WTF Atlanta?
 

2" of snow and the entire city is brought to its knees?? Wow.

We have the same problem here in TX.

You have to remember that areas that only see this type of weather occasionally do not have the infrastructure to deal with it.

Few plows, sanders or even a stockpile of sand and salt much less staff that know what to do.

The yearly total average for Atlanta is only 2 inches. In southern states .5-1 inch is no big deal as the sun will take care of it before lunch.

But when you get ice and cloud cover you are totally screwed.

you're funny speeder, don't you guys in LA have some of the worst traffic on that highway of yours?
What do you think would happen if Mother Nature threw and inch or two of snow or some ice on it??:rolleyes::rolleyes:

It's like snow and frost in England. Traffic stops and pipes freeze. Here in Los Angeles a slight sprinkling results in "Storm Watch" on local TV!

No kidding. It ever snows in PHX and I'm staying home. No way in hell would I try to go out. They have enough trouble with rain!

I was visiting the DFW area when they had a light round of sleet and freezing rain go through. I think apocalyptic would accurately describe the mood.

Denis, doesn't SoCal shut down when it rains?:p

I think it was the ice, not the snow that whacked them. I had a bit of snow a year or two ago and it froze, and in my Camry, I slide down my not real steep 300 foot driveway.

I spent the first 23 years of my life in Minnesota. I don't even slow down my driving in 2" of snow. I could drive a 1970 Ford LTD with worn summer tires in that. Wait...I did at one time.

But you're right about one thing-if it snowed in L.A., it would be a mess. It's too warm here, though. Last time was 1949 and it was about an inch.

Even a small amount of snow, compressed by traffic and in sub freezing temps forms a zero traction surface. Add in ice and lots and lots of hills, mix with poor decisions by state, city and county leaders that caused every parent and every worker to head for home at the same time and you get the miserable result we've seen.
Oh, and not to forget the thousands of 18 wheelers using I-75, I-85 and I-20 through the Metro area. The end result was gridlock, traffic unable to move for hours and hours and hours on end. On a positive note it also bought out the best in many people helping the stranded!

Portland is similarly shut down by snow, though it takes more like 6".

I remember one year it was snowing enough to shut the runways at PDX. TV showed a snowplow, clearing a track in the snow. Then the camera pulled back and showed just that one plow alone on all the runways and taxiways, an ant-like speck in a huge expanse of white. It was funny as heck and I realized my street was never, ever going to be plowed . And it never was.

That would be a horrible ride down an icy hill, hope there is nothing to hit at the bottom.

Disasters seem to bring out the best in some people, the worst in others.

Slid to a stop at the bottom and parked it.

The mayor of Atlanta was on TV today apologizing for not being proactive with respect to the traffic situation.

Said he should have staggered rush hours - schools first....then private sector....then government sector.

I think they only had a couple days notice which isn't much when there's so much to plan for.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Devil Dog Mosport View Post
To all my Southern Pcar brothers and sisters, don't feel to guilty about not being able to drive in that nasty white stuff. Without using salt/sand on the roads and having the correct tires and equipment Even us experienced, winter road tested experts would have the same outcome under your conditions.

Exactly.. I get sick of hearing it also and I'm originally from Buffalo. Snow has nothing to with it really, it's the ice. Solid sheets of ice that you can't even walk on let alone drive on, and it was mainly the 18 wheelers that got stuck everywhere and created the main bottlenecks. That combined with the fact the everybody left work at the same so the salt trucks couldnt get through. The average drive time home was over 12 hours to go 20 miles. Thousands of cars stranded everywhere, hundreds of people sleeping in their cars, etc. Some scenes were borderline horrific. Hundreds of small school children trapped on buses overnight.
My wife made it 16 miles in 13 hours, finally pulled over, slept in her car until @ 3:30am, and then it took another 2 hours to get home. She left work at @ 12:15pm, and finally got home at 6:30am. My company got us hotel rooms by the airport thank goodness!

I just don't understand the point of you starting a thread making fun of a city that probably 80+% of its drivers have never experienced driving in these weather conditions

I see threads on here every day about how you guys get on the news channels for blowing things out of proportion and you are basically doing the same thing

we get bad weather in MD all the time and idiots still can not drive in it

I was in Dallas on business a couple years ago when snow and ice came in. It was unreal. I had no trouble getting around, but was the only person on the road at times. When I returned the rental car to the airport, the attendant mentioned that I was only customer she had in three days who did NOT wreck their car...

•A state of emergency remains in effect for all of Georgia due to impacts from a winter storm on Tuesday through this morning.

•Solid sheets of compacted ice and snow continue on many sections of roadways in the Atlanta metro area. This continues to cause extremely hazardous road conditions with some areas still impassable. Any melting that occurred this afternoon has frozen and become dangerous sheets of black ice. Roads will be extremely treacherous through Thursday morning.

•The Georgia Emergency Management Agency requests that travel be limited to emergencies only for your safety, and for the safety of emergency officials and Georgia Department of Transportation employees that continue to respond to the dangerous impacts of the winter storm.

They showed the Atlanta traffic jams on the local news tonight. 2" of snow can be like 20" if your not used to it.

Atlanta and snow
 

Happens every time! Folks just don't know when to stay off the interstate highways! All it takes is a small accident and traffic will back up for miles and miles. One time a number of years ago, I285 (the perimeter road) was a solid ring of iron all the way around which is about 60+ miles! When I lived in the metro area, I always arranged to get home and be off the roads before the ice and snow got that bad.

2" of snow right at the freezing temp is VERY difficult if you're not accustomed to it. We are more used to it up north and most people have studded tires or at least snow/All season tires.

That's not going to change when you only get snow once in a while.

Hope Atlanta manages to get past all this, looks like a real disaster, I feel for them on those freeways.