Frozen

Record-breaking cold has yielded three quite horrible days.  The worst was yesterday:  low natural gas pressure, so that heat was poor or nonexistent; rolling blackouts; frozen and burst pipes, resulting in no water but then suddenly too much water in all the wrong places upon thawing.  Schools shut down for three days straight; businesses asked to conserve energy; Emergency Management in place.  No internet access, either - although that seemed quite unimportant when all the infrastructure disintegrated.

Things have improved today, with the assistance of a plumber and reestablishment of natural gas, and there have been no further blackouts.  The house will require a significant amount of repair work, but fortunately, things are not as bad as they could have been.   It is once more possible to leave the house to go to the grocery store and the post office once more. The weather should improve over the weekend, mercifully, and then life will slowly return to normal.  Thank goodness.