Texas Strong

Texas

STRONG

by Diane Ciarloni | photos courtesy of Lisa Britten

People in Texas don’t have a high level of confidence in weather forecasts. The first problem is the predictions are wrong more often than they’re right. The second wrinkle is they nearly always change more than a few times between issuing the information and the moment of actual occurrence. So who cares? And why?

As it all turned out, millions of Texans should have cared during the days leading up to Valentine’s because what happened was brutal.

Snow began falling. People laughed and joked. Kids called out, “Mama, let’s build a snowman.” It was all fun and games until residents began realizing the snow wasn’t stopping and the temperatures were still dropping, not bottoming out one night until they hit negative 2 degrees.

The entire nation began reading the story of Texas’ struggling electrical grid. It teetered on the brink of total collapse. Those who allegedly knew best instigated rolling blackouts; power for an hour for folks over here while folks over there dealt with chattering teeth.

Something went wrong in the cozy lake communities of Lake Dallas and Hickory Creek. There was one blackout at approximately 2:00 a.m. and….that was it. The power was gone. The lucky ones had a fireplace and wood. It didn’t take long for hundreds of indoor thermostats to fall into the 30s. Lisa Britten, owner of the recently opened Linnybird Bakeshop in Lake Dallas, was bundled up in her Aubrey home. She had power but was trying to conserve. She listened to and read stories coming across the Internet.

“One man chopped up his furniture for firewood in order to keep his family warm. A woman rummaged through cabinets for old Halloween candy,” she said.

“That wasn’t right. I had to do something to get heat into those bellies.”

Lisa, also known as the Sugar Queen, rounded up her adult children and hit the 17-miles of ice and snow-covered roads separating her from her shop. Her mind was going 90 miles per hour, and she had a plan when she pulled into Linnybird’s parking lot.

“We had a fantastic week leading up to Valentine’s,” she explained. “We couldn’t keep cupcakes in the shop for more than a few hours each day. I had a nice profit and intended to put it back into the business with one of those super-duper refrigerators for the shop. The plan I made over those 17-miles, though, said to use the money to buy frozen lasagna dinners to cook and to deliver throughout Denton County. My shop is set up to bake — not to cook. That’s the reason for the frozen dinners.”

Somehow, word spread faster than imagination. It didn’t take long before Lisa realized she’d bitten off far more than she could chew. So, in that moment, she calmed down and decided to do what she could do.

Lisa took her cupcake profit money and bought every lasagna dinner she could find. She started baking and delivering, but the mountain of requests just grew higher.

“I had no idea there were so many cold, hungry, hurting people out there,” she said. “Thank goodness, Joe Flowers, owner of Joe’s Bait and Tackle in Lake Dallas, was in touch with me early the next morning. I just couldn’t do it alone.”

Flowers, also known locally as the Lake Cities King of Redneck Podcasts, had one question for Lisa.

“I just asked her to tell me what I could do to help make it happen,” said the big-

hearted Flowers, who refers to his podcast followers as Joe’s Bait and Tackle Nation. He returned to his store and “went live” to his nation. He asked for help, and in 30-minutes, they began arriving like an army of Texas Rangers. Sandra, Joe’s wife, began organizing delivery convoys.

“We cooked, plated, and delivered 750 meals at a time in 45 minutes,” said Lisa. “That was the only way to deliver the food while it was still hot because there were no microwaves to reheat it.”

Flowers is still high on the excitement of the more than 3,100 meals shoved out Linnybird’s doors over five days. “Those guys showed up and never hesitated,” he said. “They drove all over this entire county. One guy couldn’t get down the road where a 90-year-old couple lived, so he parked his jeep and walked.

“And don’t think we were going to just poor, broken down people. Listen! If you have no power and it’s 10 degrees outside, a half-million dollar house is no better than the draftiest trailer. They’re both freezing and you can’t cook. And your kids are crying because they don’t understand.”

There were dozens and dozens of soldiers. Start with the delivery drivers, more than a hundred per day.

“The largest oven in the shop went out on the third day,” said Lisa. “Again, Joe’s Nation people came to my shop, picked up the dinners and took them home to cook. Mike Cooper, owner of Chasin Tail Bar B Q, let us use his ovens. He also fed our volunteers for two days. We wound up buying out all the dinners from Sam’s, Costco and other places in the area, but there were still more people to feed. Keven Lively, from Mrs. Lively’s Cajun Konnection, spent nearly an hour on the phone with one of his suppliers. He explained everything and, by the time they hung up, it was settled. We had more food.”

One of the comments on a Facebook post gave a sobering summation of those five days in February, 2021. It said: “I don’t even know where Lake Dallas, Texas, is, but I can tell you I’ll head there if I ever move. I don’t need to see it first.”