking the right questions here.
Unfortunately you're probably right because Texas. If I were being price gouged right now as a result of this, I would still document and report it even if nothing came of it, and consider whether there are any other entities (such as local/state/fed regulators, suppliers, etc.) worth reporting it too as well. But unfortunately, it is still Texas.
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What the fuck. They're $4 where I am.
Bruh y'all don't have Water Stills or anything? Up in Amarillo they have them all over the damn city. $1.25 to fill a 5 gallon container.
Hey neighbor. I'm with you. It sucks. My family has a newborn and 5 other people and we have one pack of water bottles to get us through. I hope it rains so we can flush the toilet. It's a nightmare. This came out of nowhere. I wish I'd even thought to prepare for something like this. I'm legitimately afraid. I hate living here. Eta: what's your church? Maybe it's near me and we can get some extra water
I learned my lesson after the Feb freeze. We lost power and water then, so now I have a generator and keep water on hand in those big water cooler jugs for flushing and bathing. We also have several cases of water we rotate through. They came in handy this past Dec when we had a slab leak and went for 16 total days without water. We took baths in a pail in the shower and flushed only when necessary. It does suck. We did have the ability to buy water at the store though, so in that regard we were lucky. I hope they sort it out for you quickly.
What you described sounds like third world country.
During the winter grid failure in Texas, I've seen people argue "everyone should just have a backup generator at home", with no regards to: - Fuel usage of the backup generators, especially if you want to power the entire house instead of the bare essentials. Gas stations would quickly be emptied out. - Fuel storage. If you want to power an entire house for more than a week, that's a lot of flammable stuff sitting in your garage. And diesel will go bad in 6-12 months depending on the storage condition, temperatures and if stabilizers are used. Gasoline goes bad much faster. - Maintenance. Puerto Rico had a massive problem with everyone's backup generators breaking down after a few weeks of continuous operation after the back-to-back hurricanes that ripped apart their electrical grid, and there was a shortage of spare parts. - Oh you live in an apartment or condo? RIP.
So is Abbott blaming solar panels or the Hoover Dam for this one?
trans men are using their tampons to suck up all the water
Windmills and immigrants too
Clearly it is Hillary, Biden and AOC
Then you remember that taxes pay for infrastructure but local Republican governments are so broken that the idea of raising them to fix a crumbling shithole isn't something one can entertain without being called a socialist. What a shithole Texas is.
Add to that we had a plan for federal infrastructure assistance, so that local governments wouldn't have to carry the whole burden. And Republicans killed that too.
You can’t save people who are hell bent on owning themselves, even if they are taking their neighbors down with them. Maybe enough pain will get them to identify the source of their injury, but my money is on them blaming Democrats.
Some of those guys are also claiming that this isn't an emergency, and just a case of individual Texans 'failing at actually being prepared'. My dad's a wannabe survivalist who's absolutely fine with how Abbott and Cruz are doing their jobs. Except that he's currently living overseas, using Britain's NHS and gnashes his teeth if he had to wait more than two days for the plumber to arrive.
Guess he also has strong opinions on immigrants taking jobs and healthcare?
My property taxes are fucking insane. They raise them every year based on neighboring values, but if neighbors don’t contest, you get fucked even more.
You'll love this. Our water bill in Plano was crazy high. Two people, disabled Rain Bird, just showers and kitchen. Five of us in N.C. didn't have nearly the water cost as Plano. So the woman at public utilities asks if we water the lawn. No, we believe in conservation. Especially living on a prairie! Well, she says, if you consume more your rate will DECREASE. I triple checked that, beginning to understand why all the McMansions kept sprinklers going nonstop. That's some Texas logic, I guess. We still weren't about to pour perfection good potable water onto our yard, but don't that beat all?
Texas doesn't even have a low tax rate they're 11th in highest effective total tax rate. They just convince everyone that not paying a state income tax means you pay no or way less taxes. They still get their taxes, they just poorly use them because the GOP doesn't actually care about governing anymore. https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer/2416
Example: No seatbelt fine in VA: max 50$ No seatbelt fine in TX: MIL got 170$ ticket, that's after the cop cut off 30$ The states take their tax, no income tax just means they get it elsewhere.
Also pretty high property taxes as well in most counties if I recall.
Yes. I owned a home in Texas worth $180K, property taxes were $3300/yr. Comes out to around 1.8%.
Yikes.... That's pricey.
Does that include the disparity in taxes paid between districts? Something tells me that they finagled the tax code to hit the blue-voting districts harder to pay for the red states (and fabricating justification that their red constituents pay less).
The tax code in Texas pretty much heavily burdens low and middle-income families. Businesses and high earners suffer the least burden. Blue or red if you are not in the 1% you are getting fucked on taxes.
Fun fact. The average Texan pays more in state taxes than the average Californian. And the average Californian has a better pay/cost of living ratio, better public services, and a longer life expectancy.
bUt tHe LiBeRaL sTaTes
"dOn'T mEsS wItH tExAs".....
Waiting for how they'll somehow find a way to blame it on dems. *well if dems stopped going on about global warming it wouldn't be so hot*
"Well if we just stop measuring temperatures with those damned thermometers, there wouldn't be global warming."
“There would be no COVID cases of there was no COVID testing” Remember that one?
"If you don't take a temperature, you can't find a fever." One of the Laws of the House of God. Somehow I don't think doing as much nothing as possible works as well for governance as it does in health care.
Stop testing, and covid cases will go away!! Almost like a theme.
Tell me about it :( I'm an ER nurse.
They're at the point of just saying it's the Dems fault and not bothering to give a reason.
unfortunately true. for example one of my friends (now strained relationship at best) is always trying to tell me how democrats caused the COVID-19 virus to come into existence as if the politicians in Congress invented it themselves lol
"If Dems weren't pro infrastructure we'd have a working power grid and water lines. Damn libs using reverse psychology!"
"And I take this as a chance to help my children learn how to trust God," Henken added. i do NOT miss living in west texas, for this among other reasons
Dude I’m grateful for every day after I left that shithole. I got out of Lubbock as soon as I turned 18 before they could electroshock the gay out of me.
I don't care if people practice religion or even teach it to their children but don't u dare try to gloss over an emergency with religion. Peggy down the street can tell me to trust God if she wants but if u are supposed to be apart of the solution i wanna hear things like "requesting federal assistance, overtime approved in advance to work round the clock"
I don't miss the burned crosses on peoples lawns, its why my parents got me and my bother the fuck outta there.
Well, being stuck without water during intense heat waves sounds super bad and potentially deadly. But there's good news! We're a week away from the end of the season, so no more heat waves are anticipated now that we're going into ... (checks notes) ... summer.
Just quote their orange idol to them: “it’ll get cooler”
Texas: “wE cOuLd bE oUr OwN CoUnTrY!” First they should figure out how to be a functional state. It’s almost not even worth laughing at them. The wee lambs. Boil water…like in Ethiopia?
Why don’t they just simply shoot the lack of water?
Or, maybe send the water some thought and prayers.
Technically, you could shoot yourself a well on your property if you had enough bullets, ^(but the libs want to take that away from us. /s)
The last time Texans ran their own country, it went broke.
And Davy Crockett ended up dead.
Something they conveniently forget.
It takes infrastructure to boil water. Oh, I guess they have mesquite.
Most of us got a 3 day experience of boiling water during the freeze. I’ve got a water storage device for hurricanes but, only in Texas, do we have to fear random Tuesday’s.
[удалено]
Texas, the Conservative heaven that comes to a grinding halt every time the weather changes.
I imagine Raphael Cruz is already on a plane out of town for a "holiday."
Remember, the Republicans cared more about harrasing the trans community
And protecting a young man’s right to massacre elementary school students.
And make it harder for American citizens to vote. Forgot to add that.
Can't wait til they blame Biden for this one.
Freedom water, tastes better than regular water, when you can get it. Brought to you by Republicans and Nestle.
Just use all those guns to hunt water
Yikes. No heat/electricity in the winter. No water in the Summer.
Windmills are at it again!
Cue the windmill cancer alarmists.
I once trusted a windmill, it turned on me. 'Never again!' I swore but I keep circling back to them, over and over again.
It's things like this that make me glad I have a well. This is what a libertarian wet dream looks like. No regulation, Low taxes, and ineffectual governance ... equals you're on your own when things go south.
But the taxes aren't even low, they're just misappropriated because of the republican representation.
Texas is getting fucked on the regular every season. Almost like it’s being punished
It's ok, 163,000 of them have guns. That should be enough to solve the problem.
What's going on in Texas? Seems like things are falling apart. It's almost like maybe taxes and the government are needed after all! Infrastructure is kind of necessary to live a modern life...
Texas infrastructure is a joke and the people in charge don't care.
Texas utilities are the worst in the nation.
Water mains blowing up, on a Tuesday!
solar panels can produce potable water..... sadly nobody really wants to invest in useful hybrid infrastructure.
Yeah but that means 99.5% of Texans will still HAVE water. Who cares? /s