I’m writing this Monday evening, with the outside temperature at 25 and a feel like 12 degrees.
I’m worried about tomorrow.
On Tuesday, we’ll send the remaining two pages of this week’s edition – pages 1 and 2 – to the Houston printer digitally at about 8 a.m.
We sent the paper’s other six pages Monday evening.
MaLinda and Jessica will then go to Houston later Tuesday morning to pick the paper and bring it home.
They’ll be on the highway and on Houston streets – the same thoroughfares people have been warned to stay off Tuesday.
It will be about 18 degrees when they take off Tuesday, with a wind chill of 12 degrees thanks to a 15 mph north wind.
When people were talking about this freeze last weekend, there was a measure of hope discussed since there wasn’t to be any discernible amount of precipitation.
Well Monday ended that hope as sleet and ice spread over the frozen Texas landscape, particularly on the Coast.
My worries will begin when they leave and end when they drive into the carport a little after noon.
Hard freezes present multiple challenges to families, even when their loved ones aren’t on the road.
On an ironic note, the event I attended Friday evening even had some different opinions on whether to drip the faucets.
We dripped.
But then we dripped for Uri in 2021 and still had 27 pipe breaks in the attic.
We learned the hard way that sometimes the temperatures will freeze the water being dripped.
I’ve written before that I suffer from ADHD.
As a journalist worried about the impact of a hard freeze, driving on icy slick roads and getting out the weekly paper, ADHD is particularly troublesome.
I always find it difficult to focus when there are multiple things going on – like now for example.
I’ve had numerous online news sites open during the day – each with its concerns.
It doesn’t help with the state continually bombarding us with reminders to cut back on electricity Monday morning to ease the strain on the grid.
By midday Monday, the urgent pleas had shifted to energy conservation for Tuesday morning – arguably the worst of the freeze days.
What’s terrible about the warnings, we’ve all heard from our state leaders how the grid has been fixed.
I’ll go back to finishing this column – and to worrying about MaLinda and Jessica on the road tomorrow.
