Posted on 01/30/2014 4:55:25 PM PST by Kaslin
Bad storm. Terrific people.
The whole country is talking about the Atlanta Ice Down, and I know you've all heard the stories of people being stuck in traffic for 11 hours. The way the story is being told, it must sound like those of us in the Southeast have no idea what to do when a few snowflakes start coming down.
But the main national stories didn’t tell the whole story about what happened.
The problem was not that two or three inches of snow fell. Believe it or not, southerners can handle driving in two or three inches of snow. The problem was that, as the snow fell, it was melting upon hitting the ground and then freezing. Throughout the day, that was turning road surfaces into ice rinks.
(Excerpt) Read more at caintv.com ...
C’mon man!
These conditions have caught a lot of people by surprise even in the extreme northern latitudes of Chicagoland. Last weekend I-65 from Indy to Chicago became treacherous, as there were stretches where blowing snow iced over the highway, even though the road seemed clear coming up on these spots. This led to many spinouts and minor collisons.
There were several fatalities in a giant pileup on I-90 in Northern Indiana due to a sudden “lake effect” snow squall.
... we’re all in it together.
Last year DC when through a similar situation; it started raining and freezing on the roads. The problem was the fuel efficient cars which are too light and have no traction. It only took two or three getting stuck and sliding all over to back up the traffic. Once a few is stuck the rest, as they say, is history. Heavier SUVs that can handle the road conditions are worthless. Instead, people were stranded for 8-10 hours in rush hour. Fortunately, I had left early when it was raining.
While driving in ice IS a problem, you'll never hear mention from the media 1) the problem of driving these light weight cars in adverse conditions, and 2) what happens in an accident in one of these cars.
God forbid a liberal lived 50yrs ago when forecasts were iffy at best. How did they make it to present day irresponsible utopia?
Liberals are the weakest link to all that is life. period.
I lost it and wrecked my '78 MG back in 1979 while doing only 30 MPH on a freeway when I realized I was on Ice and attempted to steer to the right in order to drive on the snowy shoulder.
I did everything right, took foot off accelerator, depressed the clutch and tried to slowly steer to my right. As soon as I turned the steering wheel, the car went into a spin/slide that I couldn't control and I landed on top of a guard rail........
Yeah, I kind of figured that out. I made a few business trips to Denver and saw the snow blow off the roads on it’s own. It’s a dry snow out there. We usually get a layer of black ice with snow on top.
I see a combination of factors.
First, the Atlanta grid has a major loop belt but it is a long way out from the center of the city. Its normal traffic is about 7 lanes each way as are other interstates. It is often a giant parking lot from an accident coupled with a shower.
The jams are normal and on this occasion we had everyone hit the road at the same time.
Due to lack of snowfall there is a lack of road equipment — think ten percent of what a upper midwest city has and remember this is about six times the vehicles of a city like Indianapolis.
When plows have some clearing done, the movement of traffic keeps the roads from freezing — unless, unless, all the cars are hardly moving and then the snow just melts as it pulls the heat from the roadbed and then re-freezes — and that is what happened here. Likewise the jammed roads wouldn’t allow the plows to get through on any sort of regular basis in a timely manner so the short equipment cleared even less than they would have at a 10:00 PM storm.
Then they could not get back to reload salt — the roads were now parking lots.
As the storm grew worse, people realized their kids and grandmothers were trapped and they took to the road with determination to “get through.” Accidents escalated.
Just as we shouldn’t look as government as the solution to all problems, we shouldn’t blame them for all events. Prudence and preparation are each person’s best protection. I have had days like this develop and dismissed my whole office at 9:30 am before anyone else even thought about it. Waiting till noon is stupid — they are all looking out the window watching it start and wondering — productivity is at 30% already, send them home and don’t wait till noon.
Happened to me one time in a neat little Fiat I had...no more than a year or two before your incident. Minor damage, and the guardrail was a good thing in my instance. Continued on at an even slower pace!
Lol, absolutely yes, in the South the problematic snowstorms come less than once a year and it is unpredictable when a snow might be heavy enough and stick around long enough to cause problems.
No forecaster was predicting a problem situation this week, just some mix of snow and rain of about two inches. The problems developed during the early to mid-morning and were not evident until afternoon.
It would be a waste of time and money to try and treat streets and roads extensively for these southern snows which rarely last more than 24 hours. And by the time any roads are treated after the problem occurs, the snow will be melting on its own. The best approach is to simply stay home when the roads become dangerous, but folks had already left home when they became dangeous this week.
Both survived. I think it was worse on the new father than her and the baby!
I have traveled thru Atlanta many times including just BEFORE the snow and ice. Atlanta has a lot of hills and a lot of long grades on the Interstate highways. It is not very easy to negotiate on ice.
God Bless all the drivers and Police and Highway workers. Stay safe.
I don’t know about Atlanta, but here in N. Carolina we had sleet coming down for a number of hours. It snowed very little. The ice is the trouble here.
That’s good info. Normally I say “leave winter driving to us pros up north”, but black ice is treacherous and can appear anywhere. I hit some in Iowa last month and it was slow 4WD for 100 miles or so.
Singing “Ice, Baby, Ice”.
Ain’t that Global Warming great? You get to iceskate in the South just like the poor folks in the North. Now that is “weather equality”.
Just imagine. Frozen orange juice, right from the tree.
Gives new meaning to “Cold enough to freeze your coconuts off”.
I’m going into the fur-lined bikini business. Love it when a cold front hits a warm front.
My favorite part of Mayor Reed’s speech was his “plan” for preventing massive gridlock in the future. Apparently, he’s been watching Barry O and believes he can simply “will” the public to obey his staggered release plan. By decree, Kasim Reed will tell schools, local government and local businesses when they can dismiss on a snow day.
Just for laughs, let’s say Reed decides to “dismiss” local schools at 12 noon. For starters, he doesn’t have the authority (that lies with school superintendents). And if he could, how can he prevent thousands of workers at private firms and government offices from leaving their office early to get their kids? It will be absolute gridlock all over again, and Mayor Reed and his friends in the press will be looking for someone else to blame.
The solution is simple: when the National Weather Service issued a winter weather warning for metro Atlanta at 3:39 Tuesday morning, a decision to close the schools should have followed immediately. That automatically takes students, school employees and buses off the road, along with thousands of parents who will stay home to take care of their kids.
I’ve been told that several rural districts (just outside the metro area) mmade the decision to close when the weather warning was issued. Why didn’t they follow suit in Fulton and DeKalb Counties? From my own experience as a reformed educator, I know that school administrators want to keep classes going until early afternoon for a couple of reasons. First, if most of the school day is completed, they won’t have to make it up later in the year.
Secondly, many school districts receive much of their funding based on the number of students who participate in the school lunch program. The feds keep tabs on the number of kids who are served each day and if you close early, or cancel classes for a couple of days, the number of meals served is reduced, and that can impact future funding. And if you don’t spend all of the allocated money, that can impact the revenue stream as well.
I once taught at a school where instruction was halted a 8:45 each morning so all of the students could go to breakfast (the district was extremely poor, and every student at our middle school qualified for the lunch program). Stopping class ensured maximum participation, full expenditure of funds, and more money the next year.
Was school lunch money a factor in the decision to keep Atlanta schools open? Maybe not the over-riding concern, but it was a factor that entered the equation. Roughly 50% of all students in metro Atlanta participate in the lunch program and in some GA districts, the figure is over 70%.
Yep, yesterday I left home in a small town area and it took almost fifteen minutes to drive about four miles. Very little traffic and what was there stayed far apart because the road was so slick with ice.
Some here who live where snow must be dealt with several months each year can't orient themselves to these southern snowstorms that come and go within one or two days, and are unpredictable as to how problematic they might be.
Atlantans are certainly free not to pre treat their roads when 2-3" of snow is forecast. I never said otherwise.
What I did take exception to was Herman Cain's comment.
It's a ridiculous statement.
Snow that falls on untreated roads usually turns to ice. Herman made it sound like its unusual for snow to turn to ice.
I lived in Albuquerque for a few years. When it snowed they did not salt the roads but they sanded them. Every snowstorm was a suicide mission.
That is not always true in places that usually have a warm climate. We have snow storms here in the desert and there is not always ice on the road. If temperatures are just barely cold enough to snow, road traffic will melt it and that is what normally happens here. It is not rare where I live to get snow, we usually get a few snow storms a year, it is unusual to have ice on the roads. If the people that lived there would have paid careful attention to the weather and noticed how cold it was going to be they might have made the connection. I have to say though if you live most of your life where it is warm then ice on the road is not something that dawns on you...we think it is real bad if the bridges/overpasses are iced, the whole road being basically a sheet of ice is not something most understand that live where it is normally warm.
CHOCOLATE CITY REDUX
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.