Winter storm - hope everyone is OK

[RedVise]

I know you guys, and gals, are smart enought to take care, but wanted to pass it on.

Papaw, looks like the worst of the storm will stay north of Houston !!

I can remenber seeing my first icicles at the Chocalate Bayou refinery, mighty cold weather for a Florida boy.


Brian

[Papaw]

 I am night dispatcher at a logistics company in Pasadena, Texas,  and we are quite slow tonight due to weather. Too many people here don't have cold weather driving experience and many businesses and schools close down for icy conditions. Plants and refineries also go on skeleton crew status in this weather.
Better safe than sorry, but I think we overdo it sometimes.

[keykeeper]

Tomorrow will make our seventh straight school day closed here. Not so much the road conditions, as the bitter cold. Pipes freezing in some of the schools, and officials worried about kids getting frostbite from exposure and wind chill.

Sure was different when I was in school...rarely got a snow day back then.

[Nolatoolguy]

Schools were cancled the past 4 school days outside of Chicago.

The 6.7 powestroke ime driving was slow to start the other day, even with the block heater.

I know the small plumbing company we work with has been going all out for the past few days. Guy asked me if I wanted to pick up a few hours helping with grunt work. I couldn't cause ive been watching my grandma but one of my coworkers is. He was saying he put in 18 hours on Saturday, an almost 15 on Sunday. Long hours and lots of money if your a plumber.

We have got a lot of calls at work. They all pretty much say the same thing. The monitoring system for the evaporated tube hot water heater system is saying its operating inefficiently. Some people don't understand theres a reason its not used as your only water heater. Evaporated tubes work but cant keep up so the regular water heater will kick in when needed. Of course one building owner insisted someone come and inspect everything.

[Chillylulu]

......Of course one building owner insisted someone come and inspect everything.

Whatever they can afford....

I work for a fire protection company. We get 1 or 2 weeks every year when everything (fire sprinkler systems) freezes.  We go into "code blue" which means all field personnel have to be ready for emergency calls.  Funny thing is we get a lot of calls on dry systems.  Forgot to drain condensate traps at low points often.  No where near as many problems in the mountain resort towns - they are used to it.

And expensive, overtime rates start at $157.50.  Then you find those that don't want to pay their bills, or don't think it is fair to pay a guy for drive time. They call at midnight, because during the day before they thought the problem would go away. The fitter gets there and gets them out of trouble. They don't think they should pay for the half hour there and back. A couple of months later when you call to collect you find out they don't want to pay.  A fitter costs me ~$71.00 / hour here - straight time.  Its not like we are making a fortune off the $500 bill we send. And it was their fault for not fixing the broken heater, or not closing the overhead door, or whatever. 

In the early eighties a building manager at the federal center decided to save money by turning the heat off in a 12 story office building over Christmas break. I worked over 100 hrs that week.  It was the biggest paycheck I had ever had. My weekly check is bigger now, but I really thought I was rich back then.  I was an apprentice making 55% of fitter wages.  Within a few years I had some additional education and was in the office. No more overtime.


I have a love / hate thing with freezing weather.

Regards,

Chilly

[amertrac]

We have about 18 in on the ground right now . Our season total so far is 61 in the second year we lived hear we had 166 in. one snowfall was 52 in in two days    bob w. love this mountain