If I have learned anything from teaching middle school for the last 12 years here in Dallas, it is that we live in an age of superlatives. Nothing is just nice, it is “amazing.” If it’s unpleasant, it is “tragic.” With all the emoting and words that are causally tossed around, I am left to wonder what word might describe what Texas went through the week of Parshas Teruma. “Devastating” is a contender, as are “traumatizing” and “crippling.” Perhaps I will land on the all-time favorite term used by my students, “epic.”
Texas
is known for its blazing hot summers and temperate winters. It isn’t uncommon
for us to have 60-degree days in January, and few of us, if any, own any
winter clothing more than a puffer coat. We might pull out bathing suits
through November, but no one owns proper winter boots, gloves, leggings, snow
pants, or hats. On the rare days that it does get cold, we put on layers, safe
in the knowledge that the cold front never lasts more than a day. We have had
snow one day and 70 degrees 36 hours later, and that is how we like it.
When
the forecast called for snow on Presidents Day weekend, everyone was excited. There
was the typical run on toilet paper and milk at the grocery stores, but all in
all, everyone expected that the kids would have a little fun and maybe have a
snow day or two from school. Other than that, it would be life as normal.
ERCOT, the governing body of the exclusive Texas power grid warned us that,
because of the cold, they might implement rolling black outs. The idea behind
that is they would circulate a 15- to 45-minute blackout in a neighborhood,
then restore power and shift the blackout to another neighborhood, thus
alleviating the strain on the power grid. We could expect two to three
blackouts a day. Everyone was fine with it, seeing as though it wouldn’t really
last all that long.
Except,
it didn’t really happen that way. At all.
* * *
Let’s back up a
moment and explain a little about the Texas power grid. In case you didn’t
know, Texas is huge and proud of it. We established our own power grid, which
relies on a combination of mostly fossil fuels (natural gas, coal) and, to a
much lesser extent, renewable resources (solar and wind). Texas deregulated the
energy market and the government basically has little oversight over it.
Companies choose how much they want to invest in their infrastructure, and
while they were warned after a similar winter storm in 2011 that our energy
grid was not winterized, they never chose to invest the money to make sure our
equipment would withstand below freezing temperatures. Because, come on, it’s
Texas, right?!
Several
unusual things happened to create this perfect storm. First was the intensity
of the storm. Records were not only broken, they were smashed as temperatures
reached minus-two Fahrenheit. There was relatively little snow, only a few
inches; the cold is what killed people. Another factor was the scope of the
blizzard. Never before in living history has every county in Texas been under
the same winter storm warning. Texas is almost 700,000 square miles; that is a
lot of territory to cover. All of Texas uses the same power grid, so all of
Texas, with 29 million people, were pulling on that grid at the same time
desperately trying to heat their homes.
Our
homes are built for the summers, to reflect and release heat, not to keep it
in. Take that and add it to an energy grid that isn’t built to withstand
freezing temperatures, and you will understand how millions of people ended up
in the cold and dark. The factories that produce our natural gas depressurized
and shut down. The wind farms froze over, and the equipment that carried the
energy to the rest of the state was damaged by downed trees and poles. There
was not even a fraction of enough power, and whatever was produced was sent to
hospitals and emergency services.
* * *
Monday morning many
of us in Dallas woke up to cold houses. We realized that the power was off and
had been for some time. After waiting it out a few hours, and checking the
utility’s outage website, we realized that the blackouts were not rolling, and
we were in trouble.
This
is when the community stepped up. We realized that the majority of our
community was without power, so anyone who had power started to call around and
check on others. Covid protocols were rightfully put aside, and people were
slowly inching their way down the snow-covered streets to get anywhere that had
warmth. Oh, didn’t I tell you? Dallas doesn’t plow the streets, only the major
highways. So we typically have to wait for the snow to melt before we can
drive. A 130-car accident, caused by the slick roads, made national news from
Fort Worth, Texas (about 30 miles from Dallas). Most families moved into
someone else’s home; some tried to stick it out in their own. Neighbors knocked
on doors to check on the elderly, and everyone wondered when it would be over.
* * *
Unfortunately, it was
just beginning. By Monday morning, every hotel room in the city was taken. By
Tuesday, the pipes started to burst. Unlike in the north of our country, our
water pipes are not buried below the frost line. That means that if the water was
not circulating, it would freeze and burst the pipes. While some families knew
to leave a faucet on, to drip the pipe, many didn’t realize that there was
still a burst danger unless they ran all the sinks in different zones of the
house. Many families had burst water pipes flooding their homes, as did the yeshiva
and other institutions. This means not only untold millions of dollars in
structural damage but also that these families were now left without water.
Even if they had heat, their homes were not habitable. Some families collected
snow and melted it just to be able to flush the toilets.
In
case you are wondering what would happen if everyone in a city ran their water
at once, the city of Austin found out. So many of their residents ran water
that the city water works depressurized and shut down. No one in Austin
had water because they all used it at the same time. Approximately half of
Texas had boil ordinances in place as a result of the storm, which meant that
the water from the taps was unsafe and had to be double boiled before use.
Although we didn’t know it at the time, those
blackouts would last for a solid three days, for others longer. And while the
lights would come on for maybe an hour at a time, most families did not have
power for more than three hours a day, not long enough to get the house warm.
Stories from around the state were trickling in. Families forced to burn their
furniture or toys just to stay warm. People died of hypothermia, including many
children. One frum firefighter
related that he worked from 10:30 p.m. Sunday night to 7:00 a.m. Tuesday
morning and never made it back to the station. The emergency calls were so
frequent that the only time they stopped was to refill the truck’s gas tank.
Texas was reeling in a way that it never had before. We pride ourselves on
being resourceful and on being good neighbors. When a city is in crisis, others
go to help. But now, we were all in the same cold, dark boat together.
* * *
With the epic nature
of the storms, thus also arose an epic response.
Chaim
Goldfeder likes to feed people; it’s what he does. He and wife Miriam are
founders of Kosher Palate and Texas Kosher Barbeque, the local kosher grocery
store and catering service. A Baltimore native, Chaim moved to Dallas nearly 20
years ago and made himself an integral piece of the community. Three years ago,
when hurricane Harvey slammed into Houston and devastated the frum community, Chaim was the point
person to organize all the food relief for the area. He took his team to Houston
and served a thousand meals a day for three weeks. His skill set in handling
natural disasters and crises is superb. As his house filled up with people
looking for a warm place to sleep and play, he realized the need was great.
With the number of people who were without power or the ability to cook, he
knew he would do something.
Tuesday
night, Chaim had his store prepare 500 hot meals to serve at three locations
across the Dallas metroplex absolutely free of charge. Chaim was prepared to
cover the costs himself and did not initially solicit any funds. However, some
people wanted to donate to the cause, and it caught the attention of the
Federation. While the Federation was able to provide some funding for another
round of meals, Jordana Kohn, a local restaurant owner, posted on Facebook
about the situation in Dallas, and many responded they wanted to help. Mr.
Goldfeder set up a GoFundMe, and support from all over the country poured in.
Wednesday
night, they put up 1,000 meals, and they did it again on Thursday night. Bikur
Cholim of Lakewood wanted to help as well, so they sent a truck filled with
food and two volunteers to drive to Dallas in time for Shabbos. Yosef
Mutterperl, formerly of Southside Sandwich Shop in Lakewood, had worked with
Chaim before during the Houston relief effort, and he jumped on a plane and
came to help.
By
Shabbos, many had their power back, but a huge number of people had suffered
extensive damage to their houses and had nowhere to cook. Some people were
homeless. Chaim, Jordana Kohn, and Lowell Michaelson of Simcha Kosher
Catering, joined forces to provide hundreds of meals free of charge, as well as
cases of water. For the elderly especially, this was lifesaving, as many
other food programs shut down, and most grocery stores were picked clean. Mr.
Goldfeder also provided dinners for hungry firefighters at fire stations, where
crews had been working around the clock with no food, and he invited them to
come to his store if they needed more. For many who came to get a meal, it was
the only warm thing they had to eat in a long time.
* * *
Chaverim of Dallas
was founded approximately a year ago by Baruch Shawel, Rabbi Menachem Ziemba,
and Eli Hammerman. Typically, they respond to eight calls a month and help with
a variety of services. In a 72-hour period during this storm they answered over
40 calls. Everything from jumping car batteries to finding travelers a warm
place to stay, they did it. Most importantly, they went into the houses with
burst pipes, shut off the water, and used wet vacs to dry the floors so they
don’t warp. Many members did this even though they themselves were out of power
and had flooding issues. With Rabbi Bentzi Epstein (DATA) and Rabbi Sholey
Klein (Dallas Kosher) they also helped organize a team of plumbers and
electricians from the NewYork/New Jersey area to drive down and help people do
repairs and get their homes back. As you can imagine, getting a plumber was not
easy to do. Having this team meant that people could get their homes back weeks
faster, and not be priced-gouged in the process.
Baruch
Shawl, also a founding member of Hatzalah Dallas, was born and raised here. He
said that he started Chaverim to unite the community and show that it didn’t
matter what shul you go to or where your kids go to school, Chaverim would
always be there to serve. They did all that and more in the last few weeks,
proving how integral they are to the community.
* * *
It is fitting that,
of all weeks for this to happen, it was Parshat
Teruma. In that parsha, the call
goes out to collect materials for the Mishkan.
The people respond in the most overwhelming way. Some bring gold, silver,
jewels, skins, dyes, and fabrics. All of these materials were necessary, but it
was not enough. It took people donating their time, talents, and skills to put
the Mishkan together. Everyone
contributed in some way to the construction of the place where Hashem would rest
his shechina. So, too, in Dallas;
everyone contributed somehow. Some cooked, vacuumed, or jumped car batteries.
Others opened their homes and had as many as 30 guests sleeping over.
I
conducted an informal poll of my first- to eighth-grade students, and found
that approximately 70% lost power, 50% lost water, and anyone who had
power invited others into their homes. There were those who went knocking on
doors to check on the elderly. And many generous people opened their wallets to
help their fellows. Chabad of Plano opened the doors to their preschool to give
any child a warm, safe place to play during the day, and had an internet cafe
and charging station for those who needed to plug in. Other locations had meals
to pick up for those who needed. There might have been a shortage of
electricity, there was no shortage of chesed.
While
we never hope to be tested like this again, it is encouraging to know that, no
matter how cold it gets, it is still warm deep in the heart of Texas.
