Four frigid days

We lost power at 2am Monday morning, Feb 15. We did not get even a flicker of power again until Thursday afternoon, Feb 18--something like 80+ hours without heat or light. We were lucky we could still light our gas stove with a match, and my husband (who grew up in Colorado) wrapped our pipes well, so they did not break. Our house grew so cold, in days that hovered in the teens, that inside temps were below what our meat thermometer could measure--below 40. We piled nine blankets on the bed and still did not feel warm. I did not take my parka off for four days--and felt fortunate to even have one, from visits to family in Colorado. We were scared our cats would die, as they were shivering, even in "caves" we made out of boxes and towels. I was scared by Wednesday morning that I would die of the cold--I woke up shaking and crying and genuinely frightened by how cold and slow I felt. Although we worked hard to stay warm, depression set in, and it was too cold to focus on anything--we were simply trying to survive. It was incredibly frustrating not to have access to the elementary school, which we could hear humming with electricity after the first day. Our neighbors, all stuck at home without power (no hotels available, dangerous to drive out of our hilly neighborhood), could not leave pets and were worried should a pipe break and they would need to be there to save the house from flooding. Many of us took breaks from our frigid houses to charge phones (for light and news) in our cars. Watching Mayor Adler in his shirtsleeves, with well-lit art in the background, calling for us all to "conserve," and saying Austin was almost all powered up, nearly made me lose my mind. We could see the whole downtown lit up, including a construction site that has about 30 floors, well-lighted and empty, while we were trying to keep ourselves and our kid alive, like so many others were. Absolutely unbelievable to later hear that this blackout had been predicted Feb 9. We all knew for two weeks this storm was coming. If residents had had a heads up that we would lose power for so long in this natural disaster, we could have found hotels or relocated to areas that would not have lost heat. The natural disaster was one thing, but the tone-deaf bungling by the Mayor, the City Manager, and the Governor was simply beyond the pale. How is "critical infrastructure" the skyscrapers, which require a giant load of electricity? Even an hour of heat a day would have helped us. Officials discouraged us from walking the mile-plus to the Palmer Events Center, as it was for unhoused individuals, which I understand. But the complete lack of planning for residents' safety during this event just blows my mind. And my family was lucky, in comparison to many: We had the resources to stock up on food before the storm, and when the power went out, we put our food in the snow in our yard. The following weekend, I worked with Red Cross and saw so many desperate people, so grateful for bottles of water, diapers, feminine hygiene, and any little bit of food--utterly heartbreaking.