The snow started around 1130am yesterday and I decided to wait out the early rush of people going home at noon. So I waited until 4pm to go home. 11.5 hours later I pulled into my driveway and walked inside the house, still in one piece. My commute even in the worst traffic jam would be an hour. Luckily I topped off the gas tank before getting on the interstates, that saved me from abandoning my car on the side of the road like hundred and maybe thousand of vehicles. I had three bottles of water and two unopened fortune cookies. I hate fortune cookies, but they were so delicious when you haven’t eaten in 14 hours. I used one of my hiking bottle (with big opening ) to pee into.
My EDC bag contained the above items, plus medications. I will be adding some snack bars in it. I got cell phone cigarette lighter so communication was good. The wife also took 11.5 hours to get home, she was prepared with similar equipment. Although her armory consisted of a Ruger LC9. LOL.
Anybody else in the Atlanta area got caught in it? how about Rocketman? Mtndog?
They predicted the snow acuumalation to be 100 miles south, so no precautions such as sand and salt were taken. Once it started, it was too late to leave for anyone and quickly created log jams. People and kids were stranded in cars and buses and some walked 15 miles to get home or to a warm place. I know of one story that a lady and husband were stuck in the traffic jam and emergency services could not get to them so she watches her husband pass away through having a heart attack. It took me over four hours to drive a 25 min commute, but that was after re-routing to pick up some family who were stranded (luckily I have 4x4). I know some who it took over 5 hours to “drive” 5 miles.
That was the sad part was kids having to stay at night with low staff and supplies, or getting caught on buses in the traffic jams. We had “delivery service” of kids from people with fourwheelers making runs to bring kids home off of trapped school buses or schools.
From up here it’s tempting to jest but none of that is funny in the very least. Guess it’s like having to deal with flooding in the desert, unanticipated for sound reason.
Very best of luck to all of you. When it’s over you’ll have great stories to tell but for now just get through it and try to keep things in perspective.
We in Houston as a city were better prepared for it. People were proactive in getting the roads prepped and schools were shut down. We got a bit of ice but nothing like Austin, TX or even Atlanta. People up north don’t understand what it’s like for us southerners to get snow/ice. It’s crippling.
99% of the time it’s hot and we rarely ever get any kind of freezing precipitation. 2. Our cars (ie, tires) are not suited for that kind of weather. I for one run summer tires 100% of the time. 3. We never had to learn how to drive in conditions other than rain.
Glad you guys made it home safe. 11.5 hour drive? Damn.
I’m constantly amazed at how unprepared the masses are for things out of the ordinary. I heard on the radio today that the state troopers received over 900 accident calls in one hour. That’s insane. Do people still not understand you can’t drive 55 in the snow on all season tires?
Just outside of Austin and we got hit with ice at morning rush hour yesterday. Hundreds of accidents in a few hours. Don’t care what part of the country you are from no one is driving on a sheet of ice. My entire car was coated in a solid sheet about 1/3" thick. They finally cancelled school at 702am and had kids already on buses…one of which was in an accident with kids on board. Aside from tires we barely have an equipment down here to fight the conditions, and our roads are crowned for water run off. With crowned roads once it’s slick with ice you drift off the side of the road. Up north you guys have plows and spread salt like crazy. All they did for us was sand big intersections and that was hours after it started icing.
It was a pleasure meeting you and your wife as well. I am glad y’all made it home safely yesterday. He did not this time around, but we did check out Tourneau which was nice to see many more watches in person.
The problem (although it is a good idea to be prepared for certain events within reason) was that Birmingham and Atlanta were forecasted for only flurries and NO accumulation. This meant, no one really had to worry about full fuel tanks, food, clothing, snow tires/chains, 4wd, etc when leaving for work or school for the day and now salting of roads etc to prevents the roads from becoming a problem. If there had been a forecast for it, the cities could have salted roads and prevented the majority of the problems, but it doesn’t help that the majority of people in the south freak out when raining or snowing anyways.
I know the north has much more serious snow, but people are prepared for it with snow tires, studded tires, chains, 4x4, salted/sanded roadways, etc but when it is 100 miles off of a forecast, that makes it tough to prepare. It also didn’t help that the situation, at least in central AL, went from no forecast of snow to completely iced/snow covered roads and only a couple hundred feet visibility in a matter of about an hour. This resulted in everyone getting caught with their pants down i guess you could call it.
There was NO time for the authorities to even shut down roads in order to get road crews plowing and salting roads before people clogged them up adding to the chaos.
Although I had experience driving in the icy conditions and 4x4 to help, I almost got trapped/boxed in due to others with 2wd and no experience attempting to drive through areas tough for even 4wd. I had to get out and push a car to get out of my way to keep from getting trapped on one road. It literally looked like something from Walking Dead or I Am Legend or whatever apocalypse movie you can think of with all of the abandoned/wrecked cars. Most of the people were stop and go traffic no fast drivers, there was maybe 1 or 2 driving faster than they should have and not giving themselves time to slow down with gearing instead of brake pedals out of the thousands of vehicles i saw driving.
Yesterday, I was totally out of food, so I scrambled to the grocery store and was on the way home around 11:30. Even then the roads were turning ugly. Fortunately, I made it home within thirty minutes. Did not leave the house at all today.
Speaking from actual experience and observation, no one was speeding or even driving fast. The majority of the accidents in Atlanta were people sliding into each other at very low speed. In my entire 11.5 hours, I rarely used the gas pedal. Just release the brake and let the car run at barely idle speed. I didn’t use the gas pedal until I got off the interstate. The local streets that lead to my house were coated with ice by 3AM, I just coasted all the way home at 5 mph.
They made it seem like the south was gonna get sacked in pretty hard with snow around here. I heard about it on the news Sunday night. So it’s not like this completely came out of nowhere. We are used to the weather man getting it completely wrong around here as well.
I guess it’s just a different place and mindset. I have a 4WD 4Runner with snow rated AT tires and I make sure to always have at least a half tank of gas, especially in the winter. I also keep water, food, a wool GI blanket, and a sleeping bag in there should I need to camp out in the back. And we don’t even get much of this where I live, but sometimes it happens.
No doubt, two of our local weathermen are some of the best, but they all get things wrong from time to time.
They were expecting it for most of the south, in AL from Montgomery to Panama City to Macon GA, just not 100 miles north of Montgomery. The snow covered an extra ~150 miles of latitude from the predicted snow accumulation. I pretty much am on the same page as you as I try to keep a Sleeping bag, extra winter/rain clothes, camping gear, axe etc in my 4x4 f250 for situations like these and others. It is hard to tell someone it is a poor choice to choose to spend the night at work instead of driving in what started as a light snow, but many did just that. Luckily all the churches around here were cooking food and providing places for people to get warm and sleep and eat.
No one buys snow rated tires here and we don’t have the infrastructure to heavily salt or plow roads. All we get is some sand at major intersections. Yesterday the ice hit at morning rush hour after being told the night before it prob wouldn’t get icy in Austin. And I’ve lived in areas that should know better and have equipment. There are still a ton of accidents and people getting stuck when it snows.
Sometimes it seems their weather forecast machines are nothing more than a monkey throwing darts at a board.
I’m one of the guys that always has to venture out in this crap though. I cut down trees for a living so I get called out all the time in snow and ice storms to get trees off roads, houses and cars. Fun times.
Of course we know this. But look at how many don’t.
Reminds me of women complaining they couldn’t get to the store for milk during the search for the Boston Marathon bombers. You seriously don’t have enough milk for 1 day? For your kids?
Plan BEFOREHAND even if normalcy bias takes hold. As late as 10:00 yesterday morning, I was cracking jokes about “Snowpocalypse”.
In a disaster, don’t count on cell phones. I had spotty service at best yesterday from the traffic overload on my service provider.
Keep spare footwear with you. A buddy of mine came to work accidentally wearing his house slippers. The accident part was when he had to road march to his house in them because the 4x4 went out in his truck, and couldn’t make it home.
If the writing is on the wall. Don’t await an “official announcement”. My official announcement was from my wife, who had the presence of mind to ditch Buckhead at 10am. Her coworkers who stayed until five did NOT fare as well…
Keep a BOB in the car. Not for killing hordes of the undead, but a sleeping bag might be a handy thing to leave in the trunk.
I just had the trots. I don’t even want to think of how that little situation would’ve played out if I was crawling on I-75 for 10 hours…definitely bring a trucker bomb/piss bottle with you.
Keep your gas tank topped off. I burned a 1/4 tank going 12 miles, and the traffic/conditions were just starting to go south.
Sports cars SUCK in icy conditions. I did master the starting in 2nd gear trick…
Don’t trust the weather reports. Monday night, the action was being called for the south side of town.
Bug in. A lot of problems could have been mitigated by staying put.
Always keep extra tobacco products on hand.
We were lucky, in that, we did not have widespread blackouts. This situation would have moved to a new level of suck, had power been removed from the equation.
Glad you and your wife arrived home safely Sam. Where we live some people venture out in this weather without coats. Kids visit a couple times a year and brought that up noticing how odd it is in this area.
) to pee into.