This place is a mess.

El Paso saw a little bit of snow, and a few days of record cold temperatures. This has created more chaos than the average nuclear bomb. There were hundreds of wrecks from ice on the roads. Rolling blackouts continue into their 4th day. Schools have been closed for most of the week. We are on a boil water notice. There have been so many busted pipes that every plumber in the entire metro area is booked solid for weeks. There have been gas and water outages reported all over the place. On post is worse. Whole blocks of housing have flooded due to busted pipes, and are not inhabitable. The post housing contractor has sent personnel from other posts to help deal with the emergency claims. There are water points set up in every housing area. The gyms on post have become shelters. Our tireless Garrison Commander "Colonel Joe" probably hasn't slept in days for dealing with all of this.

Meanwhile, Fox News ran a story about the soldiers who weathered this storm in the field, interviewed our General out there at the field training site, and quoted the "concerned wives" who contacted them, but refused to be identified on TV. Go figure. It was a joke. Those soldiers came in from the field today, right on schedule. Those battalion commanders stood their ground, and I think they made the only right choice there was in that situation. On Monday, they will take their troops back out to the field, this time with a 100% ban on cell phones. It does really suck under the circumstances. Hundreds of these soldiers will leave behind their wives and children to deal with the aftermath of the cold damage, and no way to contact them. Good training for deployment, yes. Completely unnecessary, and should never have gotten to that point, yes again. A fitting outcome after those wives contacted the media, HELL yes. I'm glad Thak isn't in that unit.

As always, there is much flipping out, and senior wives have tried to calm junior wives by helping them out. More apparent than ever is the fact that the new Army is crap. Telling someone who's totally freaking out because she hasn't had a shower in four days, where public shower facilities are on post, is considered judgmental. Telling someone who's crying because she can't wash her husband's uniforms where an open laundromat is, is being on a high horse. If we try to help, they yell at us, but if we don't try to help, that's the wrong answer, too. Like our husbands when it comes to the fact that they have to lead these overly empowered lower-enlisted soldiers, we can't win. That's the hardest part of this whole thing. We're expected to help, but when we try, we get yelled at. I don't know what they want from us. What I do know is that freaking out hasn't gotten anyone anywhere at any point in the history of time or the US Army.

Otherwise, we are ok. Compared to many, we've fared well. That is mostly due to good luck, but a bit to do with good planning and Thak knowing what he's doing when it comes to cold weather. It also doesn't hurt that we haven't flipped out about it. What would that accomplish anyhow? Scaring the kids? Yeah, because the rolling blackouts and jacked up schedule with the entire city shut down haven't done a good enough job of that, right? No. Me and Thak have managed quite well. Minus a small laundry disaster last night due to a partially frozen outgoing pipe, and the fact that we're down to one lantern with batteries that work, we are unscathed so far. We are just hoping that things go back to normal soon, and we can all just move on from this. It has also solidified our decision to get OUT of El Paso after Thak retires from the Reserves and Erin finishes Elementary school. This place is so mismanaged it's not even funny. What we got can hardly even be called severe weather. I've never seen single digit temperatures shut an entire city down like this. It's a mess out there. We're fine, though. Still planning Erin's first sleepover for tomorrow night. Her friend Lilly is coming over. I'm going to get the girls some pink marshmellows to roast in the fireplace.