Atlanta Gridlock

Parallel

My cousin lives 3 1/2 miles from her office on Haynes Bridge RD. Took her from 4:15 to 7:40 pm to get home. There are friends of hers STILL on the road.  

She sent these pics.


GDOT... unprepared?

Eggcelsior

Hahaha hahaha! That is too funny. Apparently, the entire state of Georgia has something like 11 salt trucks/plows(heard it on the radio this morning). My county has more than that. Granted, average annual snowfall is 2" in the peach state.

Parallel

Yeah... I mean... I get the being unprepared bit given the lack of winter weather in the area. What I do NOT get is why so many people were on the damned roads in this mess in the first place.

drummerben

People were on the roads because everybody lives in the burbs, commutes to work in town. Even with light snow predicted for the afternoon, schools didn't cancel today. Well, the metro Atlanta area got more snow than anticipated, very quickly, so once the schools decided to close it was too late - roads got too icy for busses. And all the commuters hit the roads to get home at the same time. I am one of the lucky ones - I live in town, 2miles from work to home, but still took me 2 hours to get home. I have friends in the burbs that have been in their cars for 10+ hours. Interstates weren't treated, so one jack-knifed tractor trailer and all of a sudden you have 3 million cars not moving. Not yo mention the kids that are spending the night in their schools because busses couldn't deliver them home, and the parents can't get there. Total failure by our City and State government.

Parallel

drummerben said:

***snip***
Total failure by our City and State government.

THAT is what I was alluding to.

Griffin

) That snowplow car is awesome!!

TurtleTiger

I stole that snow plow to put on FB. Yeah people were seriously unprepared for this snow. I live in Auburn AL and we were expecting it and it didn't start snowing until 3pm yesterday. We didn't have many issues that I'm aware of yesterday. Tons of friends in Atl and Bham stranded though.

Lit

I live about 10 miles from my work and left at noon and drove straight to my wives school and picked her up. I saw a car slide off the highway on my way home into the trees. My coworker left about an hour and a half after me and just got home at 830 this morning without his car he had to abandon it. We were all partying in our hood last night and one of our friends came walking up around 9. He left work like 7 miles away and ended up having to leave his car on the hwy and walk to our neighborhood for a place to stay. The people that made it home on the other hand were drinking around the fire and pulling people in sleds around the hood on the 4 wheeler. They were calling 1" or less and there's a solid 3" on my backyard table this morning.

RLeeper

I have an employee that has been stuck on 85 since two pm yesterday!

3sheets

I stayed home and smoked a Butt. My son in law has been on I-285 for 18 hours now and does not know when he will get to Walton County.

Eggcelsior

This reminds me of "snowmageddon" here in the DC area from 2010. Forecasters didn't think the snow would start until later in the afternoon, so the government only instituted unscheduled leave(it was a Friday - the worst commute day of the week). Most schools were open as well. Around 1030 or 1100, the snow started coming down quite heavily so the Federal and local governments shut down at noon, along with schools. By the time everyone was on the road(1300) there was already 8 or so inches on the ground. 270(the major artery into DC from the north and west of the city) came to a halt which is where everyone was getting stuck and abandoning cars(my wife was stuck for 13 hours until I could get to her in our Rav4). People were walking out of there houses to give people blankets on the interstate. We ended up with a little over 2 feet but then received another 2 feet during a blizzard 3 days later. I ended up spending the night at the hospital 3 nights in a row because we were in a state of emergency and no one(nurses and MD's) could leave until someone showed up to replace them.

Good times.

Chubbs

Everyone commutes into the city in ATL. On a typical day there is a ton of traffic in ATL. Factor that in with they were expecting an inch of snow and got a lot more than that in a small amount of time, and no one had time to get home. Had it been in the forecast, nowhere near that many cars would have been on the road. I am in Columbia SC. They forecasted 6-7 inches of snow for us, potentially more. We only got 3 inches as it hit ATL worse.... Everyone was unprepared because it was 68 on Monday.

ShadowNick

I've lived in Chicago the last 10 years but grew up in Atlanta, so am having a mixed chuckle/facepalm reaction.  We had the same thing happen here in Chicago in 2011, though not on the same scale.  However, the decisions by city government were the same, they held the kids in school too long when they knew a blizzard was coming, and didn't recommend businesses shut down until way too late, and by the time they released them, Lake Shore Drive (a major commuting road) was full up, and parents clogged it even more trying to get to and from schools, and workers trying to get home early.  The nail in the proverbial coffin was a city bus stalling out on the road, causing traffic to stop, and the snow accumulated so fast it was impossible to move cars, so everyone abandoned them.  Next morning I was one of the few people who lives walking distance to the office, about a mile at the time, so I literally strapped my snowshoes on and walked into the office.  Saw many people cross country skiing down the Chicago streets to work as well.

Bottom line, I feel for everyone stuck in this mess in Atlanta, and see it as a failure of government to get out in front of it as well, but part of me is giggling that it happened over 1-3 inches, although I totally understand why.

Cymbaline65

I agree that there was definitely some governmental failure ShadowNick. My kids live in a county that saw the beast coming and made the call early. They were home hours before it got nasty. Didn't help me, however. Took me 6.5hrs to get home but that's better than some I know who are still trying to get home 24hrs after the fact. It was all about the ice, not the snow.

pkaboo1

2-4 in. of snow, temps dropping to the teens, and you went to work ?

when you got off, how did you expect to get up and down the hills when you get off the hwy, if you

get off the hwy?

 

tybeelucy2

It took me four hours to get home, 15 miles, but I'm glad I made it, lots of folks didn't.

Kosko

It took me 6 hours to get home yesterday. It was the worst thing (winter related ) I have ever experienced! There is NO doubt the gubment dropped the ball on this one! The problem was EVERYone left at the same exact time to go home!

Lit

Not everyone. I saw the snow melting right when it started falling and I took off. It literally was a matter of an hour or 2 though and you were stuck. I left around noon and the people that left at 2 either didn't make it or made it like you said 6 plus hours later.

Kosko

Yes I left at 1 o'clock and it took me over 2 hours just to get on 285 from Ashford Dunwoody rd. (1/2 mile stretch). I can say I learned a valuable lesson! It will never happen again!

pkaboo1

I take tues off, and work from that.

Did you see all of the storm related crashes in Ga.

I could take a day off every 3 yrs.

Coastalcooker

Growing up in Atlanta, snow was never the problem it is today, but most people lived much closer to work. The city hangs a blade on the front of a dump truck and calls it a plow. The plows are sent out after the fact not before the traffic rush.
When I lived in a small, rural and very poor county in east Tennessee, TDOT took a truck and put brine on the highways before the snow hit. I got stuck bad once and had a neighbor use his Jeep to pull me up the hill so the old van would not slide in the ditch. I walked home and moved the van the next day, but was unable to get in my driveway for another day.
Here on the GA coast my weather radio has gone off several times a day including at about 0300 with winter storm warning. We got no snow and the only ice accumulation was on the thermometer.
Florida panhandle had a lot worse problem.
This storm for the south, not Atlanta, is even more rare than the Cat 1 hurricane that took out the northeast.
Bob
Shellman Bluff, GA

Grader07

Eggcelsior said:

This reminds me of "snowmageddon" here in the DC area from 2010. Forecasters didn't think the snow would start until later in the afternoon, so the government only instituted unscheduled leave(it was a Friday - the worst commute day of the week). Most schools were open as well. Around 1030 or 1100, the snow started coming down quite heavily so the Federal and local governments shut down at noon, along with schools. By the time everyone was on the road(1300) there was already 8 or so inches on the ground. 270(the major artery into DC from the north and west of the city) came to a halt which is where everyone was getting stuck and abandoning cars(my wife was stuck for 13 hours until I could get to her in our Rav4). People were walking out of there houses to give people blankets on the interstate. We ended up with a little over 2 feet but then received another 2 feet during a blizzard 3 days later. I ended up spending the night at the hospital 3 nights in a row because we were in a state of emergency and no one(nurses and MD's) could leave until someone showed up to replace them.

Good times.

Remember this o so well

GATraveller

I travel I-285 to work.  On the way in this morning I stopped counting at 574 abandoned vehicles on the shoulder.  And that's in less that 20 miles of highway!!

tulocay

A friend of mine was in her car for 22 hours from Tuesday afternoon until she got home from work!