Funny, the airlines knew about it in advance. Mid-afternoon on Monday a colleague of mine who was flying through Hartsfield got notice that his Tuesday evening flight had been cancelled.
Yep. I was supposed to fly out of ATL Tuesday - on my way to RDU - and Delta cancelled all flights to RDU ON MONDAY.
In fairness to the guvna, For DAYS the weather dudes and dudettes had been saying this storm would only matter south of I-20 (bisects Atlanta). But then by about 6 AM Tuesday AM, they were ALL changing their tune to issue the OH CRAP alerts. Here in GA they make the school closings call prior to 6 AM.
So yeah, they waited too long to make the “go home/ stay home” call, but the real issue is that ATLANTA METRO *still* doesn’t have a plan or the capacity to clear roads. PERIOD.