It's winter season again in Texas, meaning from one day to the next, things could change very, very quickly for you. And whether you're from Texas or somewhere else across the country, each season has the chance to bring you something maybe you haven't seen or maybe you haven't experienced before. So we've decided to step in and help. We're about to share some stories from the past few years all the way up through this winter season that will keep you prepared to keep you safe and keep you informed to start. We're going to go inside the home. We were a state full of broken and busted pipes and frozen swimming pools and all other kinds of bitter cold misery. Three years ago, complete ceilings falling down in houses, just catastrophic water damage and plumber, Jesse Crane with Milestones says this weekend has the potential to create those headaches again. So he says, consider a slow drip of faucets if the pipes are on an outside wall, open cabinet doors, so the heat from the house can reach those pipes too, remove outdoor garden hoses and cover hose bibs to give them added protection and know where your water shut off valve is if your home does spring away, if you were to have something that things, knowing how to shut it off and stop it as fast as you can. And then there's the life and death discussion. We were averaging four carbon monoxide responses per day. Matt Zavadsky with Medstar says they'd like to avoid that 2021 statistic by people keeping gas power generators outside, inspecting fireplaces and wood stoves if they haven't been used in a while, making sure the flu is open and working and don't repeat some very near fatal mistakes. We had a case last year where people were running their car in the garage to sit in the car and stay warm, but they didn't open the garage door. Somebody actually moved their, their charcoal grill into the house, let the grill to try and stay warm and be mindful of those who can't stay warm. Hypothermia in that big cold spell claimed 161 lives in Texas that year. So reminders are always important, especially as people are preparing for a Sunday, Monday where the temperatures could be well below freezing and hopefully with problems well below average too in Dallas, I'm Kevin Reece whatever year your house was built, whatever materials it's made of no home is completely safe from freezing temps. Your general actions that should be taken are open up your cabinets, you know, a little bit of dripping in your faucets upstairs downstairs, different areas of the home and stuff like that. Andrew Riviera, a plumber with Met Plumbing and Katie says those are general precautions. Other steps you take, depend on the type of home you live in. You definitely want to take that action into covering it like this. Say your home is a little older like this one built in the seventies. A lot of the older homes are sometimes on pier and beams and a lot of the water lines are underneath the home when a home is elevated, he says the pipes are usually exposed so they need to be covered. These are actions that are needed to be taken, make sure that you cover all the water pipes with insulation. If your home is new war and built on a slab, he says your piping is likely in your attic. So opening the attic door could help, open up your attic door, allowing some of that warm air to go up will help with the temperature in the attic space. But he says exposed outdoor pipes on any home need to be covered along with any water softener systems and your sprinklers backflow prevention device which Riviera says should also be drained. Even if you take these actions, there is still no guarantee that nothing is gonna happen. Another difference between newer and older homes is insulation. Of course, newer homes are built with a more advanced material. If someone has an older home and they are a little bit worried about the attic space. A great thing that they can do for the short term is open up the attic door, allow some of that warm air going into the attic. Just to ensure that a little bit more comfort for the pipes, make sure they're in the temperature that's needed. In order for the water not to freeze. It is known as the silent killer. Even just a little bit can be dangerous. Carbon monoxide is something you don't want to take a chance on much like your smoke detectors. You want to replace your carbon monoxide detector every six months as the weather gets below freezing. Allen fire chief, Jonathan Boyd says they're prepared for potential co poisoning calls. You may have a headache, you may feel lethargic, you may feel tired and so sometimes it can mask itself as just maybe like a flu like symptoms. But if you're unsure if you're ever unsure of that, uh The best thing you can do is call 911 and call somebody to come check out your home to make sure that you don't have a carbon monoxide leak. He says do not bring generators, grills or camp stoves inside your house. Generators should be at least 20 ft away from any openings to your home. So that way you can make sure that carbon monoxide does not come into the house. You also should not use your oven or stove to keep warm. Gas stoves are not intended to heat your home because they're not vented and do not sleep in a running car even with the garage open. Chief Boyd says if you lose power, find a place to stay with family friends or at a hotel, he says warming stations are an option too. He knows it can get cold. But as you search for a way to keep warm, remember, carbon monoxide can kill in Allen. I'm Tiffany Liu. If you're like me, you woke up this morning with no power and no water. We, we're in a bad situation with, with this weather and we, we don't ever see it here in Texas. So Thomas Evans is the plumbing manager for Frymire Home Services. He says water pipes can freeze easily in this kind of weather. Now, if any pipes are gonna freeze, it's gonna be the ones that are closest to the cold outside side, right on the other side of this wall is my kitchen sink. So the pipes that are running right here are the ones that are frozen. If your pipes haven't frozen yet, turn the water on just a little and leave it on water can't freeze easily when it's flowing. But if water isn't coming out, the pipes are likely frozen. If that's the case, what can you do? Put minimal heat on it? You don't wanna, you know, put, you know, excessive heat on it, like pouring hot water or anything like that. Thomas says, put a space heater or heating pad close to the pipes. And if you don't have either of those, use a hair dryer and hopefully that'll break some of it up. But if the power's out, those aren't options. In that case, if you can get some hot water, you can dip a towel in the hot water and then wrap the towel around those frozen pipes. But too much heat will cause the pipes to expand, you know, expansion of the pipe is what's gonna cause the burst. So, uh that, that's one thing you know, we don't want to do is, is, you know, make the situation worse than it already is if pipes do burst and water starts to leak, shut off the main water valve or call the city or a plumber who can do it for you reporting at home. I'm Sean Giggy. If your pipes are frozen before they thaw out, turn off your water at the water main so that it doesn't keep flooding through the broken pipes. Once they thaw out and start leaking, you may need to get one of these special keys at the hardware store to open up the water meter to get to that shut off valve. If you are insured right now, know your policy, what's covered? What's your deductible? If you are uninsured, you may now qualify for help from fema. So, in either of those cases, if you have damage start documenting it in writing video pictures, you name it and save every receipt right now and then before you hire somebody to repair it, check their references and their online ratings take some referrals from people you actually know and beware of the person who knocks on your door to offer repairs, unsolicited. Also, it is hugely important how you pay them, make sure that you don't find insurance proceeds checks over. We've seen that time and again and there's no way to protect the consumer. There's nothing that the insurance company can do to protect that consumer. So deposit that check and pay that contractor in small increments. As you see the work being satisfactorily completed, we've got three tips that can help you out with this one here. One, be sure that you know what your equipment is and how old it is. If you need help with that, a technician can help you. Uh Two, you wanna make sure that nothing is blocking the air flow for your H VAC system that includes the filter as well. You can wipe that uh dust off of that with a dry cloth. They say or if you uh just wanna really play it on the safe side, get a brand new filter for it and you know, change that thing out regularly. It'll really help it to perform optimally. Uh three. If it smells like rotten eggs, it means that you need to have repairs done to your gas line right away. Do not wait on that. A burning smell is normal for the first few minutes when you first turn on the heater for the year that shouldn't last more than an hour. And again, any smell of eggs, that rotten egg smell, you really wanna call, uh, very quickly there. Now, while there are plenty of ways to keep your home prepared for winter. What about you? What about yourself? There are plenty of Texans out there who can handle the 100 degree temperatures but maybe not the temps when they get a little closer to freezing. Here are ways to keep yourself and your loved ones safe in these cold temperatures and why it's important to do. So, I know some of you will still spend some time outside, whether it's walking your dog working or exercising. Here are seven signs of hypothermia for adults first when shivering stops. You know, shivering is actually a good thing. It's an indication that your body's heat regulation system is active, slow, shallow breathing, confusion and memory loss, drowsiness, exhaustion, slurred, or mumbled speech, slow weakening, pulse loss of co ordination, fumbling hands. If you're stumbling around in your steps this morning, I got sort of a checklist for you. I know you've been listening to our weather team. You know, we are expecting below freezing temperatures, isolate snow, whatever later this week. So before then I want to make sure that y'all are prepared at home uh make sure first of all that you have important phone numbers written down, please, like paper and pen. So I'm talking about your doctor's offices, your pharmacies, even veterinarians again, go old school here just in case you lose power, your phone dies or whatever, have all of this on paper and make sure your family knows where to find it. Uh Be sure you have enough medication for several days on hand. If you rely on medical devices, have a backup plan, please, in case you lose power for an extended period of time, like battery packs, backup generators or even backup oxygen bottles. Now, to my fitness friends, my runners, people who like to work out or exercise outdoors and even people who've got to work outdoors, cold weather puts extra strain on your heart. If you have heart disease or high blood pressure go easy. Ok. If you must be outside, dress in layers, look at our beautiful little graphic here. You wanna keep that body heat. I'm talking hats, double up on gloves, get some hand warmers. Those things are great. Keep the chest warm wool socks really work. And then of course, boots with adequate insulation, outdoor workers take breaks from standing out there in the cold too long that goes for anyone walking your dogs as well. Finally, please, please please check on your elderly friends, your neighbors, people with chronic illness may be at higher risk for hypothermia after prolonged exposure to this weather. So if you can't physically make it over to someone, call, text, send messages. Let's make sure that they know that they are not forgotten. I get it. We've been joking about it all morning. It does not feel like winter right now. But as Kyla has been saying, cooler temperatures are on the way we'll get there. Did you know there are actually foods that can help boost your mood when the temperatures do drop and it's gloomy outside. Vitamin D rich foods are the number one food to consider adding to your menu during the winter months, people who have more emotional eating during the fall have been shown to have lower levels of vitamin D which is associated with more anxiety and depression. Doctor Susan Albers from the Cleveland Clinic says a great source of vitamin D is shiitake mushrooms. Other good options include salmon, salmon, egg yolks, fortified cereals, milk and red meat. She says cravings and emotional eating are obviously common this time of year, try to avoid grabbing those sugary and processed snacks. They can actually drag your mood down over time. Instead, she recommends like sweet potatoes, beets, walnuts, spicy, roasted chickpeas and other alternative. Doctor Albers says what you eat can not only impact your mood and your sleep but your immune system. One of the best things that you can do to help your immune system and to boost your mood is to add foods that are high in vitamin C. These are foods like citrus fruits, oranges, mangoes, lemons, kiwis, but they are also found in broccoli, bell peppers and strawberries. Doctor Alber says it's really all about mindful eating this time of year. If you're feeling overwhelmed, the changing up your whole diet, she suggests just swapping out like one food a day keeping it simple. People are asking about this. They really want to warm up, but you're right. If you do it the wrong way, it can be dangerous. But we know this is going on as long as there's really kind of this need for energy. So we're also gonna talk about how to conserve and hopefully, if a lot of people do that, we can get through this a bit more quickly. So let's start with that first. Well, let's look at what was looking like. Actually our photographer Cody Markham shot this video on his way into work this morning. It shows downtown Dallas lots of blacked out areas there really a surreal scene to see. We never see something like this here in Texas. So if we want this to go away, we do need to help conserve that energy. And this is what the experts say to do that. If your power is still on. Number one, turn your thermostat to 68 degrees, but do keep it above 55 keep your blinds closed. So he won't escape through the windows. You can also put a towel or a blanket in front of your doors. Try to avoid using any large appliances like a washer dryer, especially during peak demand hours. That's in the morning and the early evening you can even unplug appliances, all appliances if you really want to go there. Now, these temperatures are bone chilling. So here are some tips to stay warm safely. Number one, if you've got your power and you're using a space heater, do not leave it on while you're sleeping, that can be very dangerous. Also never use an oven or stovetop to heat your homes. Those are only designed to cook that can be really, really dangerous. And finally, if you're using a fireplace, make sure it's clean and that your smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector is working. Yeah, there's a lot of things to keep in mind because there can be that backup. Once you start seeing fires or anything like that, then the fire department's going in. We really want to do this smartly. We want to do it safely. We know it is a very difficult position to be in guys. We hope we will be through it relatively soon as temperatures drop to some of the coldest in years, electricity use is going up. We're seeing a significant amount of energy use during this cold spell. Ercot monitors power use in Texas and they say we may hit a winter peak record and we anticipate that we may set a new winter peak demand record sometime on Monday. And so we're monitoring grid conditions very closely and making sure that we can provide reliable electric service to Texans. Ercot had rolling blackouts during a significant storm in 2011. They aren't anticipating that right now, but it doesn't mean you won't lose power, snow accumulating on power lines can also lead to outages. So fire departments are telling people to be ready and keep fire safety in mind. So a lot of times like what we see a lot are using kitchen appliances to heat the home. And if you have like a gas unit, a gas stove, we start to run into carbon monoxide issues at that point. And don't use unconventional items to keep warm. Don't bring in a propane heater from outside and or a barbecue pit or something from outside to get heat inside the Plano Fire Department is adding extra ambulances just in case and sending firefighters out in pickup trucks for water or pipe breaks. Meanwhile, Ercot is not asking people to conserve power at this time, but if demands are too high, they could issue an emergency order. So be mindful of the thermostat settings in your home in Arlington, I'm Rebecca Lopez. It is expected to be the coldest night of this first cold snap of the season tonight just so happens that it's also Halloween. So hopefully whatever costumes those kids are wearing, they have a little extra layer, maybe an extra sheet for the ghost and the parents also want to make sure you dress warm. I was showing off my new heated vest that I got just yesterday. Very proud of it. See it switches color but yes, plants they know. Well, here at the arboretum, how to take care of them. That is why you can see behind me, they have them covered, they have them covered in this landscaping cloth. It is a breathable material. They say that is the best option. A towel, a sheet. They did add the disclaimer. Don't use your good sheets unless you want an angry spouse, but they say you do not need to pre water them before you cover them and don't cover them with just anything because sometimes you can do more harm than good. You just don't want to use plastic. Plastic will trap the water underneath the plastic and freeze to the plants and cause more damage than if you just left them covered many times. So, uh, you want to use a breathable fabric, cover them up. You have to take care of your plants, take care of yourselves. Something to keep in mind. We heard from medstar yesterday. They've already responded to a few cold weather calls. They say if you have a history of heart problems, heart concerns that the cold weather can really exacerbate those problems. So don't do any kind of strenuous activity in the freezing weather that can cause your heart rate to rise and also, as we say, in the hot weather, months, in the summer, same thing goes with the cold. Keep in mind our elderly population because they can be at risk. Sometimes the best course of action is to avoid driving all together. Other times it's not an option. Here's some tips though as to how you can prepare your vehicle for many types of winter weather. Sometimes the best course of action is to avoid driving all together. Other times it's not an option. Here's some tips though as to how you can prepare your vehicle for many types of winter weather. You're going to be busy. You can see the shop if there is one thing that 44 years of auto repair business in North Texas have taught male. Somalia. Yes, I agree with you. Is that Texans and their cars do not do winter well, because, you know, people aren't going to be ready. No, they're not ready. So to be ready, the owner of Ess Fleet Service in Dallas on Friday is checking cars for free, making sure batteries are fresh and terminals. Clean radiator fluid, topped off windshield washer fluid to open it up, not just plain water, it frozen it, bust your tank, it bust your pump everything and you have to spend a lot of money to fix it and that your tires are at their proper pressure. What pressure you have, which brings us to this doozy of a statistic from AAA 83% of Americans don't know how to check the air pressure on their tire. Frightening actually. Yeah, the tire sensors are triggered by pressure changes in cold weather. If you're part of that unknowing, 83% have them checked by someone in the other 17. Because if you hit the ice and your time is up, your vehicle is gonna sleep in the other vehicle and just be careful out on the roadways and make sure you use common sense as for people who don't use this automotive common sense takes us back to that first bitter cold morning. Three years ago, I have a lot of my customer call me. Hey, I'm, he says, don't be that guy this time, be ready for this weekend instead in Dallas, I'm Kevin race. The simplest step to take is checking the temperature if it is below 32 °F, that means it is freezing outside, meaning certain precipitation could impact the roads. The first type you might see is snow which can become more dangerous as more cars drive through it, making it more slick. You want to make sure and keep your speed slow and steady as applying extra gas or stopping at an angle could become dangerous. Next is sleet, which is when snow melts and refreezes as sleet just before hitting the ground, you'll want to give yourself more time if you need to stop or turn lastly black ice. The reason this one's a problem is it's not really black and it doesn't really look like ice. It's practically invisible when it's on the road, which is why most cars don't know about it until they're already on it. Now, black ice tends to form in places without a lot of sunshine in places that aren't driven on that often. If you do find yourself on black ice, first thing to do is remain calm. There's not much you can do or want to do when you're on black ice, especially hitting the brakes. If you do feel the back of your car starting to turn, grab your wheel and turn it in that same direction. Now, in terms of what types of roads you should avoid or be cautious on that would be elevated roadways such as ramps or bridges as these are the first to freeze over during cold weather and no matter what's on the road or where you are, you should always drive slower and increase your distance from the car in front of you. If you follow these tips, you'll make the roadway a safer place for yourself and others this upcoming week in Dallas, I'm Jay Wallace. It's as un Texan as you've ever seen blowing snow across a barely passable, barely visible interstate. Yet still cars blew right past us. Number one message to the driving public is if you are able to stay home, stay home. Each gray dot is a road T do says is covered in ice or snow. Basically the entire state. North Texas is home to high flyovers, plenty of bridges and few people skilled at navigating a major winter storm. This truck kept trying to go forward but kept rolling backward in Arlington where police worked 20 major crashes in 20 hours of crews are trying to clear roads. The city of North Richland hills tweeted pictures of plows but any brine salt or pre treatment laid down hours ago doesn't work in temperatures this low on the, if you just move your hand from the wheels and slow down, he used to drive trucks in Chicago so he trusted he could safely take his kids sledding sunday afternoon, the ground wasn't snowy enough yet to fly. But at the time, roads were still safe enough to pass that time has passed. Now, we always stress to take care on bridges and overpasses. I wanna add one more thing to that list tonight and that is intersections. You might be wondering why I would say that here is why when you come to a stop, you have to try to start back up again. And when you do that, you spin your wheels trying to get traction on this snow and on this ice. And what happens is you pack the snow down and it further down, it goes the icier it gets. And that's really one of the things we've been noticing tonight is that intersections across the region are slick. Hey, Michelle. Hi, Matt, how are you? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Matt. Come on in. This is Michelle Barnaby and she knows ice slush or snow may hit our roads Wednesday. But unlike you or me, how's Bostonian down in Dallas? Taking on the traffic? She grew up driving in it in Boston? What do you think of the drivers in Texas? They can't drive in the rain? How are they gonna drive in the snow? Oh, and because Texans aren't as experienced in the elements, use your blinker. I'm, I'm anal about the blinker. Sit back and let this pro refresh your mind with some tips, accelerate, slowly, accelerate, slowly. Lay off the gas. Braking is a pretty big deal. The worst thing you can do is hit your brakes in the ice or the snow distance is a big deal. Distance is huge. Pay attention to the person in front of you. They're brake lights also spin outs are important to avoid, let your car in, in your tires. Grip the road, lay off the steering wheel, don't overcompensate and just let her go. And did I mention Barnaby is a fan of the blinker on your blinker? Oh, I, I, you're better at saying that than I am because I'm a true Bostonian. It's the f blinker. It's all pretty simple stuff. We Texans tend to forget when the weather turns. It was really nice to meet you Michelle. So, thanks. For the reminder and tell Pete. I said hi and Godspeed Michelle have a good one. All right, in Dallas, I'm Matt Howard on mornings. Like these ice on your car windows can be a big problem. So if you have to get out, take your time, first set, your car's heater to defrost, adjust the airflow to recirculate and move the temperature control to full heat and then wait if you want the ice to melt a little more quickly. AAA suggests this diy option spray on a mixture of one part rubbing alcohol, two parts water and a few drops of dish soap. One thing you should never do is use hot water which can cause thermal shock and crack your windshield. Now, even with all of this information, it's good to have a better understanding of what exactly you're preparing for. What are the differences between some of the precipitation that could come your way? What are some of these terms we use in the weather center here? Actually mean, here are some words and phrases that can help you better understand what's impacting your community. So I wanted to discuss the difference between snow, sleet, freezing rain and and just rain. Two of them are incredibly obvious. I know, you know that you know what snow is, you know what rain is. What about those two things in the middle? So, so let's talk about this. Let's define a couple of things first, anything shaded in blue right here is air at freezing or below freezing. All right, anything shaded in this red color that we have here is air above freezing. So, temperatures at which anything frozen would melt. All right. So now what we have here, this is the ground, here's our surface, this is the atmosphere as you go up and this is where the base of a cloud would be where the precipitation would start frozen, let's say snow. All right. So we have frozen, precip, falling through all air below freezing. It reaches the surface. Snow makes sense right now. Let's get into this profile of the atmosphere. This window right here, you have a little wedge of a little bit of air that's above freezing, that snow will fall through that wedge, it will melt, become liquid. And as that liquid starts to fall back through air that's below freezing, it will form into little balls of ice, these little pellets that we call sleet. These are the little balls of ice that kind of ping around and bounce when they hit the ground. Uh They don't necessarily stick to things and they can cause slick conditions, but it's not quite as dangerous as freezing rain. And that's the next one we're gonna talk about right here. So, in a freezing rain profile where you have uh much more warm air aloft and a very, very shallow area of subfreezing air near the surface, here's what happens. You have frozen precipitation falling into this air that is above freezing, it melts, it becomes melted, snowflakes, it becomes raindrops. What have you? It's liquid. It continues to fall toward the surface. It does not have enough time in this very shallow area to refreeze into a sleep pellet. So it hits the surface as rain, the surface is below freezing. So those super cooled water droplets will then start to glaze on everything. That's the dangerous stuff. It sticks to power lines, trees, roads, uh, it can cause power outages, the power lines will sag it's the thing that encases, uh, those things we see outside in ice. You've probably seen those pictures where, you know, trees are sagging over, power lines are sagging down. Uh, that's the stuff we want to avoid. Now we have sleet, freezing rain and snow in our forecast Wednesday night going through Thursday. That's why it's very important to stay tuned to the forecast in the days to come. Uh, and lastly, this one goes without saying if the air is above freezing all the way through, it hits the ground as rain. I wish that was the case because that'd be a lot easier than what we're gonna deal with. Uh, Wednesday into Thursday. Make sure you stay tuned. But I thought this explainer would be a little bit helpful for those that didn't know the difference that it initially gets cold here in Dallas, Fort Worth and across North Texas. And if you saw that light this morning on your dashboard. Yep, that's what it is. It's a low uh low pressure indicator. So when we have warm air and if you take a look at this, the molecules are spread apart with warm air. When we have the cold air, what takes place is those molecules they become dense. So what happens is they just become closer together, which means we start to lose air in our tires. So, so as the air temperature drops, what takes place is the molecules in the tire become more dense, causing the tire to lose pressure in a about £2 per every 10 degree drop. So when you take a look at this, when we're at 70 degrees, the air, there's, there's no change with the pressure. When it's 60 degrees, we lose £2 when it's 50 degrees, we lose four when it's 40 degrees, we lose six and when it's 30 degrees, we lose eight. So we have the, it, it happens every single year but just know it's, you know, my kids call me dad, what's going on? I've got the light on stopping to get some air in the tire a little bit about snow and, and what annually takes place here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Let's talk November, November on it. We average and this is since 1898 we average a trace of snow in November in December. It's 2/10 of an inch of snow in January, believe it or not, we averaged since 1898 a 10th of an inch of snow. Most of the snow occurs annually. On average in February, we pick up an inch of snow and then in March, March is our second snowiest month. On average, we pick up 3/10 of an inch of snow. Did you know that the entire year, the entire season, we average in DFW 1.6 inches of snow, most of it falls in February and also in March, no matter where you're watching from, we hope this leaves you feeling a little more prepared, a little more comfortable and ready for whatever the winter season brings you next.
