Alabama/Atlanta Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

I live on the fringe of the snow belt, and the first snowfall of the season causes all kinds of traffic headaches, because people forget how to drive in the stuff. A good number of folks impacted down South haven't had to deal with this before.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Hurricanes are the same no matter where they happen. Same for ice. There's just no good response possible. Although it wouldn't be as dramatic, I'd say the negative impact on New England life of an Alabama summer would be considerable.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Crazy day and night in Snowlanta.

Flakes started falling between noon and 1pm. By 1:15, essentially the entire metropolitan area decided to try and head home all at the same time.

Gridlock.

I was one of the fortunate ones--Gwinnett County was the one area where it didn't completely shut down.

Many, many people stranded all night on the highways and roads--downtown, Cobb County, southeast and southwest sides of town. Cars abandoned on the highway out of gas. People slept in gas stations, grocery stores, Home Depots.

A woman I work with left the office at 1pm to pick up her kid from day care. Heard from her this morning, and she couldn't make it home last night. Slept in her truck and is currently in a Publix parking lot waiting for things to clear up. Her kid stayed all night at the day care. Same thing happened with a number of elementary schools as well.

Total snow fall? About 2 inches, tops.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Georgia Tech SID Dean Buchan has been stuck in his car for 20 hours:

https://twitter.com/DeanBuchan

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

In 2011 Atlanta got hit with a pretty big one and there was a lot of grousing about the city having only 10 plows (the rest of its "fleet" consisted of private plows contracted for). But much of the plow capacity there is going to be state-owned. Further, it generally makes sense to assume that neighboring states are going to have some snowplow capacity. In that rare storm that hits the entire region nearly simultaneously, you're going to run into these things.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

So being stranded on the interstate overnight, having run out of gas after being in bumper-to-bumper traffic since noon yesterday because roads are iced over and/or closed, with your kids maybe still stuck at school, shouldn't "strike fear in the locals?"

I-65 just south of Birmingham this morning, taken by talk show host and former Auburn football player Cole Cubelic:

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Atlanta traffic is about three fender-benders away from gridlock on nice sunny days to start with. I'm not surprised that what much of the country would regard as a moderate disruption had such an impact.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Will not be surprised to see some political fallout come out of this. A lot of people are way pissed off and want someone to take the blame. Even if the true culprit is mother nature.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Gulf Shores got some flurries.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Ain't that the truth.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

The lack of a truly effective mass transit solution in a city this large, often times perhaps a nuisance or aggravation, was certainly evidenced yesterday.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

I hate any iteration of "that doesn't seem so bad, why are they having so much trouble???" - whether it's northerners making fun of southerners in the snow, southerners making fun of northerners when it's hot in the summer, etc. When you're not used to a certain type of weather, it's going to have more of an effect.