Horrible drive home....snow thread

[Guest Dark Knight]

Hope everything turns out ok.

Don't believe the hype about people in areas where snow is common. We have just as many wrecks because Farmer John or Redneck 2.0 think they can go as fast as they want because they have four wheel drive.

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4x4 gives you the traction to get rolling, but you still can't stop.

[Cat]

Hmm. 485 was fine.

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[Panthro]

I getting ready to drive back from Florida....hooray

[stirs]

The difference in where the OP is mentioning is about 6 degrees, on average colder than Charlotte.

 

Roads were salted but with temps in the teens by 3:00, the snow did not seem to melt at all.

 

 

[PandaPancake]

They still use salt in NC? I thought everyone had gone to mag chloride.

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[Johnny Rockets]

I drove from Albermarle to Concord on the backroads tonight over hills and around curves. It was the scariest drive of my life. It was nothing but snow and ice. I went off the road several times. At one point I was stuck at the top of a hill trying to get around a curve and sliding everywhere and a dude pulled up next to me in a F350 diesel 4X4 and asked if I needed him to pull me. So he pulled me for about a mile. I felt so cool 

Did you not take 73? I drove from Charlotte through Concord into Albemarle and 73 wasn't that bad.

[Johnny Rockets]

They still use salt in NC? I thought everyone had gone to mag chloride.

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That would be a great name for a band.

[ladypanther]

Took my friend in Atlanta 7 hours to go 9 miles home, no exaggeration.

 

 

I'm in Atlanta. My mother in law is still in her car. She left work at noon, over nine hours ago. About to give up. Coworker just got home after abandoning her car and walking the last five miles. Thankfully I live one block from my office.

 

Heard this morning that officials in Atlanta said they did not know this was coming...weather forecasters said...we told you.  Sounds like really bad there.  Some kids were on school buses all night.

[Johnny Rockets]

Heard this morning that officials in Atlanta said they did not know this was coming...weather forecasters said...we told you.  Sounds like really bad there.  Some kids were on school buses all night.

They were showing Atlanta on the news this morning. There were even a ton of kids who slept at their school. Apparently I 85 is completely shut down due to being a sheet of ice and is filled with thousands of cars, half have people that spent the night in them and the other half are abandoned.

[The Saltman]

Man its crazy here in Atlanta. Good thing my work let us all go home early with pay. Still took me 4 hrs to get home through the back roads. I'm sure if I had sat on the Hwy I would still be in my car. A lot of kids stuck at school and some on school buses all night long. Hoping everyone is safe with their families today.

[mr beauxjangles]

I'm in Midtown Atlanta right where 75 and 85 come together. It's a ghost town down here at the moment. Just jack-knifed tractor trailers and abandoned cars on the interstate, and that's one of the good spots. There are still tens of thousands of people stuck on other parts of the interstates, not moving, no hope of anyone coming to clear the roads because what few trucks and plows we have can't get through. People are taking in random strangers. Someone that my wife knows took in 15 stranded kids from a school bus. The schools keeps reporting to the news that "all kids except for three or four have gotten home safe" and it's clearly a lie. There are news stations interviewing parents that don't know where their kids are.

 

My mother-in-law finally got home at 11:30 last night after 12 hours in the car and walking the last two miles. Same thing happened to a friend and a coworker....they were lucky to get home and not have to spend the night in their car. 

 

The Governor and Mayor Reed both sounded like absolute fools last night at their press conference, blaming everyone but themselves. We'll see if they finally acknowledge how unprepared they were at their 11:30 press conference. It's hard to put into words...this is an absolute embarrassment. I am not on Facebook but my wife is and she's been showing me the thousands of posts in support groups that just popped up where people have been asking for specific help (pregnant women stranded and in labor, a diabetic going into shock, a father that had a stroke and ambulances can't reach him, epileptics without the medication to control their seizures, etc.).

[mr beauxjangles]

Man its crazy here in Atlanta. Good thing my work let us all go home early with pay. Still took me 4 hrs to get home through the back roads. I'm sure if I had sat on the Hwy I would still be in my car. A lot of kids stuck at school and some on school buses all night long. Hoping everyone is safe with their families today.

 

Haven't talked to you in a while. Glad you and your family are safe.

[Johnny Rockets]

I'm in Midtown Atlanta right where 75 and 85 come together. It's a ghost town down here at the moment. Just jack-knifed tractor trailers and abandoned cars on the interstate, and that's one of the good spots. There are still tens of thousands of people stuck on other parts of the interstates, not moving, no hope of anyone coming to clear the roads because what few trucks and plows we have can't get through. People are taking in random strangers. Someone that my wife knows took in 15 stranded kids from a school bus. The schools keeps reporting to the news that "all kids except for three or four have gotten home safe" and it's clearly a lie. There are news stations interviewing parents that don't know where their kids are.

 

My mother-in-law finally got home at 11:30 last night after 12 hours in the car and walking the last two miles. Same thing happened to a friend and a coworker....they were lucky to get home and not have to spend the night in their car. 

 

The Governor and Mayor Reed both sounded like absolute fools last night at their press conference, blaming everyone but themselves. We'll see if they finally acknowledge how unprepared they were at their 11:30 press conference. It's hard to put into words...this is an absolute embarrassment. I am not on Facebook but my wife is and she's been showing me the thousands of posts in support groups that just popped up where people have been asking for specific help (pregnant women stranded and in labor, a diabetic going into shock, a father that had a stroke and ambulances can't reach him, epileptics without the medication to control their seizures, etc.).

Honest question here.....what could the government officials done differently to prevent thousands of people from traveling on roads that have turned into a sheet of ice though? Salt, brine, whatever they put down on roads will only do so much when it is so cold and ice is forming.

 

They can't force people to leave work before bad weather hits and can't force people to stay home instead of trying to get out on the roads. As you mentioned, any emergency vehicles, trucks, plows, etc. can't get to people because so many people ignored the fact that bad weather was coming.

 

I'm not there and I'm not saying there are not things they could have done better, but I'm not sure what they could have done to completely prevent this from happening either. Sometimes people need to take responsibilty for their own actions or lack of action and that goes for not only the elected officials but the citizens as well.

[mr beauxjangles]

Honest question here.....what could the government officials done differently to prevent thousands of people from traveling on roads that have turned into a sheet of ice though? Salt, brine, whatever they put down on roads will only do so much when it is so cold and ice is forming.

 

They can't force people to leave work before bad weather hits and can't force people to stay home instead of trying to get out on the roads. As you mentioned, any emergency vehicles, trucks, plows, etc. can't get to people because so many people ignored the fact that bad weather was coming.

 

I'm not there and I'm not saying there are not things they could have done better, but I'm not sure what they could have done to completely prevent this from happening either. Sometimes people need to take responsibilty for their own actions or lack of action and that goes for not only the elected officials but the citizens as well.

 

Every single school system in the metro area closed between 11:00 and 11:30. They all brought kids to school and then released them minutes after they were able to count it as a full school day. Business follows schools - had all of the schools been closed, the majority of businesses would have been closed or told their employees to work from home. As soon as the schools closed at 11:00, everyone flooded out of their offices to go pick up their kids. While there are tons of compounding factors like our reliance on cars, shitty transportation networks, sprawling metro area, and lack of capacity in terms of snow plows and salt trucks is an issue, the larger issue was the fact that schools got greedy about not having to make up a day of school.