10 replies to this topic

[360texas]

South Fort Worth outside loop - Wedgewood area.  This morning I got 1" of sleet.  Weather people forecast more this afternoon.

[Nitixope]

I saw on the news there was a 20-mile back-up west of Weatherford.  It took someone 7-hours to get to Abilene last night.

https://www.fox4news...parker-counties

 

Here's TXDOT live cameras: https://its.txdot.gov/its/District/FTW

 

 

I took this screen capture earlier today showing the road conditions you can see where some of the trouble spots are:

 

[johnfwd]

Great news!  Thawing out today and roads are greatly improved.  

 

For those who care...once again, the national news media focused on Dallas, with hardly a mention of our ice storm in Fort Worth.  I know it's because the news affiliates are all based in Dallas.  But it really gets irritating sometimes to know Fort Worth gets little attention unless a major tragedy occurs (like it did on the I-35 Express lane two years ago).

[Doohickie]

We were extremely fortunate.  I can work from home, and after Monday neither my wife nor my son had to venture out to school or work.  So we hunkered down until Friday afternoon when we did grocery shopping.  The only times we went out at all was to walk the dogs and that told me all I needed to know about conditions.

[JBB]

I went into work for a few hours Tuesday morning and all day Thursday and Friday.  Interestingly, roads from NE Tarrant County into the west side of FW weren't as bad as I expected.  Tuesday's drive home around 1:30 and yesterday's drive in were the worst, but even then I didn't see any wrecks and had almost no trouble.  I stayed home on Wednesday and never left the house.  

[Nitixope]

You were a lot braver than I was.  

[JBB]

I've driven just enough in winter weather in recent years that I feel fairly comfortable with maintaining control: drive slow, let off the gas and avoid the brale when you do start to slide, give others a wide berth, avoid the flyover bridges and untreated side streets, etc.  I (and my wife when I do drive in it) worry more about other drivers.  I've only truly lost control one time and that was in a full-blown Valentine's Day snowstorm about 20 or so years ago.  I was taking it slow on a side street and went into a gentle S-curve and did a complete 180.  There was no one else around and I managed to stop before I went into the curb.

[Nitixope]

I think a few degrees colder last Wednesday night and we would have seen a lot more power outages like Austin did.

[ramjet]

During the ice-pocalypse in February 2021, our downtown Austin condo was without electricity and water for two weeks.  We ended up renting an empty dorm room at Dobie on the UT campus.  My friends down there reached out to me this past week with similar stories this time - electricity out with no sign of repair for several days.  I don't know where I saw this, but there was an article somewhere that said Austin gets hit worse in ice storms than DFW because of the greater proliferation of live oak trees, which still have leaves and take on more heavy ice, than the more leafless trees of DFW.  Not sure about that, but I'm just glad I was in Fort Worth this time.

[Doohickie]

During the ice-pocalypse in February 2021, our downtown Austin condo was without electricity and water for two weeks.  We ended up renting an empty dorm room at Dobie on the UT campus.  My friends down there reached out to me this past week with similar stories this time - electricity out with no sign of repair for several days.  I don't know where I saw this, but there was an article somewhere that said Austin gets hit worse in ice storms than DFW because of the greater proliferation of live oak trees, which still have leaves and take on more heavy ice, than the more leafless trees of DFW.  Not sure about that, but I'm just glad I was in Fort Worth this time.

I have a very large live oak in my yard and escaped all recent weather events with no damage to the tree.  I do get it trimmed regularly.  This week the branches were hanging noticeably lower than normal but nothing let go.

[Nitixope]

Thats good information to know about the Live Oak. I think they tend to have a bit wider horizontal limb span. I mainly have Post Oak Trees and I try to keep them up-cut as high as I can reach. They dropped all their leaves back around late December.