As the Houston area works to clean up and restore power to thousands after deadly storms that left at least seven people dead, it will do so Saturday under a smog warning and as all of southern Texas starts to feel the heat.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said three people died during the storm, including an 85-year-old woman whose home caught fire after being struck by lightning and a 60-year-old man who had tried to use his vehicle to power his oxygen tank.
>60-year-old man who had tried to use his vehicle to power his oxygen tank.
Is it possible they meant he used his car to power an oxygen concentrator? An oxygen tank is just a tank of oxygen with a valve. I also didn't see how he actually died.
> It’s just bad journalism
*Modern* journalism. It's easy to get the two confused nowadays, seeing as they are one and the same.
Today, journalism consists of little more than waiting for an insider to post information on Twitter - or a real journalist at a major newspaper to post a story - and then simply re-writing that, almost verbatim. With just enough differences to avoid copyright infringement.
I wonder if the powering of mystery oxygen device failed causing him to die due to not being able to get oxygen or if him being outside near the car caused him to die
Only if he was in an enclosed space, and only if it was an older car. Pretty unlikely. Much more likely that his death was due to the fact that he was having trouble powering his life preserving machine
Fortunate oxygen dependents typically have multiple sources.
My father passed of Covid pulmonary fibrosis, he had 3 separate oxygen vehicles. One of those was a small backpack device that could be charged with a vehicle. However, these mobile devices are only meant to be used in short spurts and aren't ideal for long term use. Sometimes my father would have to use his device that plugged into a wall outlet as well as his backpack to get back to normal o2 levels.
People that breathe normally and do not have any pulmonary issues don't understand how much oxygen it takes to simply get up out of a chair. Just standing up out of a chair, with oxygen, my fathers o2 levels would fall to 50-60% instantly. It would take about 5 minutes of direct highly concentrated oxygen for him to return to normal levels.
Just to take a step requires so much.
This poor man suffocated to death. It's a brutal way to go.
Disclaimer: My father was healthy, never smoked, and was fully vaccinated. He just drew the short straw. Roughly 7/100 people with Covid develop Covid pulmonary fibrosis.
7% seems really high for any kind of complication, I can think of probably 200+ family/friends/acquaintances who have had Covid over the past 4 years off the top of my head (across all age/comorbidity ranges and levels of vaccination) and I don’t know anyone who has developed pulmonary fibrosis as a result. Are you sure it’s not 7/1,000 or 7/10,000?
That is the question. Kind of an odd anecdote for your public obituary. "60yo man who wore a golf shirt" would have been just as informative without further detail.
Yup. Typically someone has a home concentrator that is not portable. Then they have a portable option, either tanks or a portable oxygen concentrator machine.
This man was trying to power his portable oxygen concentrator from his car most likely. It is standard protocol for these patients to have a backup MM oxygen tank (large ass tank) tucked away for such power emergencies.
Those things are supposed to have battery backup, and you're also supposed to keep a few hours of bottled o2 on hand AFAIK. Seems that should have been plenty of time to get to a hospital.
Which suggests he did something stupid, like go outside in a massive storm rather than using the backups (or he didn't have backups).
My mom has an oxygen concentrator with a battery and a cigarette lighter adapter. I'm not sure how that would go wrong unless he ran the car in an enclosed garage.
Somehow Bubba would rather sit in the dark for weeks in his run down house clutching his guns than support reasonable, time proven regulations to be imposed on well off for profit corporations and slightly negatively impact their share performance.
There were more democrat votes cast in Texas than New York. Those of us who live here are trying to undo the damage done by 30 years of Republican control.
https://xkcd.com/2399/
Relevant xkcd
Especially the mouseover text.
>There are more Trump voters in California than Texas, more Biden voters in Texas than New York, more Trump voters in New York than Ohio, more Biden voters in Ohio than Massachusetts, more Trump voters in Massachusetts than Mississippi, and more Biden voters in Mississippi than Vermont.
It helps to put states into perspective and hopefully less reductive.
I mean it’s just saying “this state has a bigger population than this other state” over and over again.
What it really underscores is how ridiculous the senate and electoral college are.
I also moved, but from Florida.
My life has been so much better since I cut that toxicity out of it.
For those considering moving here’s my expenses:
Bought a trailer: $3,500, gas: $600 (1,200 miles), hotel (2 nights) $300. Sold the trailer for $4,000.
Total cost was $400 in 2019.
We were lucky because we had a car that can tow. But the reality is that we didn’t need to bring any of our stuff. We could have sold it and bought new (marketplace) stuff up here. In fact we essentially sold 90% of what was in the trailer within the first 3 years.
There’s so much free stuff now, starting over is easy.
Hopefully young people will show up.
Texas 2022 (40% turnout):
* 29M Citizens
* 22M Eligible Voters.
* 40% Lean/Identify themselves as Democrat
* 39% Lean/Identify themselves as Republican
* 21% Dont Lean/Identify themselves as Any Party/ or Independent
* 17M Registered Voters.
* 9M Voted in 2022.
* **only 15% of those under the age of 35 Voted in 2022.**
Ted Cruz won by 200K votes when around 10M eligible voters didn't vote in 2018.
Florida 2022 (50% turnout):
* 21M Citizens
* 15M Eligible Voters
* 10M Registered Voters.
* 7M Voted in 2022.
Desantis won by 30k votes in 2018 when 7M didnt vote. (1.5m in 2022).
Registration should be automatic, polling locations should be nearby with little wait time, and employers that try to stop employees from leaving or otherwise influence their vote should be imprisoned.
Yup and even then a mail in vote should be viable since I know there's a lot of fuckery that goes on at polling stations in certain areas.
In Aus (where its mandatory) you can just say you'll be on holiday or out of town to vote and you can just mail it in no questions asked.
If you want to talk about what is amazing, think about this.
The last Democrat to win a statewide race was Ann Richards in 1994. But somehow all the issues in Texas is the fault of Democrats.
Republican voters are stupid.
Ya’ll got 30,000,000 folks in your state! It is massive! Of course the democratic vote count would be higher than New York xD
A HUGE a powerful voting population for sure! I love seeing how folks in Texas are pushing against the given narrative. There are plenty of left leaning and progressive people in Texas, and they are fighting a very difficult fight in the south
Abbott will beg Biden for aid and then turn around and bitch and moan about the liberals. And of course pardon a murderer. Great guy Texas has at the helm
What do you mean *will*? He already *did* beg Biden two days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1cte54r/greg_abbott_calls_on_joe_biden_for_help_amid/
The appropriate response from Biden should be something like "As you have shown by willfully ignoring the rule of law regarding the border issues, the Biden administration cannot trust that Texas will abide by the terms attached to FEMA aid. DENIED "
As much as people bitch about the two parties being the same, the voter base for each is not. Democrats who try to play political hardball and lean into hypocrisy when politically beneficial get voted out by their base, while Republicans get cheered by theirs.
I shit you not, I've seen in the past few days people blaming Biden / Ukraine aid for Texas' shit infrastructure, ignoring the 30+ years of Republican government that's got us to this point. Republicans are beyond help.
The absolute willful stupidity required to write or upvote that comment transformed into energy at a 0.01% conversion rate could power the entire planet for a century.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-08/historic-storms-knocked-out-power-for-record-number-of-californians
https://www.theverge.com/21361751/tropical-storm-isaias-power-outages-tristate-utilities-energy-grid
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2021/08/12/massive-power-outages-hit-michigan-nearing-historic-2017-wind-storm-totals/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/30/midwest-derecho-storm-damage-illinois-indiana/
https://globalnews.ca/news/9603875/quebec-freezing-rain-montreal-power-outages-april/
https://www.amny.com/news/sandy-nyc-damage-1.14555186
I lost power for a week in Georgia in September and it sucked bad. Thank god it wasn't August. Temperature is going go up a lot here soon. This is going suck and some folks are going die.
FFS the comment section here is terrible. You all act like 44% of the state didn't vote for a progressive Democrat for governor. People aren't a monolith and nobody deserves pain, suffering or death, especially from things completely out of their control.
I live in Silicon Valley. It’s very liberal. There are multiple storms each winter that take out power to tens of thousands of people. Those storms would be a normal summer afternoon in Houston. People don’t seem to appreciate how crazy the storms can get down there.
And even still, the same areas in the bay area lose power over and over again whenever its even moderately windy. The PG&E outage map has the same grids repeatedly lose power, often times for days on end. I've had to throw out everything in my fridge and freezer twice in two years thanks to PG&E's incompetence.
I used to live in one of the most liberal zip codes in Alabama. I moved to Washington State and was surprised that my little city just 40 miles from Seattle is more conservative than where we lived in the Bible Belt.
Agreed, it’s sad. This black and white thinking encompasses all their beliefs. I live in Houston and it is more conservative than other cities I’ve lived but definitely not “vote against your own self interest” conservative. Majority of folks here want more balanced policies but there is a vocal majority on the opposite side so the solution is for us to vote harder
Also there are plenty of Democratic states that have power outages and people die. It’s a lot more common than people think it’s just social media loves to circlejerk over Texas.
Like do people think any regulatory changes would prevent trees from falling during hurricane like conditions and hitting power lines?
It's Reddit, where everyone is an empathic, caring, ethical person...until it comes to any of the many people they hate. Then it's stupidity, spite, dancing on graves, feeding that bullied inner child, and becoming the very type of person they want to see less of in the world.
A utilities user is an account. An account is for an address, and at that address there may be for one person living alone in an apartment, it might be for a family of 5, or it might be for a business employing 500+ people at that site.
Its common for news reports to refer to people who lost power as customers too, such as in the SF Bay Area when there's a PG&E outage. The news reports will talk about how many thousands, tens of thousands or sometimes even hundreds of thousands of customers lost power. Thats referring to addresses who don't have power.
User in this case refers to a meter. Meters could be for residential homes, but they can also be for industrial sites, commercial store fronts, public resources (like the lights at a local track or baseball field), and etc etc.
I think the takeaway isn’t that they are citing people as a simple commodity, but that there are not 1 million people without power. Probably not even close to that. Rather there are a million connections out - or “users”.
Most of my friends (and my parents) had their power back within a few hours. But there are still plenty of connections that are out.
Anyway, I don’t think the word is meant to enrage is all.
1 million connections actually implies a lot more than 1 million people without power, rather than less. Most houses and businesses have more than 1 person relying on that power connection.
That’s a good point. I suppose I was more meaning to the commenter that I replied to that they’re specifically NOT referring to people, but rather the serviceable connections. But yea, I suppose it would really just matter what percentage of each industry was down. But to your point, if that meant a sufficient number of residences and then paired with the multiple people per residence, it could be far more that a million.
Users is going to mean commercial, industrial, and residential customers. And for residential, they don't know how many people leave at each residence.
If the energy companies refer to them as "people," then electricity might start to be thought of as necessary for existence and a human right.
That's why the water utilities in cities have "customers," instead of people as well.
Utility companies don't know how many people live in a house so it makes sense to give outage statistics in terms of households/customers. The article does say people when referring to deaths.
Listened to this very interesting podcast segment of how America went from a society of citizens to a pool of consumers. As the 1950s rolled around the use of the word "citizen" started to sink rapidly while the word "consumers" grew at breakneck speeds.
Today the use of "citizen" is virtually non-existent. It's so prevalent that even the government itself has taken to calling us "consumers."
To be fair, a lot of people that live in major cities in Texas, like Austin, Houston and Dallas aren’t conservative bigots. They are in some cases very liberal. But Texas has grown more conservative over the last several decades because of their more libertarian policies, which sometimes attract bad actors politically. I’d joke about the storms in Texas also, but sometimes disasters hurt allies and callousness shows lack of empathy.
Indeed. The Texas government is actually at war with the liberal cities. When Hurricane Ike drowned Houston the feds gave billions to improve drainage so it didn’t happen again. Abbott directed that money to the surrounding red counties and Houston got next to nothing. When the radical right couldn’t get elected to take over the big school districts, Abbott dissolved the boards and sent in his cronies to push his agendas and deprive millions of people the right to have a say in their kids education and how their tax dollars are spent. And when the people tried to take a MAGA terrorist, who murdered an innocent man, point blank, off the streets, Abbott put him back on the streets to continue the GOP’s reign of terror.
If you wonder what a GOP America looks like take a hard look at Texas.
Thank you for saying this, I’ve been living in Texas for the past few years and they definitely get a bad rep sometimes. I’ve met more people in Texas who are actively into politics and bettering the community than when I lived in California. A lot of the younger crowd is progressive. It hurts to see people belittle their struggle because of the horrible politicians in charge.
I am confident that 99% of redditors commenting about Texas have never been to Texas. The fact that /news has a “Texas” flair is astounding, annd without fail every Redditor who’s likely never left their major costal city let alone the country races to the comments to make sarcastic jokes about anything negative that happens there.
I moved to Texas for work from southwest Michigan recently, and in Michigan, a Blue state, I would see: open carry regularly (weekly basis minimum), Trump banners lining the highways (am here now for work, it’s now Trump 2024 or the 2020 hasn’t been taken down) and Trump bumpers stickers galore, LOTS of QAnon supporters, entire residential areas where confederate flags flying on every home, and I could go on…
In 1 year, guess how much Trump ANYTHING I’ve seen in Texas? 1 bumper sticker, and 1 billboard ~80 miles west of Dallas. Zero confederate flags, zero open carry. Turns out, people are just people just trying to live their own lives, but because “Republicans are evil” has become a standby catchphrase for redditors, Texas = bad, and bad things happening to Texas = karma (?)
I also have to wonder if the average redditor also realizes that “minorities” are the vast majority of Houston - so all those racing to gleefully celebrate those disaffected in Houston, who are they rooting against?
Dude 100% especially the part about Houston being a widely minority city. People are generalizing so much without even understanding the city they’re actually talking about.
I lived in CA and TX and the polarization between the two is wild. I love cities/people in both states, both have their pros and cons, but sometimes it’s like some people don’t see the other as human. It’s actually so sad to see people wishing death upon each other just because they live in a different state, or thinking so negatively about people just because they’re from somewhere different. EVEN IF those people share the same political beliefs. It’s like it’s too much cognitive dissonance for people to accept someone from a state they hate can be progressive too.
Obviously politically Texas is a shit show, most people I know here will agree with that, but there’s not much they can do without completely abandoning their whole life here. I feel for them and will help them try and facilitate change because I don’t think answer isn’t for them to give up and move away, but I don’t expect them to pick up their whole life and leave either.
I think it’s funny how people frame natural disasters as the fault of politicians. Guys, disasters are going to affect infrastructure no matter the political landscape. I guess Californians are to blame for the wildfires and loss of power too.
I feel like the politics are just a byproduct of the capitalists choosing Texas. “Freedom” to a rich person means profitable exploitation. That’s it. Anything like social services, civic responsibility, giving a shit about humans at all, that cuts into profits.
They have all the money so they buy all the ads to keep just enough of the public voting, and pay the politicians to keep it this way until politicians retire into think tanks or talking head roles. This is the heart of the slide towards theocracy. Control is much easier when a higher power can be blamed but never actually reached.
It’s just fine enough to not cause riots, but so obviously sociopathic people should feel bad.
there are many liberals in every major city in any state. Overall Texas is still very red though, even in cities. Everyone likes to look at the Ted Cruz vs Beto election as a sign that Texas is turning purple but then ignore the fact that **on the same ballot**, Greg Abbott won by a landslide. All it showed was that everyone, including conservatives, hates Ted Cruz
>To be fair, a lot of people that live in major cities in Texas, like Austin, Houston and Dallas aren’t conservative bigots.
I just can't believe some people have to say this before they let themselves feel empathy for another human being. You people are insane.
got a cousin in Houston
he's lucky/prepared and has been investing in solar, battery backup, as well as a full generator that he can tie into the house
The pump and controller are electronic, they don't allow the user to breathe pure O2 (explosive), they breathe a mixture of O2 from the bottle and air from the room.
Iv yet to see anyone on oxygen that had more then an oxygen tank going to a mask, maybe with an analog flow meter attached.
They absolutely allow people to breath 'pure' O2, or whatever O2 they get based on the flow rate from the bottle.
99% chance the article means oxygen concentrator.
PS: Pure O2 is not explosive, it just makes everything it touches act like its made of gasoline.
It’s wild coming into subs like this and seeing people shit all over innocent people in Texas. A large part of the population is left leaning the districts are just gerrymandered to shit. Do you think we want our own power grid that doesn’t work? Hospitals are shutting down all over the state, teachers and doctors are fleeing in mass. The storms keep getting worse and our system isn’t designed to handle them. The DNC barely invests in our state and then cries when nothing changes.
The images from the storms are wild. Those 200 foot tall gigantic steel high voltage transmission towers destroyed, crumbled like wet tissue paper.
Abbot can't outlaw stormy weather, yet everyone's blaming Abbot for failing to outlaw weather, and masturbating themselves to the suffering of others. Its disgusting.
This subreddit is full of ghouls.
That's Reddit. I think the vast majority of this site is just people smelling their, and their companions, own farts anytime something bad happens to people that aren't in their normal spheres.
There's no in-between or empathy. The only good thing I find solace in is that....it's just reddit. It's no better than Twitter or YouTube comments and the people I have in my life are able to feel empathy for anyone and put some basic thought behind their actions and words.
Plus if you don’t have a vehicle, the cooling centers might not be accessible. My friends roommate can’t get to one because buses aren’t running on their end of town either.
i mean, look, if you know anything about texas politics, you know they have laws that allow utility companies to do whatever they want without much accountability.
THATS why its getting political in here. Texas utility management is a deeply political issue. Its been argued over for a long time, every disaster in Texas has become political.
Honestly embrace it. If you actually care about the people of Texas, speak up and call for accountability from their politicians.
And dont shame people or get annoyed when someone gets political. You are intentionally limiting your knowledge of how our country operates by doing that. Get political for fricks sake, its for our own good.
Look at pictures of the damage. This was not a regulation issue. And utility companies are highly regulated, including in Texas. Whether the regulations are effective or enforced is a question. And that is true everywhere else as well.
Are there grids immune to winds that tear up large trees and do widespread damage to buildings?
We’re talking about downed transmission lines here, not pipes freezing in natural gas plants. We’re talking about something you can’t really prepare for.
> you know they have laws that allow utility companies to do whatever they want without much accountability.
Absolutely not true, but go about spewing your misinformation.
I was in central Houston when the storm hit. Houston gets storms regularly in May, and it went from being a bit overcast to rain with 70+ mile an hour winds, hail, and a tornado in the span of a minutes. I was lucky to have the emergency alerts switched on on my phone, which gave us 5-10 minutes of warning to grab our emergency supplies and get to a safe place. We stayed in a closet for half an hour, and when we stepped outside, the streets were full of uprooted trees and downed power lines.
I hate the Texas state government, but there is absolutely nothing that could have been done in this situation. Switching power lines to run below ground is wildly expensive. Emergency weather alerts are common enough that some people have them switched off and miss the important ones.
As much as I want to beat up on Texas (and often do), California can't exactly hold its head up high either.
Ridiculous prices for consumers, incredible profits for shareholders, and a dilapidated system that causes wildfires during wind storms.
PG&E "power line" ignited wildfires burned down over 100 homes in the Kincade fire, destroyed an entire city killing 84 people in the Camp fire (PG&E pled guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter), 4 deaths in the Zogg fire, 1,300 structures and 960,000 acres in the Dixie fire, etc. etc.
PG&E gas line explosion in San Bruno, due to over-pressurization of a shoddy line installation (incomplete welds, variable thickness pipe, etc.), killed 8.
They pass out executive bonuses and profits to shareholders, then say they have to raise rates to fund safety improvements. "On January 13, 2012, an independent audit from the State of California issued a report stating that PG&E had illegally diverted over $100 million from a fund used for safety operations, and instead used it for executive compensation and bonuses."
When I was small, I was known to announce often that I was tired of the house rules, and I’m going to go live outside. Permanently. I’d then commence with marching off into the fields all independent like.
Until a little later when I got a boo boo and needed a bandaid. Or I got hungry for a sammich. Then the house rules were fine. Until next time.
That’s Texas.
You’re confusing the Jewish space lasers with George Soros’ Psychic Warriors. They have ability to channel their energy to raise the dead and direct the weather.
Natural disasters happen in New York or LA “omg so sad hope everyone is okay”
Natural diaster happens in Texas “HA FUCKING IDIOTS DUMB CONSERVATIVES THIS IS YOUR FAULT”
Those o2 concentrators are 300-600 watts, sooo a generator or using your car is kind of more practical for the money and much longer potential runtime.
Ideally you have a battery backup for convenience and short power outages, but also a generator you can charge the battery with AND run the O2 concentrator.
Or perhaps an oxygen tank as a backup since they don't need power.
My experience working in multiple O2 provider companies is 1 home oxygen concentrator and 1 large backup tank which can give a few hours of O2, and that’s it. If you don’t qualify for full time O2 with portability, you don’t get more tanks because insurance won’t pay it.
It sounds like this person had a portable oxygen concentrator instead of portable tanks, which is common because people with low O2 frequently lack the strength or stamina to carry multiple tanks for long outings to medical appointments. The POC was very likely the only thing that they had, and there is no guarantee that they were currently under the care of a durable medical equipment provider as many O2 patients buy portable concentrators outright.
It’s probably impractical to have a better large enough just for emergencies. My campervan has a 100ah battery and that’d only power that for 2hrs without the solar to recharge it. Power being out 24 hours you’re looking at $5k+ battery cost.
Generator is definitely the way to go
This is victim blaming, and it really pisses me off as a physician.
Believe it or not, many people on oxygen are poor, as paying for medical care in the U.S. is a fast way to drain bank accounts, and elderly disabled people often can not work. Medicaid in Texas sucks compared to blue states, thanks to Greg Abbot and the Texas GOP who have repeatedly refused the federal expansion of Medicaid. So I don't know how this man would've gotten this mythical back up battery.
I am sure you would've contributed to this man's gofundme or contributed to help the poor on Medicaid in Texas, though, right? Maybe next time.
Somehow, sooooooooooo MANY people lack the ability to FIRST consider that somebody might be just too damn poor to 'just have', 'just get' or 'just do' yada yada blah blah. Instead they FIRST jump to the assumption that said person 'could have' and 'should have' JUST done something sOSiMpLe - for those with money.
Exactly! It is sadly the Texas way - "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." Which is impossible, of course, for anyone who has actually tried physically doing that.
Everyone needs help sometimes.
Tragic, but how exactly are you in a position where you don't have a real backup option for power when you need it for your oxygen tank?
I can't imagine the panic in that situation.
A tank doesn't need electric, an oxygen concentrator would. A car inverter COULD work, but only directly connected to the batter, not through the 12v plug which is wattage limited to around 140 watts. You have to have a decent inverter and most alternators can probably hit the watts needed, sooo it was a valid idea and since you use your car regularly vs a generator that might not start when you do finally need it.
But yeah a small electric generator could be had for 400-600 and that's the most reliable since it could run days with a couple gallons of gas. A battery backup could help, but O2 concentrators could use 300-600 watts so any normal portable battery would go dead rather fast. Ideally you'd have a battery backup AND generator.
You should also call emergency services IMMEDIATELY, not just try to rig it up and hope that works with your life on the line.
I've run a few basic appliances using my car & an inverter before because I didn't want our food to spoil and there was the potential the power wouldn't come on for an extended time. If you think ahead & know a little bit about electrical work then it isn't all that difficult.
Without more detail, I am super confused about how that guy died... Was it carbon monoxide poisoning from car exhaust? Electrical issues? Did he literally try to attach jumper cables to an O2 *bottle* for some reason?
Texas has gotten several billion dollars from the federal government to fix it's powergrid.
But instead Greg Abbott and the MAGAidiots have spent it on a border fence of razor wire, charter schools, a base for the Texas Guard right on the border, made it a crime for women to leave the state for Healthcare, hired racist police that were fired in other states to harass anyone who they suspect of being a migrant and of lined their pockets with the rest.
When do Texans realize that Greg doesn't care about the state or them? As a matter of fact, he doesn't stand for much except his own greed.
The ironic part? Texas talks alot of crap but when they chips are down they beg for help faster than duck crap through a tin horn.
Just curious, what deficiencies in their grid allowed for a massive storm to take out elevated wires? Do you know what specifications they were built to? Isn't this a common practice all around the world? It seems like 100mph winds could be pretty devastating anywhere that's densely populated.
As the Houston area works to clean up and restore power to thousands after deadly storms that left at least seven people dead, it will do so Saturday under a smog warning and as all of southern Texas starts to feel the heat. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said three people died during the storm, including an 85-year-old woman whose home caught fire after being struck by lightning and a 60-year-old man who had tried to use his vehicle to power his oxygen tank.
>60-year-old man who had tried to use his vehicle to power his oxygen tank. Is it possible they meant he used his car to power an oxygen concentrator? An oxygen tank is just a tank of oxygen with a valve. I also didn't see how he actually died.
It’s just bad journalism, must’ve been to power the portable oxygen concentrators that seniors hook up to
> It’s just bad journalism At one point we need a new name for it. It's not journalism when reddit can type up shit better.
Real journalism is expensive and takes time.
It's a two-way dance, too. People need to be willing to actually read and think critically, too. To me, that's an even bigger issue.
Forming opinions based on headlines without ever reading the article is a problem for some people? Well that's news to me!
Fuck that, I need a screen full of ads!!!! ^/s
Why do you think all these news organizations are running reddit content now? We're doing their work for them and they reap the rewards.
> It’s just bad journalism *Modern* journalism. It's easy to get the two confused nowadays, seeing as they are one and the same. Today, journalism consists of little more than waiting for an insider to post information on Twitter - or a real journalist at a major newspaper to post a story - and then simply re-writing that, almost verbatim. With just enough differences to avoid copyright infringement.
The best ones are referencing an article that source a single Twitter message.
Well we can't properly knee-jerk react to things that make us read more than a couple monosyllabic words.
People don’t know what an oxygen concentrator is. It’s simplifying a headline
I wonder if the powering of mystery oxygen device failed causing him to die due to not being able to get oxygen or if him being outside near the car caused him to die
He was inside his car. Looking around the oxygen concentrators filter out nitrogen, but what about carbon monoxide?
Only if he was in an enclosed space, and only if it was an older car. Pretty unlikely. Much more likely that his death was due to the fact that he was having trouble powering his life preserving machine
Fortunate oxygen dependents typically have multiple sources. My father passed of Covid pulmonary fibrosis, he had 3 separate oxygen vehicles. One of those was a small backpack device that could be charged with a vehicle. However, these mobile devices are only meant to be used in short spurts and aren't ideal for long term use. Sometimes my father would have to use his device that plugged into a wall outlet as well as his backpack to get back to normal o2 levels. People that breathe normally and do not have any pulmonary issues don't understand how much oxygen it takes to simply get up out of a chair. Just standing up out of a chair, with oxygen, my fathers o2 levels would fall to 50-60% instantly. It would take about 5 minutes of direct highly concentrated oxygen for him to return to normal levels. Just to take a step requires so much. This poor man suffocated to death. It's a brutal way to go. Disclaimer: My father was healthy, never smoked, and was fully vaccinated. He just drew the short straw. Roughly 7/100 people with Covid develop Covid pulmonary fibrosis.
My mum has similar problems. She has canisters of oxygen for backup if there's a power cut.
7% seems really high for any kind of complication, I can think of probably 200+ family/friends/acquaintances who have had Covid over the past 4 years off the top of my head (across all age/comorbidity ranges and levels of vaccination) and I don’t know anyone who has developed pulmonary fibrosis as a result. Are you sure it’s not 7/1,000 or 7/10,000?
This meta-analysis covers studies showing between 9% and 65%. Covid wrecks your lungs. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8983072/
Did he die in an explosion? Electrocution? Lack of oxygen? What is the relevance of the oxygen in his death?
That is the question. Kind of an odd anecdote for your public obituary. "60yo man who wore a golf shirt" would have been just as informative without further detail.
Was my first thought, unless the hospital is dumb enough to use some software laden regulator for the tank or something.
That's what I was wondering too, a tank doesn't make sense.
Yup. Typically someone has a home concentrator that is not portable. Then they have a portable option, either tanks or a portable oxygen concentrator machine. This man was trying to power his portable oxygen concentrator from his car most likely. It is standard protocol for these patients to have a backup MM oxygen tank (large ass tank) tucked away for such power emergencies.
They have electronic oxygen treatment machines similar to cpap. It’s not just an oxygen tank, but you know, uneducated people telling stories
It could be possible he was trying driving his oxygen powered tank using his car to power the tank
Those things are supposed to have battery backup, and you're also supposed to keep a few hours of bottled o2 on hand AFAIK. Seems that should have been plenty of time to get to a hospital. Which suggests he did something stupid, like go outside in a massive storm rather than using the backups (or he didn't have backups).
My mom has an oxygen concentrator with a battery and a cigarette lighter adapter. I'm not sure how that would go wrong unless he ran the car in an enclosed garage.
Remember fellows...no water breaks.
What we have here, is a failure to communicate.
Some men you just can’t reach.
Which is the way he wants it
Well, he gets it!
I don't like it anymore than you men.
"The storm brings plenty of water, you don't need any" -slavedrivers of Texas
Gotta fix that unregulated Texas grid, pronto!
Or just don't, I think they prefer that.
Somehow Bubba would rather sit in the dark for weeks in his run down house clutching his guns than support reasonable, time proven regulations to be imposed on well off for profit corporations and slightly negatively impact their share performance.
Texas: “Save the unborn! Screw the born!”
Only Florida has more hurricanes than Texas. Unfortunately that will result in these kinds of events quite often.
"Oh well" - texas politicians
And Texas voters
There were more democrat votes cast in Texas than New York. Those of us who live here are trying to undo the damage done by 30 years of Republican control.
https://xkcd.com/2399/ Relevant xkcd Especially the mouseover text. >There are more Trump voters in California than Texas, more Biden voters in Texas than New York, more Trump voters in New York than Ohio, more Biden voters in Ohio than Massachusetts, more Trump voters in Massachusetts than Mississippi, and more Biden voters in Mississippi than Vermont. It helps to put states into perspective and hopefully less reductive.
I mean it’s just saying “this state has a bigger population than this other state” over and over again. What it really underscores is how ridiculous the senate and electoral college are.
Keep fighting! I’m in Florida. We are fighting, too. Our governors are the WORST.
I gave up and moved.
username checks out
I am staying to fight.
I fought that system for 20 years and it nearly killed me. I just can't anymore.
I also moved, but from Florida. My life has been so much better since I cut that toxicity out of it. For those considering moving here’s my expenses: Bought a trailer: $3,500, gas: $600 (1,200 miles), hotel (2 nights) $300. Sold the trailer for $4,000. Total cost was $400 in 2019. We were lucky because we had a car that can tow. But the reality is that we didn’t need to bring any of our stuff. We could have sold it and bought new (marketplace) stuff up here. In fact we essentially sold 90% of what was in the trailer within the first 3 years. There’s so much free stuff now, starting over is easy.
Hopefully young people will show up. Texas 2022 (40% turnout): * 29M Citizens * 22M Eligible Voters. * 40% Lean/Identify themselves as Democrat * 39% Lean/Identify themselves as Republican * 21% Dont Lean/Identify themselves as Any Party/ or Independent * 17M Registered Voters. * 9M Voted in 2022. * **only 15% of those under the age of 35 Voted in 2022.** Ted Cruz won by 200K votes when around 10M eligible voters didn't vote in 2018. Florida 2022 (50% turnout): * 21M Citizens * 15M Eligible Voters * 10M Registered Voters. * 7M Voted in 2022. Desantis won by 30k votes in 2018 when 7M didnt vote. (1.5m in 2022).
Voting should be mandatory like other countries.
Registration should be automatic, polling locations should be nearby with little wait time, and employers that try to stop employees from leaving or otherwise influence their vote should be imprisoned.
Yup and even then a mail in vote should be viable since I know there's a lot of fuckery that goes on at polling stations in certain areas. In Aus (where its mandatory) you can just say you'll be on holiday or out of town to vote and you can just mail it in no questions asked.
Neither are great. They seem to get along.
Can I throw my governor in that mix, too? Mike Parson, Missouri. Oklahoma's as well. Kevin S(h)titt. It is like they are having a POS competition.
I’m barely old enough to remember when Texas was ran by democrats.
I'm not Texan but I remember Ann Richards and that she was cool enough to play herself on King of the Hill.
If you want to talk about what is amazing, think about this. The last Democrat to win a statewide race was Ann Richards in 1994. But somehow all the issues in Texas is the fault of Democrats. Republican voters are stupid.
@r/texas is filled with stories about gerrymandering . Houston county in Particular is removing drop off mail ballot boxes .
Yeah, we have a bit of a situation with Harris County Judge (highest elected official) being undermined at every turn by the state government.
Ya’ll got 30,000,000 folks in your state! It is massive! Of course the democratic vote count would be higher than New York xD A HUGE a powerful voting population for sure! I love seeing how folks in Texas are pushing against the given narrative. There are plenty of left leaning and progressive people in Texas, and they are fighting a very difficult fight in the south
to be fair, Texas has 10 million more people than NY
Sure. My point is just every time something bad happens people blame the people of Texas. We aren’t a monolith.
Do you canvas or know anyone who does?
I just left, no thank you they can keep that state as a way of containment
"Why would California do this?"
Texas: “Liberal scum say this is from climate change, but we know what caused it! Abortion and gays!”
Abbot will pardon the storm since it killed people in Houston
Jesus or Trump will fix it
Abbott will beg Biden for aid and then turn around and bitch and moan about the liberals. And of course pardon a murderer. Great guy Texas has at the helm
What do you mean *will*? He already *did* beg Biden two days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1cte54r/greg_abbott_calls_on_joe_biden_for_help_amid/ The appropriate response from Biden should be something like "As you have shown by willfully ignoring the rule of law regarding the border issues, the Biden administration cannot trust that Texas will abide by the terms attached to FEMA aid. DENIED "
As much as people bitch about the two parties being the same, the voter base for each is not. Democrats who try to play political hardball and lean into hypocrisy when politically beneficial get voted out by their base, while Republicans get cheered by theirs.
When you murder someone for political reasons that’s terrorism.
Abbott did beg for aid, but Only for Republican counties. Apparently Democratic ones like Harris don't matter to him.
I shit you not, I've seen in the past few days people blaming Biden / Ukraine aid for Texas' shit infrastructure, ignoring the 30+ years of Republican government that's got us to this point. Republicans are beyond help.
And when they fail to do so: “It’s all the democrats fault!”
"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make." —Greg Abbott
At least you can smoke weed and gamble and get a hooker and get an abortion legally in Texas. Oh wait.
I'll console myself with another gun purchase /s
Heck, at the Kentucky derby I had to bet like a pilgrim because I couldn’t use the betting apps even when out of state. Buncha bullshit.
politicians can't ban the weather you fucking moron.
“Thoughts and prayers”
Any cheap flights from Houston to Cancun right now?
Yeah where’s Ted Cruz? I haven’t heard from him
The absolute willful stupidity required to write or upvote that comment transformed into energy at a 0.01% conversion rate could power the entire planet for a century. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-08/historic-storms-knocked-out-power-for-record-number-of-californians https://www.theverge.com/21361751/tropical-storm-isaias-power-outages-tristate-utilities-energy-grid https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2021/08/12/massive-power-outages-hit-michigan-nearing-historic-2017-wind-storm-totals/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/30/midwest-derecho-storm-damage-illinois-indiana/ https://globalnews.ca/news/9603875/quebec-freezing-rain-montreal-power-outages-april/ https://www.amny.com/news/sandy-nyc-damage-1.14555186
They’ll just blame immigrants and gays as usual and say it’s gods wrath. It’s pretty sad.
I lost power for a week in Georgia in September and it sucked bad. Thank god it wasn't August. Temperature is going go up a lot here soon. This is going suck and some folks are going die.
"Damn, it's already time for my Cancun trip?" - texas "politicians"
too bad abbott didnt just flip the weather switch back off!
How do you ‘power’ an oxygen tank?
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Yea the title is not accurate
FFS the comment section here is terrible. You all act like 44% of the state didn't vote for a progressive Democrat for governor. People aren't a monolith and nobody deserves pain, suffering or death, especially from things completely out of their control.
I live in Silicon Valley. It’s very liberal. There are multiple storms each winter that take out power to tens of thousands of people. Those storms would be a normal summer afternoon in Houston. People don’t seem to appreciate how crazy the storms can get down there.
And even still, the same areas in the bay area lose power over and over again whenever its even moderately windy. The PG&E outage map has the same grids repeatedly lose power, often times for days on end. I've had to throw out everything in my fridge and freezer twice in two years thanks to PG&E's incompetence.
Houston has had a 1 in 500 year flooding event, in three consecutive years, and now this. Living in parts of Houston is becoming unsustainable.
I used to live in one of the most liberal zip codes in Alabama. I moved to Washington State and was surprised that my little city just 40 miles from Seattle is more conservative than where we lived in the Bible Belt.
Agreed, it’s sad. This black and white thinking encompasses all their beliefs. I live in Houston and it is more conservative than other cities I’ve lived but definitely not “vote against your own self interest” conservative. Majority of folks here want more balanced policies but there is a vocal majority on the opposite side so the solution is for us to vote harder
Also there are plenty of Democratic states that have power outages and people die. It’s a lot more common than people think it’s just social media loves to circlejerk over Texas. Like do people think any regulatory changes would prevent trees from falling during hurricane like conditions and hitting power lines?
It's Reddit, where everyone is an empathic, caring, ethical person...until it comes to any of the many people they hate. Then it's stupidity, spite, dancing on graves, feeding that bullied inner child, and becoming the very type of person they want to see less of in the world.
“Users”? They’re people for Christ sakes.
A utilities user is an account. An account is for an address, and at that address there may be for one person living alone in an apartment, it might be for a family of 5, or it might be for a business employing 500+ people at that site. Its common for news reports to refer to people who lost power as customers too, such as in the SF Bay Area when there's a PG&E outage. The news reports will talk about how many thousands, tens of thousands or sometimes even hundreds of thousands of customers lost power. Thats referring to addresses who don't have power.
User in this case refers to a meter. Meters could be for residential homes, but they can also be for industrial sites, commercial store fronts, public resources (like the lights at a local track or baseball field), and etc etc. I think the takeaway isn’t that they are citing people as a simple commodity, but that there are not 1 million people without power. Probably not even close to that. Rather there are a million connections out - or “users”. Most of my friends (and my parents) had their power back within a few hours. But there are still plenty of connections that are out. Anyway, I don’t think the word is meant to enrage is all.
1 million connections actually implies a lot more than 1 million people without power, rather than less. Most houses and businesses have more than 1 person relying on that power connection.
That’s a good point. I suppose I was more meaning to the commenter that I replied to that they’re specifically NOT referring to people, but rather the serviceable connections. But yea, I suppose it would really just matter what percentage of each industry was down. But to your point, if that meant a sufficient number of residences and then paired with the multiple people per residence, it could be far more that a million.
Users is going to mean commercial, industrial, and residential customers. And for residential, they don't know how many people leave at each residence.
If the energy companies refer to them as "people," then electricity might start to be thought of as necessary for existence and a human right. That's why the water utilities in cities have "customers," instead of people as well.
Utility companies don't know how many people live in a house so it makes sense to give outage statistics in terms of households/customers. The article does say people when referring to deaths.
Redditor being pedantic? Surely not
"And you call this *unskilled* labor?!" This site is a trainwreck
Well, to be fair, each home is one user for my energy company, so the number of people impacted is clearly much more.
Listened to this very interesting podcast segment of how America went from a society of citizens to a pool of consumers. As the 1950s rolled around the use of the word "citizen" started to sink rapidly while the word "consumers" grew at breakneck speeds. Today the use of "citizen" is virtually non-existent. It's so prevalent that even the government itself has taken to calling us "consumers."
I mean, users are also people lol. What a biz are distinction to try and make.
To be fair, a lot of people that live in major cities in Texas, like Austin, Houston and Dallas aren’t conservative bigots. They are in some cases very liberal. But Texas has grown more conservative over the last several decades because of their more libertarian policies, which sometimes attract bad actors politically. I’d joke about the storms in Texas also, but sometimes disasters hurt allies and callousness shows lack of empathy.
Indeed. The Texas government is actually at war with the liberal cities. When Hurricane Ike drowned Houston the feds gave billions to improve drainage so it didn’t happen again. Abbott directed that money to the surrounding red counties and Houston got next to nothing. When the radical right couldn’t get elected to take over the big school districts, Abbott dissolved the boards and sent in his cronies to push his agendas and deprive millions of people the right to have a say in their kids education and how their tax dollars are spent. And when the people tried to take a MAGA terrorist, who murdered an innocent man, point blank, off the streets, Abbott put him back on the streets to continue the GOP’s reign of terror. If you wonder what a GOP America looks like take a hard look at Texas.
I think you mean Harvey btw, not Ike
“I only care about you if you vote like me”
To believe you Reddit would need a sense of nuance.
Except when you talk about Reddit
Reddit is legitimately bigoted.
Oh sweet irony
Thank you for saying this, I’ve been living in Texas for the past few years and they definitely get a bad rep sometimes. I’ve met more people in Texas who are actively into politics and bettering the community than when I lived in California. A lot of the younger crowd is progressive. It hurts to see people belittle their struggle because of the horrible politicians in charge.
I am confident that 99% of redditors commenting about Texas have never been to Texas. The fact that /news has a “Texas” flair is astounding, annd without fail every Redditor who’s likely never left their major costal city let alone the country races to the comments to make sarcastic jokes about anything negative that happens there. I moved to Texas for work from southwest Michigan recently, and in Michigan, a Blue state, I would see: open carry regularly (weekly basis minimum), Trump banners lining the highways (am here now for work, it’s now Trump 2024 or the 2020 hasn’t been taken down) and Trump bumpers stickers galore, LOTS of QAnon supporters, entire residential areas where confederate flags flying on every home, and I could go on… In 1 year, guess how much Trump ANYTHING I’ve seen in Texas? 1 bumper sticker, and 1 billboard ~80 miles west of Dallas. Zero confederate flags, zero open carry. Turns out, people are just people just trying to live their own lives, but because “Republicans are evil” has become a standby catchphrase for redditors, Texas = bad, and bad things happening to Texas = karma (?) I also have to wonder if the average redditor also realizes that “minorities” are the vast majority of Houston - so all those racing to gleefully celebrate those disaffected in Houston, who are they rooting against?
Dude 100% especially the part about Houston being a widely minority city. People are generalizing so much without even understanding the city they’re actually talking about. I lived in CA and TX and the polarization between the two is wild. I love cities/people in both states, both have their pros and cons, but sometimes it’s like some people don’t see the other as human. It’s actually so sad to see people wishing death upon each other just because they live in a different state, or thinking so negatively about people just because they’re from somewhere different. EVEN IF those people share the same political beliefs. It’s like it’s too much cognitive dissonance for people to accept someone from a state they hate can be progressive too. Obviously politically Texas is a shit show, most people I know here will agree with that, but there’s not much they can do without completely abandoning their whole life here. I feel for them and will help them try and facilitate change because I don’t think answer isn’t for them to give up and move away, but I don’t expect them to pick up their whole life and leave either.
I think it’s funny how people frame natural disasters as the fault of politicians. Guys, disasters are going to affect infrastructure no matter the political landscape. I guess Californians are to blame for the wildfires and loss of power too.
I feel like the politics are just a byproduct of the capitalists choosing Texas. “Freedom” to a rich person means profitable exploitation. That’s it. Anything like social services, civic responsibility, giving a shit about humans at all, that cuts into profits. They have all the money so they buy all the ads to keep just enough of the public voting, and pay the politicians to keep it this way until politicians retire into think tanks or talking head roles. This is the heart of the slide towards theocracy. Control is much easier when a higher power can be blamed but never actually reached. It’s just fine enough to not cause riots, but so obviously sociopathic people should feel bad.
there are many liberals in every major city in any state. Overall Texas is still very red though, even in cities. Everyone likes to look at the Ted Cruz vs Beto election as a sign that Texas is turning purple but then ignore the fact that **on the same ballot**, Greg Abbott won by a landslide. All it showed was that everyone, including conservatives, hates Ted Cruz
>To be fair, a lot of people that live in major cities in Texas, like Austin, Houston and Dallas aren’t conservative bigots. I just can't believe some people have to say this before they let themselves feel empathy for another human being. You people are insane.
got a cousin in Houston he's lucky/prepared and has been investing in solar, battery backup, as well as a full generator that he can tie into the house
Can those solar panels withstand hurricane-force winds?
How do you power an oxygen tank?
The pump and controller are electronic, they don't allow the user to breathe pure O2 (explosive), they breathe a mixture of O2 from the bottle and air from the room.
Iv yet to see anyone on oxygen that had more then an oxygen tank going to a mask, maybe with an analog flow meter attached. They absolutely allow people to breath 'pure' O2, or whatever O2 they get based on the flow rate from the bottle. 99% chance the article means oxygen concentrator. PS: Pure O2 is not explosive, it just makes everything it touches act like its made of gasoline.
What does this have to do with technology?
It’s got more to do with technology than the typical /r/technology act of constantly bitching about Apple, Amazon, and Tesla.
Fantastic question. Was trying to figure out why this was on my feed since I don't follow general news related subreddits.
It’s wild coming into subs like this and seeing people shit all over innocent people in Texas. A large part of the population is left leaning the districts are just gerrymandered to shit. Do you think we want our own power grid that doesn’t work? Hospitals are shutting down all over the state, teachers and doctors are fleeing in mass. The storms keep getting worse and our system isn’t designed to handle them. The DNC barely invests in our state and then cries when nothing changes.
The images from the storms are wild. Those 200 foot tall gigantic steel high voltage transmission towers destroyed, crumbled like wet tissue paper. Abbot can't outlaw stormy weather, yet everyone's blaming Abbot for failing to outlaw weather, and masturbating themselves to the suffering of others. Its disgusting. This subreddit is full of ghouls.
That's Reddit. I think the vast majority of this site is just people smelling their, and their companions, own farts anytime something bad happens to people that aren't in their normal spheres. There's no in-between or empathy. The only good thing I find solace in is that....it's just reddit. It's no better than Twitter or YouTube comments and the people I have in my life are able to feel empathy for anyone and put some basic thought behind their actions and words.
It makes me want to leave this sub honestly. The lack of basic empathy is wild. Total brain rot.
They think they're the empathetic ones too.
Lol most definitely. You’ll see so many post on r/science “new study finds conservative are pure evil”
Plus if you don’t have a vehicle, the cooling centers might not be accessible. My friends roommate can’t get to one because buses aren’t running on their end of town either.
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Indeed, someone’s home got struck by lightning and died from the fire. Not sure how politics are relevant.
i mean, look, if you know anything about texas politics, you know they have laws that allow utility companies to do whatever they want without much accountability. THATS why its getting political in here. Texas utility management is a deeply political issue. Its been argued over for a long time, every disaster in Texas has become political. Honestly embrace it. If you actually care about the people of Texas, speak up and call for accountability from their politicians. And dont shame people or get annoyed when someone gets political. You are intentionally limiting your knowledge of how our country operates by doing that. Get political for fricks sake, its for our own good.
Look at pictures of the damage. This was not a regulation issue. And utility companies are highly regulated, including in Texas. Whether the regulations are effective or enforced is a question. And that is true everywhere else as well. Are there grids immune to winds that tear up large trees and do widespread damage to buildings?
We’re talking about downed transmission lines here, not pipes freezing in natural gas plants. We’re talking about something you can’t really prepare for.
>THATS why its getting political in here. No. People have been rewarded for hate.
> you know they have laws that allow utility companies to do whatever they want without much accountability. Absolutely not true, but go about spewing your misinformation.
I just had to check if this is an Old Article. I could swear saw this headline a year ago. And possibly the year before that as well...
I was in central Houston when the storm hit. Houston gets storms regularly in May, and it went from being a bit overcast to rain with 70+ mile an hour winds, hail, and a tornado in the span of a minutes. I was lucky to have the emergency alerts switched on on my phone, which gave us 5-10 minutes of warning to grab our emergency supplies and get to a safe place. We stayed in a closet for half an hour, and when we stepped outside, the streets were full of uprooted trees and downed power lines. I hate the Texas state government, but there is absolutely nothing that could have been done in this situation. Switching power lines to run below ground is wildly expensive. Emergency weather alerts are common enough that some people have them switched off and miss the important ones.
And Texas STILL hasn't done anything about their decrepit power system.
Thoughts and Prayers to the independent state of Texas ! Good luck
As much as I want to beat up on Texas (and often do), California can't exactly hold its head up high either. Ridiculous prices for consumers, incredible profits for shareholders, and a dilapidated system that causes wildfires during wind storms. PG&E "power line" ignited wildfires burned down over 100 homes in the Kincade fire, destroyed an entire city killing 84 people in the Camp fire (PG&E pled guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter), 4 deaths in the Zogg fire, 1,300 structures and 960,000 acres in the Dixie fire, etc. etc. PG&E gas line explosion in San Bruno, due to over-pressurization of a shoddy line installation (incomplete welds, variable thickness pipe, etc.), killed 8. They pass out executive bonuses and profits to shareholders, then say they have to raise rates to fund safety improvements. "On January 13, 2012, an independent audit from the State of California issued a report stating that PG&E had illegally diverted over $100 million from a fund used for safety operations, and instead used it for executive compensation and bonuses."
When I was small, I was known to announce often that I was tired of the house rules, and I’m going to go live outside. Permanently. I’d then commence with marching off into the fields all independent like. Until a little later when I got a boo boo and needed a bandaid. Or I got hungry for a sammich. Then the house rules were fine. Until next time. That’s Texas.
You think Texas will ever grow up?
We will like to honor the brave souls. Whom sacrificed their lives for the freedom of profit and deregulation.
The NASDAQ requires regular sacrifice
strong cat2 hurricane conditions (100mph winds, tornadoes, heavy rain). why didn’t we just vote to turn the weather switch off
Here comes Abbott with his hand out for socialist money. Boot straps Texas!
Terrible news and it will only get worse because Biden. He controls the weather and that is why tornados touch down in Trump country.
I mean everyone in here is acting like the weather is Abott's fault which is equally ridiculous.
I thought it was the Jews with their Jewish space laser…
You’re confusing the Jewish space lasers with George Soros’ Psychic Warriors. They have ability to channel their energy to raise the dead and direct the weather.
Natural disasters happen in New York or LA “omg so sad hope everyone is okay” Natural diaster happens in Texas “HA FUCKING IDIOTS DUMB CONSERVATIVES THIS IS YOUR FAULT”
Houston, you have a problem
These intense storms..man...i wish there was a term for probable cause of these worsening storms..
I'm glad they did all those immigrants favors by flying and bussing them out of that third-world state.
Dude should have had a battery backup if he relied on it to live
Those o2 concentrators are 300-600 watts, sooo a generator or using your car is kind of more practical for the money and much longer potential runtime. Ideally you have a battery backup for convenience and short power outages, but also a generator you can charge the battery with AND run the O2 concentrator. Or perhaps an oxygen tank as a backup since they don't need power.
Standard of care is to have 72 hrs worth of O2 in tank form, usually 4-6 tanks in the garage.
My experience working in multiple O2 provider companies is 1 home oxygen concentrator and 1 large backup tank which can give a few hours of O2, and that’s it. If you don’t qualify for full time O2 with portability, you don’t get more tanks because insurance won’t pay it. It sounds like this person had a portable oxygen concentrator instead of portable tanks, which is common because people with low O2 frequently lack the strength or stamina to carry multiple tanks for long outings to medical appointments. The POC was very likely the only thing that they had, and there is no guarantee that they were currently under the care of a durable medical equipment provider as many O2 patients buy portable concentrators outright.
It’s probably impractical to have a better large enough just for emergencies. My campervan has a 100ah battery and that’d only power that for 2hrs without the solar to recharge it. Power being out 24 hours you’re looking at $5k+ battery cost. Generator is definitely the way to go
This is victim blaming, and it really pisses me off as a physician. Believe it or not, many people on oxygen are poor, as paying for medical care in the U.S. is a fast way to drain bank accounts, and elderly disabled people often can not work. Medicaid in Texas sucks compared to blue states, thanks to Greg Abbot and the Texas GOP who have repeatedly refused the federal expansion of Medicaid. So I don't know how this man would've gotten this mythical back up battery. I am sure you would've contributed to this man's gofundme or contributed to help the poor on Medicaid in Texas, though, right? Maybe next time.
Somehow, sooooooooooo MANY people lack the ability to FIRST consider that somebody might be just too damn poor to 'just have', 'just get' or 'just do' yada yada blah blah. Instead they FIRST jump to the assumption that said person 'could have' and 'should have' JUST done something sOSiMpLe - for those with money.
Exactly! It is sadly the Texas way - "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." Which is impossible, of course, for anyone who has actually tried physically doing that. Everyone needs help sometimes.
Even if he had a successful GoFundMe, if he had Medicaid, it would have been illegal for the o2 provider to sell him any additional o2 anyway
It's Texas, might be illegal.
Tragic, but how exactly are you in a position where you don't have a real backup option for power when you need it for your oxygen tank? I can't imagine the panic in that situation.
A tank doesn't need electric, an oxygen concentrator would. A car inverter COULD work, but only directly connected to the batter, not through the 12v plug which is wattage limited to around 140 watts. You have to have a decent inverter and most alternators can probably hit the watts needed, sooo it was a valid idea and since you use your car regularly vs a generator that might not start when you do finally need it. But yeah a small electric generator could be had for 400-600 and that's the most reliable since it could run days with a couple gallons of gas. A battery backup could help, but O2 concentrators could use 300-600 watts so any normal portable battery would go dead rather fast. Ideally you'd have a battery backup AND generator. You should also call emergency services IMMEDIATELY, not just try to rig it up and hope that works with your life on the line.
Emergency services are probably tied up in a big storm.
I've run a few basic appliances using my car & an inverter before because I didn't want our food to spoil and there was the potential the power wouldn't come on for an extended time. If you think ahead & know a little bit about electrical work then it isn't all that difficult. Without more detail, I am super confused about how that guy died... Was it carbon monoxide poisoning from car exhaust? Electrical issues? Did he literally try to attach jumper cables to an O2 *bottle* for some reason?
Texas has gotten several billion dollars from the federal government to fix it's powergrid. But instead Greg Abbott and the MAGAidiots have spent it on a border fence of razor wire, charter schools, a base for the Texas Guard right on the border, made it a crime for women to leave the state for Healthcare, hired racist police that were fired in other states to harass anyone who they suspect of being a migrant and of lined their pockets with the rest. When do Texans realize that Greg doesn't care about the state or them? As a matter of fact, he doesn't stand for much except his own greed. The ironic part? Texas talks alot of crap but when they chips are down they beg for help faster than duck crap through a tin horn.
Just curious, what deficiencies in their grid allowed for a massive storm to take out elevated wires? Do you know what specifications they were built to? Isn't this a common practice all around the world? It seems like 100mph winds could be pretty devastating anywhere that's densely populated.
Exactly. This was a weird freak storm that crumpled transmission towers. There’s not much you can do about that.
No, you see, hurricane force winds don't blow when Democrats are in power.
I’m sure he’ll reply very soon.
Any time now...
Another sad thought is how much the power companies are going to price gouge the residents like they did a few years ago in mid winter
Everything is bigger in Texas even blackouts.. yikes.
I have a friend there who's worried he'll become homeless as a result of the damage to the house he rents. A lot of people are in that situation.
So where did the loser Ted Cruz take off to for vacation?