Death By Snow! Jan 2014 Edition

[OJsDad]

My inlaws have about 110" already this season, 22"+ in the last week. They're in Michigan west of Cadillac.

[mirth]

My inlaws have about 110" already this season, 22"+ in the last week.

Star's had similar numbers.

[mirth]

Oops, sorry. Just realized we were still talking about snow.

[Staggerwing]

this why:

http://www.businessinsider.com/atlanta-traffic-jam-pictures-2014-1

WTF is wrong with those places? 1-2 inches?!?

[SirAndrewD]

this why:

http://www.businessinsider.com/atlanta-traffic-jam-pictures-2014-1

WTF is wrong with those places? 1-2 inches?!?

No infrastructure for it.  No preparation by local authorities, no salting, no snow plows.  A city already with major traffic problems in ideal conditions, and a mass release of workers around 1:00pm right into the teeth of the heaviest snowfall. 

I was only out in it because I was trying to make a funeral, and pretty much all we heard locally was dismissing the event as a potential "light dusting".   Even when they did start to dispatch salt trucks it came too late, and didn't target the side streets, which jammed people trying to exit the interstates where the less traveled roads became iced over in minutes. 

I got lucky, I turned my car around at about 10:30am after seeing portions of I-85 were being closed, and passed through downtown while it was light.  I still wasn't able to make it home, the way our roads are here, the streets were glass by the time I hit Kennesaw.  Many areas here are on an incline, and trying to drive up the hill to my house became impossible literally as we were making the ascent.  We just don't have the vehicles or enough people that have experienced these conditions.  I've lived and driven in Colorado and Missouri, but that didn't make my wheels have any better traction yesterday. 

Local authorities were little help either.  About 30 other cars were stalled out where I was, and the police when called ordered us to stay with our vehicles, at the same time telling us no help was coming.  Nothing was done to close the hill, or redirect traffic, so more and more kept piling up.  The only advice the police had was that if our vehicles were abandoned, they'd be impounded and we would be given a stiff fine. 

So, we all got together and started pushing.  We got about 20 cars up into a nearby Costco parking lot.  Of course our ordeal was compounded by people coming down the hill the other way, leaving their homes for reasons I can't fathom.  They of course came down sliding, almost hitting the dozen or so of us that were trying to push the vehicles off.  I saw at least five cars wreck, one almost flipped because it spun out and the SUV behind it went right into the side.   I was with my wife, and she has fybro and the conditions were taking a toll on her, so when we got our car off I gave up with the good Samaritan brigade and we treked up the hill to our home.  We had a lot of friends and coworkers that weren't so lucky and spent most of the night in their cars. 

[bayonetbrant]

Glad you came through OK.  Sounds like it was a mix of a bunch of really bad decisions.  The thing that gets me is that *everyone* knew the storm was coming; it didn't sneak up on anybody.  Hard to believe the city was *that* unprepared.

[GDS_Starfury]

I can only imagine what would happen if Miami got 2 inches of snow.

[Greybriar]

There was about a quarter of an inch of snow while I was in training at Fort Polk, Louisiana and they closed the whole base down. People down there just didn't know how to deal with it.

[bayonetbrant]

People down there just didn't know how to deal with it.

There's a difference between not knowing how to deal with things and lacking the equipment to deal with it.  If you're Ft Polk / Leesville, are you *ever* going to buy a snow plow or a salt truck instead of an extra fire engine?  Snow is so rare that investing in snow equipment is cost prohibitive for the once a decade it happens.

Atlanta, though, gets snow / ice often enough that they should've brined / sanded the roads well in advance.  Again, this storm didn't sneak up on anyone - the whole flipping country knew it was coming.  Hell, we cancelled school here the day before in case it came in early b/c they wouldn't have the buses to get everyone home if they released early.

As to the drivers not knowing how to drive in crappy weather, it's true that they don't deal with it well.  But *everywhere* I've lived / driven, the very first storm of the year, *everyone* drives like shit.  It happened for 4 years in Columbus - the first time it snowed, there were 48 accidents during the morning commute.  Then everyone remembers what they're doing, pulls their heads out of their asses, and figures it out. 
The problem down here is that there's rarely more than one big snowstorm, so they never get past the "crappy driving" stage.  The one year we had several (2009) there were no problems after the first storm in December.

[Gusington]

There are morons everywhere, north, south, east, west. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much it snows.

[mirth]

There are morons everywhere, north, south, east, west. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much it snows.

QFT.

[SirAndrewD]

Glad you came through OK.  Sounds like it was a mix of a bunch of really bad decisions.  The thing that gets me is that *everyone* knew the storm was coming; it didn't sneak up on anybody.  Hard to believe the city was *that* unprepared.

Thanks, we could've had it a lot worse. 

Yes, it is hard to believe.  The Mayor is doing a lot of doublespeak, saying the buck stops with him, but then shifting blame to others.  No one's given an adequate answer of why, when we tend to cancel school and shut down non essential travel if snow is simply in the forecast, that the same wasn't done this time when it was really needed. 

I think there was an element of the local government reacting to the cry wolf syndrome.  The rest of the country laughs at us when there's a light dusting and we shut everything down, so this time they took a prideful gamble. 

I was here in 2011 when the last major snow shut the city down, and in that case the local authorities were massively more prepared, so it's not like they don't know what to do when something like this happens. 

[bayonetbrant]

the kids had fun tho

[BanzaiCat]

Sheeeeiiiit. Houston had a bit of sleet and freezing rain. The only thing that stuck were a FEW patches of ice. A FEW.

And yet, the ENTIRE CITY shut down last Friday, as well as yesterday.  ::)

I was just in a four-hour meeting today where among other things we met a couple of new trainers based in Canada. I had a conversation with one of them about this very subject, about how adorable it must be that we shut our city down over a little ice while back where he lives it can get to -30 C or so and there's been snow there for months.

[Greybriar]

People down there just didn't know how to deal with it.

There's a difference between not knowing how to deal with things and lacking the equipment to deal with it.  If you're Ft Polk / Leesville, are you *ever* going to buy a snow plow or a salt truck instead of an extra fire engine?  Snow is so rare that investing in snow equipment is cost prohibitive for the once a decade it happens....

And just how much equipment do you think 0.25" of snow would require? They just didn't know how to deal with it. The thousands of trainees stationed at Fort Polk could have swept the snow off the streets in no time.