SNOW DAY!!!!!

The talk is that many people are just abandoning their cars and walking home.
 
Dave Theisen said:
Seriously. My wife's boss just got home. 7 hours door to door. You have to understand that the road clearing strategy here is: "it will melt eventually".
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Yeah but you have 2". I have 2" in my driveway. Haha.

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denverpilot said:
Yeah but you have 2". I have 2" in my driveway. Haha.

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First, add a few hills, then get a few thousand of you friends to drive over it, then throw in a few folks who not only don't know how to drive on it, but even if the did, their vehicles are woefully equipped for such conditions.
 
I emailed former PoA Carol Theiler, "Are you sunning in Jacksonville or shoveling in Spartansburg(SC)." Return email #1: "I don't think we'll get it, but the moment TV mentions snow, all the milk and white bread disappears from the grocery."
Return email #2: "I'm freezing my hiney off. I went outside and saw 1mm, 2mm flakes, but it won't last."
Later, return email #3: "Maybe they were right!" accompanied by a photo of snow in Spartansburg. That was the last I heard from there.

HR
 
Dave Theisen said:
Three of my wife's coworkers still aren't home, and the shut down the office at 2:00! I'd rather drive up north in 2 feet of snow than around here in 2 inches. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Yes, but are they running to the store to empty the shelves of bread, milk and eggs???? :wink2:
 
Yeah, I didn't have any issues driving, our issues were idiots and tractor trailers blocking the roads.:mad2::mad2: I know several folks stranded on the interstate at 7:00 AM that left work at 2:00 yesterday! Once I left work, I couldn't turn back, no way to get back to the dealership, I'm just glad I had plenty of gas.:D
All my folks are getting a day off with pay today, some will appreciate it, some won't.:rolleyes:

denverpilot said:
Yeah but you have 2". I have 2" in my driveway. Haha.

jeny9e9e.jpg
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Velocity173 said:
Yep, that's the problem up here. Unless you've got chains on your tires you're not going anywhere. Combine that with the fact no one salted the roads in my area and you've got a mess.
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Michigan outlawed chains and studded tires about twenty years ago. We (well, most of us) get by nicely without them. It helps to know when to give it up and just stay home.
 
The biggest problem was no one was prepared. We had warning, the same warning we get at least once a month in the winter. After the weatherman cries "WOLF" enough times, no one listens. We had no snow at 11:00 AM, by 12:30 I was sending employees home. I stayed until the last one got a ride after 4:00. In hindsight, I should have closed earlier, but how foolish would that look if we had our usual snow sham event??:confused: So, for the next 2-3 years I will close earlier and get burned by the weatherman.:mad2: Then, we will all ignore the warnings and repeat this again in 4-5 years.:rolleyes:

Norman said:
Michigan outlawed chains and studded tires about twenty years ago. We (well, most of us) get by nicely without them. It helps to know when to give it up and just stay home.
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This little guy, while probably cold, also is probably thankful for the feed corn we put out for him!

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And please, no venison or hunting jokes - these critters find sanctuary and respite in our little slice of heaven.
 
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GMascelli said:
Yes, but are they running to the store to empty the shelves of bread, milk and eggs???? :wink2:
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That always cracks me up. I guess we people get stuck in there house, they crave French toast. :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
It was certainly an issue of the forecast being off by about 50 miles. All of this was supposed to hit south of the city. The northern metro areas were not expected to get much. In the end that turned out to not be true and the north and northwest metro go the worst of it. By the time everyone realized that it was too late. Schools dismissed, businesses closed and all of those folks hit the roads.

There is still gridlock on the interstate system. I, personally, know of one person who is still stuck on the interstate and spent the night in his delivery truck. Another person I know flew into ATL last night returning from a trip to India and made it two miles from home and abandoned the car and walked the last two miles. Another person I now spent the night with her students in the school she works at.

We're at 19 degrees now and not forecast to get above 30 degrees today. It is sunny which may help somewhat. Many cars have been abandoned along the roads by folks who either walked home or ran out of gas. They showed an overhead view of a gas station this morning with cars lined up about 20-30 deep from all directions.
 
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This morning in the BAE shipyard. About 5-7" pretty solid across the whole flight deck.

Now just hoping the oncoming duty section can make it in to relieve us do I can build a snow man with the kids.
 
Dave Theisen said:
That always cracks me up. I guess we people get stuck in there house, they crave French toast. :)


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Curious: In such a storm, how would rescuers know in what section of town to find "there house?"

:o)
 
RJM62 said:
Seriously. One of my clients in North Georgia has some of his men in the field staying in hotels, and others who are stuck far from hotels.
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Seriously! In Chattanooga we got 2" of snow. City gridlocked, one giant charlie foxtrot.

My wife left downtown at 10:30am to pick up our daughter, she got home at 4pm. Even then, they had to park in a church lot and walk the last 3/4mi as many cars in ditches and otherwise crashed/stuck on the big hill up to our neighborhood.

I booked a hotel room downtown, had a nice easy 5min drive from work, a nice dinner, and a warm bed. No sleeping in a ditch for me, thanks.
 
Lawreston said:
Curious: In such a storm, how would rescuers know in what section of town to find "there house?"



:o)
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, I swear I typed "their". Got nothing better to do?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
We're shut down here as well in Charleston. About an inch of mixed stuff. Freezing rain then snow now sleet. Not a fun combination. Even though I'm a Southerner I've never had trouble driving in snow. Ice is a different ballgame.
 
N747JB said:
The biggest problem was no one was prepared. We had warning, the same warning we get at least once a month in the winter. After the weatherman cries "WOLF" enough times, no one listens. We had no snow at 11:00 AM, by 12:30 I was sending employees home. I stayed until the last one got a ride after 4:00. In hindsight, I should have closed earlier, but how foolish would that look if we had our usual snow sham event??:confused: So, for the next 2-3 years I will close earlier and get burned by the weatherman.:mad2: Then, we will all ignore the warnings and repeat this again in 4-5 years.:rolleyes:
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This.

I understand there are still people stuck on the roads this morning. I haven't checked the route I'm going on yet, I'll venture out later today to see if the traffic has cleared. Last night one of the DOT guys came on and said that there weren't that many icy spots (on the interstate) but that their trucks couldn't get to them.

This one was different than most. The morning started out dry for most of us, then a little bit of snow started falling. The ground in Atlanta doesn't generally freeze, and that was the case yesterday, so whatever snow fell started off melting. The air temp started off a little below freezing, and went down later in the day. People started heading out around noon, and traffic started gridlocking shortly thereafter. The mayor of Atlanta blamed this on everyone starting for home at the same time, but I don't think that was the case, because none of the major school districts were closed at that time. What I'd suspect is that there were some spots on the interstates that were impassible because of either ice or crashes, which caused the main surface streets to gridlock as well. Then, since the conditions started worsening, once people got near their homes, the secondary streets started icing over and some of them parked their cars and walked the rest of the way, clogging the secondary streets.

The way Atlanta is built isn't very conducive to snowy driving. Many of the main surface streets have no shoulder whatsoever, so if someone loses control and spins, they may very well block the entire road until they get unstuck. These roads are twisty and most of the terrain is hilly and tree lined. I'm looking out over the parking lot here and there's a dusting of snow, but it's over a sheet of ice. In the spots where that snow got packed down, it's glare ice. In significant parts of the Metro area, there are no alternates to the main roads. Most of the area other than the older parts of the city consist of primary and secondary surface streets and neighborhood roads. The neighborhood streets don't lead anywhere, you have no choice but to stay on the main roads, so once one of them gets backed up, things just start going downhill in a hurry.
 
I still have a 2-stage snow-blower from my prior house, the snow this morning isn't enough to be picked up by the scroll. I guess I'll have to clean up this 'winter storm' with a leaf-blower.
 
Velocity173 said:
North Georgia is the same. We were suppose to have a 30 % chance in Ellijay buts it's a solid 2.5 inches up here.
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I have a little cabin up in Ellijay. We should meet up for dinner some weekend. You don't happen to know Mike Greene do you? - Russ
 
Dave Theisen said:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I swear I typed "their". Got nothing better to do?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Often, those occurrences are the fault of the blasted auto-correct feature in the mobile devices. Sometimes the "corrections" are quite funny.

:o)
 
FastEddieB said:
And I'm just up the 4-lane, north of Blue Ridge in Mineral Bluff.

The food at El Rio in Copperhill ain't bad - we should all hook up some time!

[email protected]
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My brother lives in McCaysville near your area. Pat's Kountry Kitchen in McCaysville is another good resturant I enjoy that is not far from 1A3.
 
FastEddieB said:
And I'm just up the 4-lane, north of Blue Ridge in Mineral Bluff.

The food at El Rio in Copperhill ain't bad - we should all hook up some time!

[email protected]
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Yeah, all us hillbillies should meet up for some food sometime. I'm up there about every other weekend.

Mike Greene is an old sky diving buddy I'm trying to locate. I know he moved to Ellijay a number of years back, but I've lost track of him. He used to fly the King Air at the drop zone at Rome back in the late 90s.
 
Sitting here in an I-75 motel in Kentucky. We might leave tomorrow.
Pulling a 12,000 pound boat to Florida for our winter vacation. I have driven the 285 demolition derby around Atlanta too many times to go into Atlanta traffic with ice on the raod. I have even raced motorcycles on cie, but these southern drivers haven't even mastered wet linoleum. Not the time to be out there with them.
 
bartmc said:
WOO HOO!!!! got let out of work around noon today, was told not to come in tomorrow. WITH PAY!!! WOO HOO!!

I love the south.

I've had to literally dig myself out of my house in Alaska to get to work and "estimate" where the road was to drive there. Predicting 1.5" tonight and the whole place shuts down. :rofl:
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Guess I need to head further south, its not quite Alaska here but this is what I have had on my drive to work last week in west Michigan.:confused:

And no snow day yet.....
 

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Dr. O said:
Sitting here in an I-75 motel in Kentucky. We might leave tomorrow.
Pulling a 12,000 pound boat to Florida for our winter vacation. I have driven the 285 demolition derby around Atlanta too many times to go into Atlanta traffic with ice on the raod. I have even raced motorcycles on cie, but these southern drivers haven't even mastered wet linoleum. Not the time to be out there with them.
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I grew up in the Chicago area, lived there three years as an adult, but have lived in Atlanta the rest of my adult life. I never had any trouble getting around Chicago in the winter, and for the most part don't have any trouble getting around Atlanta in winter weather either, but sometimes the conditions won't allow normal traffic. This is one of those conditions. There's a huge difference between a dusting of snow that turns to ice and a snowfall that can be plowed out of the way. You could send us all the plows in Michigan and it wouldn't help because it's all turned to ice.

If traffic volume is very low, you probably can get around on the main roads, but if any volume forms, you won't be able to do what you need to get up the hills and you'd be stuck. Driving technique won't help, lots of truckers from all over the country get stuck here.
 
FormerHangie said:
I grew up in the Chicago area, lived there three years as an adult, but have lived in Atlanta the rest of my adult life. I never had any trouble getting around Chicago in the winter, and for the most part don't have any trouble getting around Atlanta in winter weather either, but sometimes the conditions won't allow normal traffic. This is one of those conditions. There's a huge difference between a dusting of snow that turns to ice and a snowfall that can be plowed out of the way. You could send us all the plows in Michigan and it wouldn't help because it's all turned to ice.
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Yep, agreed. I've driven over snow in Canada without a problem. Down here we do have our share of bad drivers, but the ice is the real problem. It's much different than the conditions up north. Snow falls, melts, then immediately refreezes. Then another inch or two falls on that. Car drives on snow and sinks through to the ice. No amount of skill will solve that.
 
RJM62 said:
I wonder if the dog is wondering, "What's all this white stuff?"

-Rich
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My Lab pretty much starts running buck wild, stuffing his face in the snow and then galloping around while eating it.

I got 3" at my house in Raleigh.
 

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RJM62 said:
The most important step in learning to drive in the winter is to learn how to drive without brakes. Drive your car more like an airplane. Manage your kinetic energy by gradually and smoothly applying and withdrawing power. The brake is something you use once the car has nearly come to a stop on its own, not something you use to slow down.

Once you learn to do that, you're three-quarters along the way to being a competent and capable winter driver.

-Rich
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Drive like you have a raw egg under your foot and you don't want to break it. Really helps.

kyleb said:
Snow is one thing. It is easy to drive on snow. When the snow melts and turns to a sheet of ice, that is a different issue. Also, Atlanta has hills everywhere, which makes the ice even more problematic.
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Ice is a serious problem.

Dave Theisen said:
Seriously. My wife's boss just got home. 7 hours door to door. You have to understand that the road clearing strategy here is: "it will melt eventually".



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Sounds like western Washington. Our idea of snow removal equipment is "rain".

Tom-D said:
What's snow ?
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It's that frozen non-self shoveling rain. You know, the stuff that falls up in the Cascades. :D

EppyGA said:
The talk is that many people are just abandoning their cars and walking home.
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And that just makes it worse. I remember back in the late 60s (don't know if the rules have changed) people in the Boston area got stuck in a major storm and abandoned their cars on the freeways. It was cheaper for them. There was a statutory limit on what they could be charged by the government if the government had their cars towed, but if they called a tow truck the tow company could, and would, charge them far more.
 
We got about 6-10" here in Fayetteville...with a nice layer of ice below...the cars are stacking up like cord wood...the next neighborhood over has a sloped entrance to the "main secondary" road and there is 7-8 cars stacked up at the bottom...tow drivers are having a field day...

We had two folks go in today voluntarily...the rest are working from home...actually getting work done...

Several years back, Raleigh got an unexpected icing gnat literally paralyzed the town for a few days...since then NCDOT has dome a stellar job putting down brine on the roads in front of the storms and keeping things moving...


http://raleighskyline.com/content/2006/11/21/the-half-inch-of-snow-that-paralyzed-raleigh/
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~nwsfo/storage/cases/20050119/
 
Cancelled school here for 2 days. Its in the teens and there is about 2 inches of frozen rain on the ground. Everything is coated in 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice.

Love it. Although every major road in town is closed and almost every bridge in the county...
 
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write-stuff said:
I have a little cabin up in Ellijay. We should meet up for dinner some weekend. You don't happen to know Mike Greene do you? - Russ
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Nah, don't know Mike. I've got a cabin myself in Coosawattee River Resort. My car is stuck about 100 yards down the road. They don't plow these side roads and my car is definitely not setup for this. Already took off work for tomorrow.
 
Kelvin said:
Several years back, Raleigh got an unexpected icing gnat literally paralyzed the town for a few days...since then NCDOT has dome a stellar job putting down brine on the roads in front of the storms and keeping things moving...
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I remember that day very well. All of the roads were covered in a sheet of ice. People with long commutes were running out of gas, waiting in traffic for hours, and some people I know just abandoned their cars on the side of the road and walked to hotels for the night.

It was complete gridlock. Snow started falling and all of the schools/businesses let out right at the worst time possible.
 
dell30rb said:
I remember that day very well. All of the roads were covered in a sheet of ice. People with long commutes were running out of gas, waiting in traffic for hours, and some people I know just abandoned their cars on the side of the road and walked to hotels for the night.

It was complete gridlock. Snow started falling and all of the schools/businesses let out right at the worst time possible.
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That's what ATL is going through today...
 
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