Big Texas Freeze Out - Lessons Learned

[Steven@147]

We lost power at the Galveston RV Park Monday morning at 0230, we got it back at 0200 this morning and we re not out of the woods yet cause they are warning of rolling blackouts.
The wife and i learned a lot through this. When this started we had about 10# of propane in one tank and the other 30# was full. Had 1/3 full fresh water on board and just by chance we had increased that to 2/3.

When power went off wife woke me up, went outside to howling winds, stinging sleet, snow, ice pellets. Wind gusts 30-40. For 3 days the RV has been wiggling in the wind! Wind chill @ 6*. We got the genny out of the back of the truck and fired up and connected. Its max output is 25 amps. Throughout this we have learned how much a lot of stuff draws by monitoring the EMS power panel L1 - L2 amps. We found in the real world for our RV;
Fireplace on HI-12 Low-6
Electric H2O heater 12
Microwave - 12.5
Convection Oven - 12
Coffee Pot - 9
Converter on average 6-9 depending on the 12 Volt draw
Electric Skillet - 13
Electric Floor Heater - 13
Fridge 5
TV 1
Recliners 1 amp each
Heated H2O hose - 2
Tank heaters - 1 amp each we have 3 switches Fresh Black Grey
Furnace fan 3 shows up on converter draw.

One thing I'm glad I did was put the EMS power monitor inside the coach in the coat closet. If I had installed it in the storage compartment, I would have had to run outside to check the amp draw and I would have lost a lot of heat opening the front door all the time and the storage compartment door to check the amp draw.

We did not run fridge or H2O heater on propane and to conserve propane. At one point I drove a 60 mile radius around Galveston, no propane to be had. We had what we had, it had to last!
The trick to power is to cycle things on and off and keep the draw under 25 amps and the more amps you ask for the more gas the generator eats. Watts / 120=amps
We would run the tank heaters, fireplace on low and fridge, then switch out the fire place for the H2o heater and so forth. And for all the complaining we do about the LCI reclining chairs the butt warmers were a godsend! Keeping the total draw @ 20 amps or below the gen would run @ 7 hours on 2 gallons gas. This is critical as gas became real hard to find. Most stations were without power or out of gas!

We started out keeping the coach in the 56-57* range and the storage compart stayed @40-43. We ended up with trying to keep the coach 53* and lowest the storage compartment got was 37 to conserve propane, we almost ran out after 3.5 days. Then after 50 hours of continuous use the generator started have problems. It kept shutting off like we were pulling too many amps but I know we were not because i kept a close eye on it. It would run for @ 1 hour before it started making noises, so now we are relying more on propane to keep warm and its running out. The generator 1 hour run then cool off and restart later would recharge the RV battery and the fireplace on low to supplement the heat. About every 2 hours or when we couldn't stand it anymore I would go out and fire up the generator for 30 minutes more to conserve the life of the gen but also to conserve gas, .

We had made a pot of chicken and noodles and a pot of chile earlier so it was like dish out some soup, fire up generator, turn microwave on to heat food, turn off, turn fireplace on or give the H2O heater its turn or a tank heater. Damn! It was tiring! Somewhere between cycles we got some sleep.

Somehow we managed to keep the H2O tank and lines from freezing, kept the tank heaters on a lot. The coldest it got in the RV was 52 and the storage compart 37. And through all of this we were better off than most. RVers were down to using jumper cables from their truck to rv battery. Swapping water for food, those of us that had generators sharing gas to run them. Some that had spare propane tanks offered to others that had run out. Some gave up and got a hotel room, but guess what the hotels had no power either, they were just as bad off as we were. Told the wife lets stay put and work through it.

Damn when the power came back on this morning at 0200, we thought it was christmas! We are not totally out of the woods yet but doing much better. Wy wife took this pic on one of my naps.

 

[orbsah]

Wow, thanks for sharing that. I’m curious about your generator- what do you have and were you able to figure out why it wasn’t working properly?

 

[Steve7]

Thanks for the write up. Very sobering. Glad you made it through!

 

[Steven@147]

Throughout this ordeal the Solitude did great! Yup we have had problems with the Dometic 12 fridge struggles in hot weather, but through out this it never got above 34* even not running. We haven't lost any food.
It's still really cold now and blowing winds, but as I write this the coach is up to 70* inside, sure feels good! Sure it got cold in the RV but we helped her along keeping things working.

Now lessons learned, have a game plan, know what you are going to do, and or maybe plan for worse than you hear it will be, then have a fallback plan. We did some things right, others not so much like only filling the fresh water to 2/3 we should have filled it all the way up. Water may become the next needed item, boil notices are already in effect. Have lots of bottled water, we had bought extra. RVers here were taking turns running in town bringing water back to the campground and sharing with others. We did manage to keep the truck full of diesel, that was our fall back plan to keep the RV battery charged.
Food - we already had some can food, we did stock up 3 days before the storm hit and we bought easy things to fix, thanks goodness. Stakes would have been useless. I ate a few bowls of Beefaroni, and we had soups we could heat up by the bowl fixed in advanced instead of a heating a whole pot. One thing I found out on propane, even though the regulator shows red there still maybe some residual in the tank, it may not run the furnace but the stove will light long enough to heat up some soup. Then we would switch back over to the other tank for the furnace. It got that close on propane.

Don't necessarily count on the campground to help you out or keep you informed. The internet and cell service was spotty at best through all this. A lot of communication was by RVers talking and helping each other. The campground closed their office. The 4 big campground trash dumpsters are overflowing, have a plan for your trash, seems trivial but cut down on your waist.

What to do to prepare for the future. Now mind you this widespread power outage for 3 days was not forecast for a freak ice and snow storm on the gulf..
Do you carry an extra 30* propane tank? Do you maybe upgrade to 40* tanks? I hear they will fit in the Solitude. Do you install an extra battery? We have one group 27. After the furnace would cycle through twice the batt power was down to 2/3. Each run of the genny brought it backup to full. I didn't think we needed another battery since we had the genny, but we learned our genny had problems after 50 hours continuous use. We will get it replaced under the extended warranty we bought with it, its a Predator 3500. It worked extremely well while it worked. Might be some time before they are back in stock in stores.
Some people here in the campground have solar but with the ice, snow and clouds it didn't work as well. Dealing with the cold and wind chill, we had plenty of blankets and warm cloths. The butt warmers on the recliners as long as you had genny power helped supplement the heat to keep warm but when you lose power you can not close the chairs. The downstairs rear living area was warmer than the front bedroom, so the couch and recliners doubled as beds. We have started a list and maybe improve some things on our RV.

Our heated water hose ended up useless without power. The camp ground cut off the water anyway, so always have some fresh water on board.

 

[Steven@147]

Wow, thanks for sharing that. I’m curious about your generator- what do you have and were you able to figure out why it wasn’t working properly?

Its a Predator 3500. It has a trip mechanism that if you pull more than 25 amps it shuts down. Once we pulled too much, something came on that I didn't expect and it tripped the gen. I was able to reset and restart it and it was sometime after than it began to have problems. There is a whirl noise it starts to make after running now, maybe we damaged it. After every 7-8 hours of running I would check the oil and it was always ok. We got the extended warranty with it at Harbor Freight, they swap it out. At the time we bought it, the Onan, Westinghouse and a lot of gens were out of stock, so we bought the Predator. Damn glad we had it for part of the time.

 

[Canyonlight]

Steve &Tami - thanks, for sharing your captivating story - WOW ! A scout would be proud of your thinking things through; your actions; and being pretty well prepared all things considered. It is amazing what we can and have to do to deal with challenging situations. Some folks like you do much better than some others.

The campers spirit and willingness to help each other out is a wonderful attribute of the camping experience and community. As you shared, then after the storm, sharing what was learned and what to improve on will help us all in the future.

Well done ! Get some rest and have a wonderful meal/beverages when this is behind us.

Dan

 

[Steven@147]

We just lost power again! Don't know how long it will be out this time. We're back on genny! This morning at 0700 I was in line to get a propane refill at the campground, at least they have it here. They would fill one tank only or 10#, motor homes were lined up. I was just talking to them and the campground is now empty on propane. They hope to get a tanker tomorrow, if they do I'll get our other tank filled. There are lots of very big campgrounds here in Galveston, lots of people need propane and home owners here use it as well. Before power went off again we still did not have water.

We're back on conservation mode just in case, backed the furnace temp down initially to 61 from 65, we'll follow the same plan as before. While we had power we had used the fireplace on high and our floor heater pretty much to bring the inside up to 70*. At least the temp was rising and should be around 38 today. Throughout this ordeal I was telling the wife, wish we had double pane windows. How can you really plan for these once in a blue moon occurrences? Still you get conflicting information from sources, when and how long, its just out of the blue, BAM your power is gone.

To leave here and go someplace else you would have to go @200 miles to get out of this. Some RVers left to go to Lake Charles LA, man I would hate to get stuck on bad roads or worse run out of gas because stations have no power or in bad weather. Could be worse, get there and find they don't have power either, but LA has fewer outages than TX.

See Ya got to conserve power.







l
God i hope is not long this time

 

[mikeygesus]

Its a Predator 3500. It has a trip mechanism that if you pull more than 25 amps it shuts down. Once we pulled too much, something came on that I didn't expect and it tripped the gen. I was able to reset and restart it and it was sometime after than it began to have problems. There is a whirl noise it starts to make after running now, maybe we damaged it. After every 7-8 hours of running I would check the oil and it was always ok. We got the extended warranty with it at Harbor Freight, they swap it out. At the time we bought it, the Onan, Westinghouse and a lot of gens were out of stock, so we bought the Predator. Damn glad we had it for part of the time.

I have a Predator 4000. Came in handy here at the house while the power was out for a couple of space heaters and the tv.
While it was running, it was quite loud and I would feel kinda bad about running mine at a camp site.
Is the noise a problem, or do people understand and tolerate it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[traveldawg]

Thanks for all that information. It sounds like you did well in spite of a tough situation. I especially like the info on the power consumption.

 

[GeoffnCheri]

Thanks for sharing. It provides a good strategy should we be faced with similar circumstances

 

[D2Reid]

Steve thanks for the excellent write up. Over the years we have been "stuck" in different situations, no water, no power, no fuel, no food. As a result I carry about 3 days of everything. Having played the portable generator game too many times I ponied up for an internal Onan generator. But even with these preparations we would have been hard pressed to be comfortable in the current TX conditions.

What I find truly amazing about the whole thing is how communities come together to overcome these adversities.

 

[Steven@147]

Hello back again. Our second power outage only lasted 20 minutes so we have been back on power.
Addressing a couple replies. Our inverter quietized generator is very quiet but in this case generators all over the RV park were running, all were pretty quiet, nobody minded. Some RVers were running extension cords from their generators over to another site to help others. Some donated 6 amp battery chargers on short extension cords to charge other campers RV batteries.

On our item power consumption, there is an advertised watts/amps draw then there is reality. In our case i would watch the EMS power monitor L1, L2 amps, the wife would turn something on and I would record the increase on the monitor. Like our tank heaters, watching the monitor, every time we would switch on the fresh water tank heater the monitor display increased 1 amp steady more usage, we noted that and on which leg (L1.L2) it was on. So what I listed was our real world draw. For other items we read the tag for watts / 120 for amps and that was our initial estimate until we could verify by actual usage displayed on the EMS power monitor. Some items will very on their draw like the converter, it could be as low as 6 amps or as high as 9. You have to account for that.

When you are in these kinds of conditions having a game plan can help you get through it, suffer through it, or not. Our plan included taking inventory every morning of the utilities we had left so that we could adjust our usage. Power / gen gasoline, water, propane and Food. Example our fresh water holding tank is @ 80 gallons, 1/3=27, 2/3=74 gallons estimate. Then added up our bottled water that was left. We started out with 2/3 in the fresh tank, after 4 days we are down to 1/3 on the monitor lights. We screwed up, we should have filled the fresh water holding tank while we had the chance. Then with uncontaminated water, this comes into play now 4 days later. We still have several bottled waters left. We have been only washing, spunging off in the bathroom sinks instead of showers. Haven't had a shower in 6 days. OMG. Some used to flush the toilet. We cut back on flush water but not so much to cause problems with the black tank. We have very little waist water in the grey tanks.

Propane - We now have a full 30# tank and by the frost line on the other tank its about 1/4. Now that we have power we are using the fireplace and our floor heater to heat the RV, they can keep the inside temp 61-68 depending on the outside temp and how much sun we get through the windows. Projection - we will eventually have to use some propane to boil water, we have to account for the expected additional propane usage otherwise we will run short of propane again. Propane is still in short supply. We don't want to waste what we have. The campground is out of propane.

Your utility reserves will change over the course of days. Right now our fresh water has to be monitored closely. Some people here in the campground are using water out of the swimming pool as water to flush their toilets. There is almost a statewide boil water notice. There are extreme lines of people at distribution sites for water. The National Guard bringing in trucks of bottled water. Two distributions sites in Galveston. In our case the fresh water taps at the campground has residual water flowing. We filled 2 big pans, set them inside the RV next to a window, we have sun today so the sun coming in the window is radiant heating the water and the pan, this way it will not take near as much propane to heat the water to boiling. We'll let it cool then use empty water bottles we saved to rebottle it, labeling it as such. That will give us an additional 7-8 bottles of water. We'll keep doing this as long as we can.

Next is when we actually get water pressure back. No projection of when that might be, but still a boiled water notice. But we have to be careful not to contaminate what clean water we have left in the fresh water holding tank with contaminated water we might get later from the campground tap. Our plan is keep the RV isolated from possibly contaminated tap water as long as possible. We will fill up as many empty bottles we have with what's left in the fresh holding tank and what we can boil and cool then rebottle. When we do switch over to campground tap we will only use it for washing, showers, flushing and such. We also have a plan to sanitize our water lines from contaminated water. We use 5 gallon buckets with snap lids to hold smoker grill pellets still in their plastic bags. We will use one of those buckets to mix up some bleach water, then use the winterize settings on the nautilus panel to suck the bleach water through and sanitize the lines before ever drinking or cooking with it.

I hope you don't think we are being preachy by posting our trials and tribulations. If it can help someone great, maybe you can get some comic relief from it! lol..... You got to keep a good perspective through something like this!

 

[Cannon07]

Thanks for sharing. This is useful info to help us better prepare for future events we might encounter.

 

[Sportsdad60]

Thanks for post your experience!
If you don't mind I'll add our lessons learned from this storm here.

We had to "make do" with pulling only 15 amps. Our Yamaha I2000 was enough to power the electric fan on the furnace, 3 tank heaters and a couple of light however it did keep generator it in economy mode which means it only burned 1 gallon of fuel every 9 hours at 50% power. It also powered our min use of lights. We kept the hot water on propane.

We started "conserving" on Sat, 2 days before the storm as that was the first winter storm that came through the corpus area. We burned approx 1/4 tank of a 30 lb each day when running heat at 60 deg. Lesson learned, lower the inside temp to 55 deg to conserve more efficiently.
We had one full 30 lb tank, one 3/4 full 30 lb and 1 full 20 lbs on Saturday. By Wed morning, the day we "Bugged out", we gave the full 20 lb to a neighbor and took our other 2x30 lbs tanks with us north to Lubbock (friends house) without our RV. Our take away is that we will carry another spare 30 lb tank empty, on our next wintering adventure and then fill up all 4 upon arrival.

LL: we plan to get another I-2000 generator (Love their compact size and weight) and parallel it into our existing gen. That should give us about 29 amps of power and ability to run elec water heater.

LL: Add a 5 gallon gas can instead of 2.5 gallon so less trips to the gas stations. I can go 45 hours on 1 generator and 5 gallons of gas to power the furnace fan and tank heaters. (or rough 23 hours using 2 gens in parallel)

So as of Friday, reports from our neighbors at Pioneer said the water, elec, sewage, garbage and propane availability has been restored at Pioneer RV park (450 unit complex) We left on Wed when none of that was available and since we had a full tank of diesel, bugged out and took 2 off the dependency of the grid down there since we had the ability.

A lessoned learned for everyone else, unlike us, many people did not bring cold weather clothes. The stores ran out of these items first on Sunday before the really big ice storm and 7 deg weather hit. We always bring 4 seasons of clothing and coats when we travel abroad.

We also travel abroad with a 30 day supply of freeze dried MRE's from Mountain House in two buckets. Now, these required water and a heat source, but if one or both of those become available, you dont have to worry about a run on the grocery stores starving you out.

We also travel with rifles, pistols and enough ammunition to make it a few weeks in a SHTF scenario, which this was NOT thankfully. Wife and I are both avid sporting shooters and hunters.

 

[Steven@147]

Thanks for post your experience!
If you don't mind I'll add our lessons learned from this storm here.

snip

Don't mind at all gives people a thread source for the lessons we had to learn as we went. Good Info. Buckets! They come in real handy. Gas cans, I had a 5 gl diesel can I carry for extra diesel for the truck as well as a 2 gl gas can for the genny. I used both cans for gas. Some that couldn't get out we generator owners shared to keep them running. It wont harm, I'll empty it real good and aerate then fill with diesel.

We learned, almost too late on propane to over conserve, you can always ease up on your conservation. Many places had propane but could not pump it with no power.

 

[Steven@147]

One thing I should also mention, the campground told us DO NOT dump your holding tanks, they shut down the sewer system, it needs water to work properly and water was shut off. Plan for that, dump your tanks before a storm hits so you will have capacity for your black tank, but remember in cold weather a holding tank without much water will freeze faster than a tank with more in it.
Some RVers here have frozen holding tanks, some do not have tank heaters or have no or not enough heating around the tanks. It may take a few days of warm weather to thaw out their tanks or where ever the blockage is.

Also if you do not have a power monitor of some kind, keep an eye on your converter, make sure it is working. You can also look at your leveling system control panel for batt charge. If its 13V or above the converter is working. One person here lost their converter power and didn't know it, ran their battery flat so the furnace quit. We got it fixed but their battery was dead, they had to find another battery.

Take what we have told you of our struggles in cold weather, translate them to a warm weather storm, some of the same issues will apply. Maybe not so much with propane and heat, but you still need to cook, hot water, boil water and so forth. Potable water becomes a necessity. Generators and gasoline will be in short supply. And think about your special needs, one person here was on an oxygen generator, without power it didn't work, the camp ground and RVers kept him running on a generator and kept checking on him.

Y'all have a great day, We have all our utilities back. We still have to boil water but, we're back!

 

[Grammy&Grandad]

Great posts by all. There's a lot of good lessons and suggestions here. We fared much better than so many because we never lost power - but I was ready to ration propane and water like you did. We have an onboard 5500w onan generator, had filled fresh tank, and had a total of four 30 lb propane tanks - and I was still nervous! Really good to hear how everyone came together in your park. In our park we have several that busted water lines and have damages to deal with afterward. No fun. Like others, we are on boiled water notice for a few days, but our water supply is back up to nominal already. We got out and about yesterday to scavenge for essential for folks we know in brick and sticks homes that had no power, water or way to heat and were running low on perishables for their little ones. We are blessed to have the resources (especially truck with 100 gal fuel capacity and 4 WD). I wish we could have helped more folks. This whole episode was no Bueno.

 

[Brad Smith]

Good to hear you made it thru. One thing that may have helped is closing your slides if possible. Not sure of your layout and what can be accessed if they are in. What this does is reduces the square footage that needs to be heated by bringing in your walls and giving the wind less area to buffet around. This will work on some floor plans but not on others. We had to use this approach during an ice storm on our way home from Florida one year. We had to spend an extra night in Ohio.

 

[Steven@147]

Good to hear you made it thru. One thing that may have helped is closing your slides if possible. Not sure of your layout and what can be accessed if they are in. What this does is reduces the square footage that needs to be heated by bringing in your walls and giving the wind less area to buffet around. This will work on some floor plans but not on others. We had to use this approach during an ice storm on our way home from Florida one year. We had to spend an extra night in Ohio.

We contemplated bringing in one slide. With our floor plan the right or curb side slide, we could have brought in to help reduce or try to better seal against the wind and cold. But then we couldn't have used the recliners and seat warmers, they came in real handy. The fireplace would not have been as effective with this slide in either. We would have been able to still get to the fridge and the couch with the right slide in. The right/ curb slide was facing the north wind.

The left street side slide we could not bring in as it would have blocked the main heat register at the hutch/pantry. See even with the cold, we had howling winds sometimes gusting to 40mph, The lip slide seals just can't deal with that kind of wind. We did think about it, but decided not to based on our floorplan. But its a good idea to contemplate.

 

[Sportsdad60]

life is back to normal here in Port A.
Interesting effect the weather had on our local golf course, they pull the flags at night and lay them down, well that Monday temp drop and wind froze the greens but the part covered by the flag survived green! They will all come back eventually but I thought it was an interesting phenomenon , all the holes were like this. The flag pin is tapered, the thicker part protected the grass along with the flag. All were pointing south (wind from the north)
(I set the flag down next to survivor green for the photo)