How bad is it over there in the USA

[Straight Shooter]

The latest ( news ) is of the freezing temperatures knocking out power lines and people suffering the cold in darkness, and some wind turbines frozen ? .......in fact MB was telling us about his friend just days ago....and here we are right now ! To add to that , there are a lot of yanks buying RV s to live in ( even cars ) because they have lost their jobs and have no means of paying mortgages or rent plus many have young kids , this is a terrible state of affairs ....and mostly through no fault of their own! Add in Covid ......in fact they blame Covid for everything ! What next all RV s have contracted Corvid ? So you’ll have to sleep in a hedge and eat grass ? Hardly the American dream is it , land of the brave n free ...and I am Not taking the piss here ......this is truly horrible for those living this nightmare and not much hope of getting out from under it.

They send people to the moon, space stations , and a new ( space force ) ? But they fail their people , have no fear you Americans .....the brits will and are not far behind you which we will soon find out, now if you are going to quote percentages of population to people affected ratios , speak direct to those affected, I am sure they will hang on every word so they can have a better understanding of their current dilemma! .......so it’s over too you in the USA , WTF is really going on over there , please explain as you really see it where you are, .....as MB has explained already power outs are common place at this time of year and is very prepared for it and I would be sure Charles is also .....we would expect it would we not ! ....and a food bank update would be good for your area are the more waiting inline ? .

[CharlesHarris]

I spoke last night with a retired federal lawman now in San Antonio, TX. They had 10cm of snow and hundreds of "fender-bender" traffic accidents because people who are too stupid to drive in sub-freezing weather are learning to play "bumper cars" like at the seaside amusement park.

The environmental whacko dicky birder and butterfly netter environmentalists closed down many of the older coal and oil fueled power plants and built hundreds of windmills, which are now frozen solid with ice and not generating any electricity. So the electric power grid is being taxed and there are rolling blackouts just like in California.

Of course those who earn their living in the oil and gas industry realize like Obama, that Biden wants to do away with oil leases on Federal lands and won't issue permits for new oil and gas plants.

In West Virginia the coal industry is dead and VP Camilla Harris doesn't understand the difference between land reclamation of old mining sites and explosive ordnance disposal, seeming to think that old coal miners dying from black lung disease can be rehabilitated and sent around the world to remove land mines in Africa and Vietnam...

As for myself, we are in good shape, having stocked up with bog roll, rum, six cords of firewood, a 22kw Generac Guardian with 1000 gallon LPG tank and solid-state ATS controller. If I get bored I can plink at a steel target in the back yard with my pistol.
As this is written the 10kg electric, bottom-pour casting pot is heating up under generator power and I prepare to cast pistol bullets while listening to WWCR or Armed Forces Radio Network on short wave. We have not cable or Internet streaming TV, but I actually receive it free over the air with my Channel Master deep-fringe log-periodic antenna.

Thank God I'm a Country Boy!

[Straight Shooter]

Many thanks Charles glad to hear you’r safe and well sorted out pal ! .....who’s Biden ? .

[CharlesHarris]

Heard on Fox Business this morning that the significant cause of the "Rolling Blackouts" in Texas are the Wind Turbines. Texas now has 25% of its electric power supplied by Wind Turbines, which have the blades iced up and the lubricants so gelled. This results in Texas having to buy power off the "National Grid" and surplus power is simply NOT AVAILABLE at the levels needed.

[Straight Shooter]

Yes I have picked up on that , and prices are going up Charles , Kentucky has outages 148,000 odd homes out ! I expect that MB will bring us up to date later , but this lot is more unusual even by normal standards .....reports say 4.2 million homes are out and people have died on the road, was there any prior warnings Charles ? .

[CharlesHarris]

National Weather service routinely puts out hazardous weather advisories and these are also forwarded by state and local emergency management. However, the vast unwashed hordes who only get their news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are clueless and think that they are immortal.

The warnings are out there, but many pay them no attention:

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussion...isc=pmdspd

Winter Storm Watch
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service Baltimore MD/Washington DC
250 PM EST Tue Feb 16 2021

MDZ003-004-VAZ505-WVZ051>053-170400-/O.EXB.KLWX.WS.A.0008.210218T0800Z-210219T1100Z/
Washington-Frederick MD-Western Loudoun-Morgan-Berkeley-Jefferson-
250 PM EST Tue Feb 16 2021

...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH LATE THURSDAY NIGHT...

* WHAT...Total snow accumulations of 5 or more inches are possible.

* WHERE...Portions of north central Maryland, northern Virginia and the panhandle of West Virginia.

* WHEN...From late Wednesday night through late Thursday night.

* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute.

* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Ice accumulation from freezing rain is possible late Thursday and Thursday night.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

Monitor the latest forecasts for updates on this situation.
&&
$$
NNNN

[Straight Shooter]

With all this going on Charles ......deliveries will be disrupted or fail altogether at least for a while ......food , fuel and much else .....will be tough for those who are not prepared .

[Straight Shooter]

Check this guy out Charles TheRealBPEarthWatch .....followed him for a while ...a good egg .

[Mortblanc]

It's not all that bad SS. The news is dramatizing the worst areas as iff that were the norm. That is now their job, shaping public opinion rather than offering real facts.

We have the normal unprepared fools out there suffering from deprivation due to their own lax attitude but they deserve what they get, winter comes every year, this is no worse than any other. Fairly mild actually compared to the "polar vortex" we repeatedly suffered just a couple of years back with daily high temps of -20.

We are having a relatively normal winter.

Primary roads in KY are clear. Interstate highway system is fully operational. That would be like your motorway system.

Secondary roads, like your A roads, are clear and drivable all over the state.

Remote areas are spotty depending on how good your county road department happens to be. I live on a single track side road and we have been scraped and salted. My road is clear and am 30 miles outside the "urban zone". Further out they depend on the old Biblical principles, "God put it there and God will remove it."

In the remote urban areas the neighborhood roads are fairly clear depending on where you happen to be.

The further one is from civilization the worse the roads but alternately, the better prepared the families will be to endure.

The environmentalists are doing their job well. They want to put the developed nations back into the stone age and if they can freeze enough of us to death they will accomplish that. The famous "level playing field" so much flaunted during Brixit does not insure the elevation of anyone, it insures equal misery for all. Welcome to 1984.

They want our SUVs too, so they can insure none of us escape!

I live 4-5 miles from a solar farm that produces enough power to support my entire county of 40,000, only not today. The 20 acres of solar panels are covered by 20cm of snow.

It is these natural and predictable stoppages that have hindered solar and wind as primary supply of power from the start. The technology simply does not exist to insure daily sunshine and constant usable wind velocity to supply continuous power.

My question is, what has Texas done wrong to be so short in supply that a very small portion of their power off line causes statewide rolling blackouts rather than transfer of the supply to alternative grids. The entire 25% of their supply from windmills is not off line, just a few frozen ones.

Still, no power outages in my area. Most of those 150,000 homes in blackout are due to iced lines and fallen trees, not deficiencies in the grid or shortages of supply. Not in my area anyway.

I do not believe there is an operating windmill attached to the grid in my state, which is about the size of England south of Scotland. Not enough consistent wind flow to justify their use.

Plus the fact that frozen windmills are a concern only in very specific areas. I don't think the U.S. generates more than 1% of our power from wind no matter what is said in the media. The greenies were fussing just a short time ago that Trump had not allowed them to cross the 2%-3% threshold.

[Straight Shooter]

Many thanks for the update MB , and your views of which I agree totally ! If I’m honest I no longer watch the MSM ,the BBC was the first to go ....the rest soon followed , total waste of time ....when the penny drops you soon come to realise the power of illusion , smoke and mirrors.........then taking a closer look at everything else .....life will become very bad shortly and very quickly , and nothing to do with the weather pal .