The Coldest Place

And the survival power of bitching

Baby, it’s cold outside.  But things could be worse.

In my neck of the woods, temperatures dropped below zero this week, and we had over ten inches of snow.  Neither represents anything like a record – the heaviest snowfall in recent history was during the “Blizzard of ’93,”where we got half again that much in just a few hours, and the lowest recorded temperature was -24 – yes, that’s right, 24 below zero – back in 1985, making Knoxville the coldest place in the lower 48 that day.

Still, it was pretty damn cold.  As it does whenever there’s more than a flake or two, Knoxville shut down.  Even the University, which is slower to close, did.  We drove to the gym on Monday morning as the snow started, and then when we drove home an hour later things were much worse.  But I have a 4WD sport-ute with excellent tires, and a lot of snow-driving experience so we had no problems.  (In law school, I drove home from an aptly named “Winter Weekend” at Smith College in a blizzard so bad that the snow on Interstate 91 was in places deeper than the front bumper of my VW Beetle.  I don’t know why I didn’t just stay another night; I was having fun there, and my date was fine with it.  In retrospect, I took law review responsibilities way too seriously. But this driving, in this car, was a piece of cake compared to that blizzard in a ‘69 Beetle with One Price Tire radials.)

We had plenty of food and supplies, at the house – I always run up my stocks of key perishables in the winter in case we get snowed in, even though that hasn’t happened much in recent years, so there weren’t any hardships.  Helen and I went for walks in the snow and did yoga on the living room floor, I got a lot of work done on a law review article (hey, there’s a common thread), and I made up my canceled classes via video.  As enforced staycations go, it wasn’t bad, though we’re pretty much ready for things to thaw out.

So here are a few lessons learned: 

First, have a good car with good tires.  Second, drive it carefully – don’t go too fast, plan your turns, stops, and so forth well in advance, and whatever you do, don’t attack a hill without a fair amount of momentum.  (I’ve seen people come to a stop at the bottom to work up their courage before attempting a hill.  This does not work.).  Keep your distance from other cars, and plan your route with minimizing hills, sharp turns, etc. in mind.   If your car is parked outdoors overnight, pull the wipers up off the windshield so they don’t freeze to it.  Better still cover the windshield with a tarp or something if you can to make clearing it easier.

Second, keep plenty of supplies at home.  Extra food, medicine, etc. enough for at least several days and preferably longer.   I keep some extra perishables in the fridge, but I also keep plenty of frozen, canned, and dry foods.  (That’s not counting survival-type food for real emergencies.)

I keep a backup source of heat – an indoor-rate propane heater and stove – even though we have gas heat and a gas-powered generator.  Just in case.  A couple of electric space heaters are good, too, in case the furnace fails for some reason.

Even though I have a generator, I keep crucial electronics on UPS backup.  When the power goes out, the generator waits for 5 seconds to see if it comes back, then spools up for about 5 more seconds before kicking in with power.  Anything that I don’t want to reboot is on a UPS.  

But there’s an even bigger preparedness lesson in this week’s events:  To protect yourself from power outages, bitch.  Loudly and a lot.

You see, last year before Christmas, when temperatures were low, but not nearly as low as they were this week, the Tennessee Valley Authority subjected us to rolling blackouts.  (They weren’t the only ones – Duke Energy did the same.)

The problem was, they had shut down a bunch of coal plants in favor of renewables (and also some gas and nukes under construction) but we lost the old power before they had the replacement plants online.  This was basically due to a political desire to reduce carbon emissions as soon as possible. That left them with insufficient power to meet the demands during a pretty run of the mill cold snap.

There were voices in local media telling us that we should just put up with it, as it was a minor inconvenience in the service of saving the planet.  Fortunately, those voices were drowned out by the much louder and more numerous voices of people (including moi) who thought that rolling blackouts due to insufficient generating capacity were a Third World solution, and that here in the First World the solution to insufficient generating capacity is more generating capacity. 

Likewise, claims that “unprecedented” cold was behind the blackouts were beaten down by people pointing out that when it was -24 the lights (and heat) didn’t go out.

TVA and Duke apologized, both faced commissions of inquiry and Congressional complaints, and, miraculously, there were no rolling blackouts this time despite lower temperatures that lasted longer. 

Bitching works.  And that’s good, because decline is a choice.  If you don’t choose decline then make sure that you heap scorn on people and organizations that look like that’s what they’re choosing.  You might think they won’t care, but in fact big institutions are pretty sensitive to public criticism, especially when it’s joined with Congressional pressure.

That’s what happened here and, lo and behold, TVA managed to keep the lights on this time.

If they won’t do their jobs on their own, make them.  It is, apparently, up to us.