I live in Tulsa after living in Chicago for a decade. For every northerner offering us winter advice, please be aware that the issue here is not just people not knowing what to do, it’s an infrastructure that is not designed for this weather.

We do not have the ability to maintain safe roads here with snow. The only way I’ve made it to work (I’m an ED doc so not an option to not come) is a friend with a truck driving me. Roads in Chicago NEVER went this long unplowed. Thank goodness Oklahomans love their pickups.

Water mains are breaking across the city. I have multiple friends with no water due to frozen pipes despite dripping their faucets. Pipes here are simply not buried deep enough for this weather. The city has no ability to fix anything frozen until we just thaw out naturally.

Our prior (rental) house here had an ABOVE GROUND water pipe that ran through the unheated garage and we’d have to run a space heater whenever it was below freezing to get water to our kitchen. That’s an extreme example but clearly not that far off.

We currently have no power because the city is overloading the power grid so they’ve initiated rolling blackouts. Our planned outage right now is 3 hours. We at least have ALL the winter gear since we moved from Chicago, but I’m not sure how I’m going to safely let my baby sleep.

Our ED had multiple patients coming in because they couldn’t make it to dialysis because the state run system to transport people to medical appointments (Sooner Ride) hasn’t been running because of the weather. I’m sure this will get worse with the power outages.

I can remember ONE DAY in my 10 years in chicago when the buses didn’t run because of weather and I couldn’t get where I needed to go. I have pictures of myself making snow angles on lake shore drive. I then went inside to my heated apartment with running hot water.

This is much much worse than a northern winter.

Apparently now Tulsa is low on water because of ‘unprecedented demand’ - a combo of water mains breaking and every household in Tulsa leaving their faucets dripping for a week. They’re telling people to stop using dishwashers and washing machines. Fantastic.