Ice, Not Just Cold: How to Get a Texas Home Ready for a Wet Winter

Knowing how to prepare for an ice storm in Texas means looking past the usual cold-weather checklist. A hard freeze mostly tests your heating system and exposed plumbing. Freezing rain adds a different problem: ice-laden limbs and lines can damage the equipment that carries electricity to your street and your house, and those repairs take time. That moves part of the preparation outdoors, to your trees, your service line, and the equipment mounted on your home.

Our look at what a strong El Niño could mean for winter 2026-27 explains why this season leans wetter than the last two, and why that raises the stakes for icing more than for extreme cold. This guide focuses on the practical side. Late October is the last comfortable stretch for outdoor work in most of Texas, which makes it the right time to look up at your trees, check the electrical equipment on your house, and plan how you would stay safe and warm through a multi-day outage.

Trees, Power Lines, and Who Handles What

Start with a walk around your property, from the ground, looking at trees near overhead wires. The concern isn't only branches already touching a line, because heavy limbs above a line can bend or snap onto it once ice builds up. Look for dead or cracked branches, trees leaning toward lines, and limbs hanging over the wire that runs from the pole to your house. Never try to cut branches that are touching, overhanging, or close enough to fall onto a power line yourself, no matter how insulated the wire looks.

Who handles the trimming depends on which line is involved. The examples below come from the transmission and distribution utilities (TDUs) that serve the parts of Texas with retail electric choice. If your power comes from an electric cooperative or a municipal utility such as Austin Energy, its own rules apply, so check with it before scheduling any work.

Lines That Run From Pole to Pole

Pole-to-pole distribution lines belong to the utility, and so does the trimming around them. Oncor's vegetation management page says any trimming from one pole to another must be done by Oncor, and warns customers never to attempt it. If you see branches crowding these lines, report them rather than hiring a crew. In the Houston area, CenterPoint Energy will send someone to inspect a tree you think is too close, though it may wait for scheduled area work if the tree isn't an obvious hazard.

The Service Drop to Your House

The service drop is the line that runs from the utility pole to your home, and the rules for it are different. AEP Texas says trees threatening the service drop are the property owner's responsibility, and asks owners to call at least two business days before scheduling the work so a crew can temporarily disconnect the line. Oncor also puts service-drop trimming on the customer, who needs to hire a private arborist and arrange a temporary disconnection, with charges for disconnecting and reconnecting service. Texas-New Mexico Power likewise gives property owners the primary responsibility for vegetation near service lines and asks them to request a temporary disconnect first.

When You're Not Sure Which Line It Is

Don't try to tell lines apart by height or appearance. Call your utility, describe where the tree sits relative to the poles and the house, and let it tell you who handles the work. Getting that answer in October, while the weather is mild, is far easier than arranging tree work once ice is already in the forecast.

Check the Electrical Equipment on Your House

Falling limbs can do more than snap a wire. A service drop pulled down by a branch can damage the weatherhead, the fitting where overhead service enters the house, or tear the meter base off the wall. In Oncor's territory, for example, that equipment belongs to the customer, which affects how quickly power comes back.

After a 2025 storm, Oncor told customers to check equipment such as the meter base and weatherhead, explaining that it cannot repair equipment it does not own and cannot safely restore power until a licensed electrician makes the repairs. A city inspection may also be required before service returns. That repair-then-inspect sequence sits entirely outside the utility's own restoration work, and it can keep a home dark well after the lines around it are fixed.

Before winter, look over the outside of your house from a safe distance. Watch for loose or rusted fittings, a service mast that leans, or limbs hanging over the spot where service enters the home, and don't touch any of it. If something looks off, a licensed electrician can tell you whether it needs work, and trees threatening that spot fall under the service-drop rules above.

Why Ice Storm Outages Last Longer and Stay Local

An ice storm outage is typically a local equipment problem, not a shortage of power on the grid. The National Weather Service notes that heavy ice can bring down trees and topple utility poles, and that it can disrupt power for days while utilities repair extensive damage. Restoration can mean clearing fallen limbs, reaching damaged equipment on icy roads, and replacing poles or lines, not just flipping a switch. If you want a refresher on how those local lines fit into the system, our guide to transmission vs. distribution walks through it.

That has a few practical consequences worth planning for:

• Outages can be very localized. Your street may stay dark after nearby neighborhoods are back, because different lines serve them.
• Access can slow repairs. Ice-covered roads and fallen branches can delay crews even when they're available.
• Restoration estimates can change. Crews often find more damage as they work through an area.

There's no reliable number of hours that applies to every ice storm. An isolated problem may be fixed quickly, while widespread damage to trees, poles, and service lines can take days. Plan as if the outage could outlast the storm itself, and don't assume your power is close just because the ice has stopped falling. Our hurricane season outage guide covers the supply basics, and what happens to your electric bill during an outage explains how billing works while service is down.

Running a Generator Safely Through a Multi-Day Outage

A portable generator matters most when an outage stretches past a day, but ice adds hazards a summer outage doesn't. The generator has to stay outside in exactly the weather that caused the outage, and wet conditions raise the risk of shock. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says to run portable generators only outside, at least 20 feet from the house, with the exhaust pointed away from doors, windows, and vents. Never run one in a garage, basement, crawlspace, shed, or carport, or on a porch, since opening doors or windows won't stop carbon monoxide from building up.

For rain, sleet, or freezing rain, the same CPSC guidance points to the generator's manual, which may call for an NFPA-rated non-combustible generator tent or tell you to wait until the precipitation passes. Never move a generator indoors or into a garage to keep it dry. Inside the house, keep battery-operated or battery-backup carbon monoxide alarms on every level and outside sleeping areas.

Running a generator for several days also means repeating the riskiest tasks: refueling, moving cords, and checking on the unit in bad weather. The CPSC's portable generator safety alert covers the basics:

• Turn the generator off and let it cool before refueling, since gasoline spilled on hot engine parts can ignite.
• Run it on a dry surface under an open, canopy-like structure.
• Use heavy-duty outdoor extension cords rated above the total wattage of what you plug in.
• Never plug the generator into a wall outlet to power the house wiring. This practice, called backfeeding, endangers utility workers and neighbors.

If you're still deciding on backup power, our guide to choosing a backup generator for a Texas home covers types, sizing, and installation. For an ice storm, the question is whether the equipment you already have can run safely in cold, wet conditions for days at a time. That's worth testing on a dry fall afternoon rather than discovering during the first outage.

Space Heaters: Warmth Without the Fire Risk

When power flickers back or a generator is running, a portable space heater can seem like the easy way to keep one room warm. Over a long outage, though, a heater can end up running for many hours in improvised setups. The U.S. Fire Administration recommends keeping anything that can burn at least 3 feet away, turning heaters off when you leave the room or go to bed, and never using an oven to heat your home.

Plug electric space heaters directly into a wall outlet, never into an extension cord or power strip, as CPSC advises. A space heater also draws a lot of power, so check your generator's or battery's capacity and the manufacturer's instructions before connecting one. If the house keeps getting colder and you can't heat it safely, moving somewhere warm is usually the better call, and it's easier to arrange before the roads ice over.

Protecting Pipes When Temperatures Hover Around Freezing

Freezing rain forms when surface temperatures sit at or just below 32°F, so an ice storm can mean days of near-freezing weather rather than a deep plunge. That doesn't remove the risk to plumbing, especially pipes in exterior walls, garages, attics, and crawlspaces. What changes the picture is the outage: once the heat goes off, those pipes keep cooling long after the precipitation stops and the sky clears.

Most of the prep is the standard kind, just done earlier. The Texas Department of Insurance recommends removing garden hoses, wrapping outdoor pipes and pipes in unheated areas, draining and shutting off sprinkler systems, and opening cabinet doors under sinks so household heat reaches the plumbing. It also suggests letting faucets drip before a freeze while following any local water-use limits. Our guide to preparing your home for the next Texas cold snap covers the rest of the freeze checklist, and if you live in an older house, our look at energy efficiency upgrades for older Texas homes is worth reading before winter.

When the House Loses Heat

Find your main water shutoff valve now, and make sure you can turn it without hunting for tools in the dark. TDI advises turning the water off at the shutoff valve if your pipes freeze, and also before you leave the house ahead of a freeze. If a pipe does freeze, the American Red Cross warns against thawing it with a blowtorch, a propane or kerosene heater, or any other open flame, and suggests an electric heating pad or hair dryer instead, which may not be an option without power. If you can't thaw it safely, call a licensed plumber.

After the Ice Stops Falling

Once the ice stops, survey your property from a safe spot before walking through the yard. Ice-coated limbs can keep falling as conditions change, so stay out from under them. Treat every downed line as energized, even if your own power is out, and stay away from anything touching it, including branches, fences, cars, and puddles. Report downed lines to your utility right away, and call 911 if one poses an immediate danger.

Hold off on cutting up fallen trees or clearing debris near any electrical equipment until the utility confirms the area is safe. If a limb is resting on your service drop, treat the line as energized and report it, and don't arrange removal until the utility has disconnected service. If your power stays out after service returns around you, report it again and check the weatherhead and meter base from a distance before calling an electrician.

Prepare for the Damage, Not Just the Temperature

Getting a Texas home ready for a wet winter is less about bracing for record cold and more about limiting what ice can break around your own property. Trees over service lines, the equipment on the side of your house, and exposed plumbing are all easier to deal with in October than in the middle of a storm. Safe backup power and heating plans matter most when local repairs take longer than anyone expects.

None of this depends on whether the season brings one ice storm or none. Use the remaining mild days of fall to walk your property, report branches crowding the utility's lines, line up an arborist for anything near your service drop, and make sure your generator, alarms, and water shutoff are ready. A few hours of work now can spare you days of trouble once the ice arrives.