Seriously, an 18 hour traffic jam due to one inch of snow? http://jalopnik.com/atlantas-roads-...source=jalopnik_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow This happened in Boston about 40 years ago, but it involved several feet of snow. Get your shit together Atlanta!
There are still people stuck on I-20, I-65, and US-280 in Birmingham. It was a blown forecast. These areas were supposed to get a light dusting, so no one prepared. Well, that and since we only get snow maybe once a decade, we own no plows, salt trucks, etc. In fact, we have no salt at all. The various Highway and Road Departments are dropping tons of sand on bridges and hills. My mom left her office in B'ham at 1030 Wednesday morning. She didn't get home until 2230 Wednesday night. One of my uncles left his office at 1030 and he's still not home. I'm especially worried that people on the controlled access roadways are going to start or already have frozen. I-20 between the B'ham Bypass (I-459) and Pell City is a parking lot and has been for 20 hours. People started running out of gas yesterday afternoon and the low this morning was 5F.
To be fair, those regions don't often get snow. But people around the world are stupid and generally don't drive to the road conditions anyway. I've been to Southern California and Nevada a few times when it's actually rained and you'd think the dumbass drivers had never seen water.
I can't vouch for the accuracy of this, but word is that the AL NG has been called up. http://m.imgur.com/gallery/Om6k6gY Fuckin Guard...
Okay, I get that they don't have equipment and such. But we're talking an inch of snow. We don't get the equipment out for an inch of snow. Anyway, no doubt it sucks for all the people who got stuck in this shit. The worst I can compare was a five hour drive home once (six miles), which is ironic, since I rarely drive to work.
It's more the ice than snow. I used to live in TN back in the 80's. We were out of school for 2 weeks due to ice and snow. They have no salt trucks and no plows. They were using farm equipment and attaching plows to them to clear roads. Those people have probably never driven on snow and ice before either. But what seems to be causing the biggest problem is that semis have been jackknifing all over the place backing up all the roads.
Yes, and since it's a declared state of emergency, the Governor has been on TV threatening to prosecute any employer that's asking employees to come in today. This was a weird thing. It was a blown forecast and everyone left work and schools let out all at the same time meaning it was mayhem. There are still thousands of children trapped at school. Their parents simply couldn't get to them. There are two busloads of 1st Graders at Children's Hospital that got caught downtown on a field trip and had no where to go. The first priority is to get to the thousands of people still trapped in their cars on roadways. Their second priority is to get the kids trapped as school out or at least re provisioned and the teachers relieved. Oh, and it's not supposed to get above freezing until tomorrow afternoon. Also, all roads (from interstate to city streets) are closed or impassable (worse than closed) in this county. If you're driving on a closed or impassable road and have a wreck, your insurance company doesn't have to cover you. That's keeping most people in check. The others are simply arrests. Like 1993, the Chief finally grew a pair of balls and went out over the radio saying that if you see anyone on the road, arrest them for reckless driving, reckless endangerment, and impound the car. And, just to be clear. It's not the 3" of snow on the ground that's giving us fits. It's the 2" of ice under it.
Exactly. Good intentions and all that but if they tried that shit down here during a hurricane there would be g'ubmint employees hanging from light poles.
Driving on a closed icy road is textbook criteria for reckless driving which is a perfectly legitimate reason for Custodial Arrest. Putting Police, Fire, EMS, and Wrecker Drivers at risk of danger when coming to help you is textbook criteria for reckless endangerment. If you don't like it, I suggest you petition your Legislator and ask them to rewrite the law.
Prussian Mafia had it right - snow isn't the problem, it's the ice! Also, everyone released their employees early so they could get home to beat the weather, which basically only moved "rush hour" up a few hours....so hilarity ensued. And Atlanta DID NOT have a bad forecast. They knew this was coming way ahead of time and the weather (in Atlanta and the rest of Georgia) did exactly what it was supposed to do. The mayor got RIPPED on CNN a few minutes ago. Other head honchos will not be interviewed because they know it will be a hatchet job. There will be a press conference in a few minutes, but no studio interviews. Here in Augusta we all made it home before the snow came, but few people are moving today. Many roads are impassible or so slippery it isn't worth the risk. Fort Gordon was supposed to open at 11:00 but it will be shut down for the whole day. In a few minutes I will walk to the nearest main road and see how how bad it still is. We got 3 inches and change at my house. BTW this weekend it will be back up to 70 degrees. Here's a pic my daughter took of me with my bow, and our bravest kitty exploring her winter wonderland. Kitty is NOT TO SCALE! But it would be cool if she were as big as a lynx!
Adding to what others have said, it's not snow causing this - it's ice. The snowfall that came early in the day hit warmer roads and partially melted, then the temperature suddenly dropped and we had ice everywhere nearly instantly. All the while it continued to snow, causing a mess of loose powdered snow covering a sheet of ice. As cars drove over this the top snow melted slightly, then re-froze into more ice. GA is nothing but hills, all over the damn place. Non-4x4s couldn't make it up even a slight incline (not to mention people are NOT used to driving in these conditions) so traffic just stopped. Unfortunately, no one was prepared for this and schools released the kids without warning and people left work scrambling to get their kids or meet the busses at home, but by then the roads were already ice. On top of this businesses all closed down at nearly the same time and sent their employees home. Traffic would have been insane even without the ice and snow; just from the sheer number of cars on the road. As it is there are probably 10,000 or more cars abandoned on roads all over the metro area. I know several people who never made it home last night. Fortunately people were being over-the-top helpful, offering strangers shelter for the night, helping people get un-stuck on roads, etc.
This isn't strictly true. I don't know what the govt. knew, but the news kept telling us here in Marietta "light snow, later in the day" right up until the ice came. When we realized that they were way the fuck wrong, it was too late - I myself was stuck at work until I found someone with a 4x4 who could drive in this mess, after getting my car stuck in the street for an hour.
That's about the size of it. So FYI all those bodies on the floor of the store are not crime victims - they are only sleeping. Don't bother them. Okay, I'm off for a walk, will report in an hour or so. Stay safe fellow Dixie residents!
Most people in the south don't have a clue how to drive in icy conditions In fact from what I've observed and read, most drivers cling to the myth that they can "drive just as fast on ice (or at night, or heavy rain),....if I pay closer attention". Which is complete bull.
Our local reports explained that a huge area of cold and snow was creeping down and 2 or 3 inches was expected pretty much all the way south to the fall-line. And historically Atlanta (excluding the higher mountains) gets the brunt of the snow almost every time a big front comes through. Regardless, I'm not blaming the mayor, but then again I don't live in Atlanta. I don't think anyone should get shrill and finger point until they get the facts. Damn, did we do this years ago every time there was a weather incident?
I feel sorry for the folks still stranded! It's going to get very cold tonight. Things haven't even began to melt in my neighborhood.
To be fair, most of the cars on Atlanta roads were on there well before any state of emergency was declared. This situation was handled extraordinarily badly from the very beginning. With all the kids stranded at school and people stuck all over the fallout for the govt and school boards is going to be huge, I think
Our Governor declared a State of Emergency on Tuesday, well ahead of this mess. Central and South Alabama were expecting to get hammered and they've had days to prepare. North Alabama was told we were free and clear. As a matter of fact, the stuff that should be here was pre-positioned to help those in the south. So, we're double screwed. Hoover, AL (the largest suburb of B'ham) is reporting that they still have 4,000 kids and 350 adults stranded at their schools.
This all goes back to why tornadoes are getting "worse". The South has had ice storms before, but now it's covered in asphalt and filled with cars. Enjoy the mess you've made.
I'm not blaming anyone in particular, either. I think that since we get snow/ice like this so infrequently people here don't really believe it will actually happen until it does. Though I do think that once it became apparent that it wasn't what the forecasts initially said officials were slow in acting or panicked and acted unwisely - for instance school busses shouldn't have been sent out in a lot of cases. There are four Cobb County busses stuck on the road I live on alone.
There's an inch or so of ice on most of the roads all over here. The roads weren't bad at first, but the snow melted and made slush. Then the roads got cold enough to freeze the slush. I walked to my sister's house, it took me about 2.5 hours to walk almost 8 miles. There were sections a mile or more where cars moved maybe 100 feet in the time it took me to walk it. Where I live, pretty much every road is frozen over. No one is going anywhere.
I drove into work today on a solid sheet of ice until I hit Mecklenburg County. On the bright side, my department head is buying lunch for everyone who made it in.
We have the same problem here with ice. On the rare occasion that it snows, there really aren't that many problems. Ice, OTOH, locks down the city because so much of the freeway system is elevated. Plus, even in places where the roads aren't elevated, there are so many bridges over creeks, rivers, and ravines that those highways end up getting closed, too. I didn't know until just recently that this state has more bridges in it (48,000-something) than any other state in the US.
