Atlanta What the heck is going on???

[importwarrior]

get a little snow and the whole city goes crazy.

 

hope you atlanta Peeps are keeping warm!

 

 

 

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/52e8452fecad048b1e9e6a88/light-snow-in-atlanta-causes-baby-to-be-born-in-traffic.jpg

Edited January 29, 2014 by importwarrior

[Dad]

I have a parts supplier in Suwanee, got notice they are closed today because of weather.

[NikoFab]

I shipped out seven sets of D2s today...well I should say I got seven tracking numbers! Their entire east coast system is getting killed by this weather.

[jisleyjr]

Ya, a couple inches of snow is a really pain! Bunch of wimps!

[speedyquest]

Here in Wisconsin unless its -40 degrees and more than 8 inches of snow life goes on just like normal.

[nomad]

Imagine any northern US city without a fleet of plows and salt trucks, and you would get the same result as seen in Atlanta, Birmingham, and others.

 

Why do you guys up north plow and salt your streets? To prevent the exact conditions that were experienced yesterday.

 

The snow was falling, melting, as refreezing as people were already stuck in traffic. It was a factor, of poor planning, perfect timing, and lack of equipment.

[scott87star]

I lived in that area for four years, commuted right through the heart of the city twice a day. I remember one ice storm we had coated everything pretty well so I didn't even bother trying to get out of my driveway to go to work, with all the vertical land you either had a driveway that went up hill to the street or one that went down hill. I saw my neighbors one by one try to get out on the roads while sitting in my living room looking out the window, too bad we didn't have a video recorder! Each would get into the street with varying grace, then proceed to try and drive up the hill and out of the subdivision but eventually every one ended up at the bottom of the hill two blocks down. There were nine cars down there by 8:30 AM. Lol, knuckleheads, took two days to melt the ice so they could drive them back into the garage.

[jisleyjr]

You think the plows are out on the streets 24/7 here? They are not and a majority of the streets are iced over from the daily/weekly snowing and 30+ mph winds. So you southerns will get no sympathy from us over a little ice and snow.

[jszucs]

Imagine any northern US city without a fleet of plows and salt trucks, and you would get the same result as seen in Atlanta, Birmingham, and others.

 

Why do you guys up north plow and salt your streets? To prevent the exact conditions that were experienced yesterday.

 

The snow was falling, melting, as refreezing as people were already stuck in traffic. It was a factor, of poor planning, perfect timing, and lack of equipment.

 

No It's a matter of people who do not have a vehicle (mainly tires) setup for it, a lack of driver skill, and people unwilling to NOT GO OUT if they do not have a vehicle setup for it and the skill...... If your not willing to set your car up for it, and don't have the skill just stay home........ problem solved. I wish they would quit salting.... bad for the roads the cars the water table plants your lungs ECT It costs a bunch of money that could be used to just certify a driver has the ability and is running a capable car with capable tires.

 

Look how Germany does it? Don't set your car up, have true mountain rated snow tires, and have taken X hours of winter driving educaiton you don't drive in winter there. Get caught and pretty much never drive again.

Edited January 29, 2014 by jszucs

[kidjc]

I lived 65 miles north of Atlanta, Athens... they don't even own "ANY" snow removal equiptment. Yes. rarely... when they get snow, the city shuts down. How about "Ice Storms" YEP! Shutdown. But these occurences are rather rare.

[Edde]

Yeah way to much salt. It's crazy.

[BC_99]

You think the plows are out on the streets 24/7 here? They are not and a majority of the streets are iced over from the daily/weekly snowing and 30+ mph winds. So you southerns will get no sympathy from us over a little ice and snow.

 

I don't recall anyone asking for sympathy. Like jszucs stated, it's more a problem of not having the equipment to keep the roads cleared, and the lack of drivers with the knowledge and experience to drive in these conditions. I was born and bred here in NC and have over the years had to learn to deal with driving in it, on the rare occasion that I have to. I tried a few times when I was a teenager and put a couple of cars in ditches, but learned as I got more experienced how to drive in this crap. I now own a 4x4 truck with all terrain tires rated for winter driving simply because after having to drive my mustang in it once, I swore never again. In my line of work, there is no calling out for snow and ice, most of my coworkers are from up north somewhere and since they know how to get to work in it, the rest of us are expected to get there also. It is just the way it works. The roads are also built a bit differently here than a lot of northern regions, according to my northern coworkers. They are paved with a lot of crown to them compared to roads up north. So, vehicles tend to drift towards the ditch in icy conditions a lot easier than in other places. It is what it is, but if you didn't have the experience and proper vehicle and roads and preparation from your local city, then you would be in the same shape as all the people you have no sympathy for.

 

BC_99

[nomad]

You think the plows are out on the streets 24/7 here? They are not and a majority of the streets are iced over from the daily/weekly snowing and 30+ mph winds. So you southerns will get no sympathy from us over a little ice and snow.

 

Im not looking for sympathy. I was really trying to say that the cities don't have equipment, the people don't have snow preped cars

because its not justifiable to spend the money on things this rarely needed. And also poor planning to even leave the house to go to work or school.

 

 

AND....this is from the City of Fargo's website. The Official Snow Removal Policy.

 

" Snow Removal

 

When snow falls in Fargo,the city's staff hits the streets. Crews work around the clock while the snow is falling to keep all (requires ) open. The primary snow routes are their first priority,followed by secondary routes. All of the routes involve major streets that facilitate traffic movement from one end of the city to the other.

 

Public Works snow emergency routes Adobe Reader

 

The second phase of our snow removal response involves city-wide plowing. Our goal is to plow all streets within 24 hours after the snowfall ends. Additional snow and high wind can complicate our attempts to meet this goal. We have 1,888 lane miles of road, 380 alleys and 149 cul-de-sacs to cover. In addition to plowing,we also haul snow out of the central business district,cul-de-sacs and areas where little boulevard space is available for snow storage.

 

Sidewalk snow removal begins following the snow event. The Street Department maintains approximately 34 miles of City sidewalk.

 

are in place to help us remove snow quickly from city"

 

Oh, Snap! You just got Served, Homie!

[89PalermoSHP]

Its all about conditioning. Being in MN, we are certainly used to the snow but the below zero temps have sucked. It was 20 today and I found myself driving with my window down thinking it was actually warm today lol. A set of dedicated winter tires/wheels makes even the worst days easy.

[scott87star]

AND....this is from the City of Fargo's website. The Official Snow Removal Policy.

 

AND let me tell you how that snow removal policy sucks, You park your car, go to bed, snow storm hits, plows blow down the street and put a 3' or 4' (that is FOOT) bank against your car so you can't drive it out and a cop follows along and sticks a ticket for parking in a snow lane street. THEN you get to dig the bugger out, plowed snow is like 4X the weight of what it would have been had you gotten up at 4 am and moved the car (in my case pickup).

[Starion86ESI]

That ain't bad. Indiana 3 dead.

 

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/kov00Xc-vmk/0.jpg

[MainstreaM]

That first pic looks like normal Atlanta traffic to me.

[duckheads]

That ain't bad. Indiana 3 dead.

 

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/kov00Xc-vmk/0.jpg

 

That is less then 10 miles from wrngwae and my house. That was the result of a white out from lake effect snow. Sometimes with lake effect it is only snowing in a consintrated area. One Sunday a few years back we got 20 inches of snow in one day. Drive 10-15 miles either direction there was no snow.

[jszucs]

Im not looking for sympathy. I was really trying to say that the cities don't have equipment, the people don't have snow preped cars

because its not justifiable to spend the money on things this rarely needed. And also poor planning to even leave the house to go to work or school.

 

EXACTLY...... Ether have the equipment or censor yourself and do not go out. I still crack up at all the clowns here running out when they fear monger anounce "storm zilla" or whatever there calling it that day. They run out and raid the stores..... like really??? you don't have a few cans of something to eat at home? Sure soup for 2 days sucks but your not going to starve. Even if your house was empty you can't ask your next door nabor? Sure they got a cup o soup or some pasta or something they can spare.

[jjohnson]

So does everyone down there pull off the road when it rains really hard too. Lol I drove an 1980 camaro with a 1/4 tread left on the tires for 4years and no heater . I drove that car in many snow storms 6" on the roads at 19-23 years old . What's goin on down there all I can say is WOW.

[JAinsworth]

So does everyone down there pull off the road when it rains really hard too. Lol I drove an 1980 camaro with a 1/4 tread left on the tires for 4years and no heater . I drove that car in many snow storms 6" on the roads at 19-23 years old . What's goin on down there all I can say is WOW.

 

We drive in the rain, like others have said, we do not have snow fighting equipment. Last snow before this one was Feb. 2010. Hard to justify equipment to use once every four years. The upside is our cars don't rust or have to be put up for 6 months every year

[jszucs]

^ It's not having the snow equip that is the problem. It's people go out without snow worthy tires. In some cases it's not even the snow. I just got rear ended (when temps were super low but 0 snow or even wet) The person just had all seasons which did not perform when the temp was -5. So her stopping distance was greatly increased. So you don't even need snow to cause the problem. Just running all seasons or wrose summer onlys in the cold below there temp range is just like driving on pure ice.

[Burton]

Southerners: don't let some smack talking by some Yankees get ya down. It's all just jealousy. I've spent 3/4 of my life in snowy climates, and it's simple... the north is prepared, and the south is not.

 

 

Up north, they have all the good salting and snow removal equipment, and kids are even taught about winter driving in driver's ed. They get weeks of experience driving in it every year. It is a cold, miserable experience. Due to all the gray and cold people get depressed and wish they could eat a bullet as they anxiously await the arrival of spring in June. But, that's how it is when you live up north. What they don't tell you about is the first 2 weeks of winter driving when even people who've driven in dozens of winters, forget what to do when it gets slick out. The first couple weeks of slick driving and the deer rut are the two times of the year where body shops are overwhelmed.

 

Down south it's different. There's no winter driving education, and there's no snow removal equipment. San Antonio has 4 salt trucks. It is a much larger town than Grand Rapids, MI where I'm from, yet last I knew GR had close to 400. Southerners rarely get to drive on this stuff, so of course they don't know how to do it. I bet if the southerners had 2 weeks every year to re-acquaint themselves to slick driving like the people up north, there'd be no issue. However, down here the big snow storms melt off in a couple of days. It's hard to get experience in winter driving when you only do it 2 days every 5 years or so.

 

I've been in TX now for 6 winters, and we've had snow once 1/2 inch with ice underneath, and then last week which was just an ice storm... the ice was 3/4" thick on our Kia in places. Both events pretty much shut down the city. I10 and I 35 closed, but that was because they were covered in ice, and they didn't have enough salt trucks to get rid of the ice. Both days, by noon it was all melted and life returned to normal. The problem is, in the south, 9 times out of 10, ice is the problem, not snow. Ice was the problem up north too. Some snow is no biggie, but have a 1/4" layer of ice under that snow that the salt trucks haven't gotten yet, and there's cars all in the ditch. It's always ice down south... even when it snows. The snow melts a little when it hits then turns to ice. People in MI crash on ice with EXPERIENCE driving in the winter... What do you think will happen when people who don't know how to drive in it have to?

 

I think it all comes from jealousy... I know when I was in MI, and the south got hit, I'd smack talk my friends about it, mostly because it was the only time I could mock them for their weather, since it's gorgeous the rest of the year.

[Starfighterpilot]

I live in Burford GA about 35 miles North of Atlanta - I 85 goes through the middle of town.

 

On Tuesday, early AM, it was forecasted that it wouldn't start snowing until about 12 noon and then we'd get 1 to 3 inches of snow and about 3 PM the temp would start dropping like a rock and that the snow would turn to ice on the roads as the temps dropped down into the teens and it would be hazardous driving on the icy streets/interstates. I had some errands to run so I got off of my lazy butt about 10:30 AM and got them done about 12:15 PM. One of 'em was picking up a new Mitsu engine coolant thermostat that I ordered a couple of days before from the local Mitsu dealer. Having grown up in Chicago during the 40's thru the mid '60's, I know how to drive in the snow and I've done it many times, depending on where I was living, since I left Chicago in '64. But I knew from the weather reports that I did not want to be on the streets when the snow started sticking, turning into slush, and finally into sheets of ice.

 

Many off & on ramps of the interstates in the Atlanta area go up or down hill and some have sharp turns, plus the interstate road ways go up and down hill. And there is a LOT of 18 wheeler traffic going through the Atlanta area daily.

 

And if any of you have driven through Atlanta, you know that traffic moves at 65 to 75 MPH in the 55 MPH speed zones even the semi-trucks.

 

The problem started cuz the GA DOT & Fulton County didn't get the salt trucks out on the interstates early enough. Even if they had, when the temps started dropping fast, about 3 PM, the snow slush started turning to ice. When the afternoon rush hour started, the interstates and their off & on ramps had turned into ice skating rinks plus the snow kept coming down. All it took was a couple of speeding jerks to spin out, semi's jack knifing, vehicles not being able to get traction to get up the interstate slopes, or the off ramps clogging up with cars that couldn't make it up the off ramps that backed up onto the interstates. And the stupid idiots, knowing what the weather forecast was, still went to work without a full tank of gas and consequestly ran out of gas in the middle of the road ways and traffic snarled trying to get around 'em. That's what caused the interstate grid lock.

 

18 wheeler truckers know how to drive in snow, BUT, it's an entirely different story when they are driving on solid sheets of ice - even tho they were driving slow, they jack knifed or couldn't stop which caused many wrecks similiar to the wreck shown in reply number 13 above.

 

Atlanta, in most areas is hilly, consequently, so are the secondary roads & side streets. I don't care how good/bad your tires are, if you've got a 4 wheel drive vehicle or not or how good or experienced of a snow driver you are, you just ain't gonna get up a road that's a solid sheet of ice going up hill or stop going down hill - unless you have snow chains.

 

The real crime in this fiasco is that the Atlanta area school districts didn't shut down the schools for the day, or send the kids home early before the crap hit the fan. Many, many school buses full of kids were stranded on the roads cuz of the conditions. A couple of 'em were stranded for 18, yes 18 hours. Can you imagine being a school bus driver with a bus load of kids that are hungery, REALLY NEED to go pee or take a crap and you can't do anything about it cuz you can't get to a gas station to let 'em go, or get the kids home cuz you can't drive up a hill or are stranded in traffic grid lock cuz of the icy roads? Or, in some instances, the kids spent the night in the schools, cuz the buses couldn't get to the schools to take 'em home due to the icy roads. That was probably a God send for those kids cuz they had the school rest rooms and the cafeteria/lunch room kitchen.

 

I have a sure feeling that the various Atlanta area county's school board supervisors will not be re-elected in the next election cuz of this uncalled for screw up.

 

MY daughter's company owner told every one to leave at 2 PM and it took her 3 hours to travel 15 miles, using the seconday roads & side streets to get home. My son-in-law shut down his John Deer store at 3 pm, and he didn't get home until 8 PM, cuz he had to travel 25 miles using the rural secondary roads to get home - and he's got a company GMC, 1 ton, 4 wheel drive pick up with off road tires.

 

I'm a northern yankee used to driving in snowy conditions. But this storm wasn't the usual snow storm. It was a snow storm which turned the slush to ice on the streets. Like Burton said above, driving on sheets of ice, covered by a light coating of fresh snow in hilly country, is entirely different than driving on snowy streets/roads/interstates, especially if you are used to driving on FLAT land as you Northerners know.

 

I just stayed home, with the Old Broad on her nest in the garage, and watched this fiasco develop on the local news stations and thanked God that her & I weren't out there in this storm.

 

Yesterday, most Atlanta area people stayed home from work cuz they couldn't get there cuz of the icy streets.

 

For What It's Worth.

 

KEN

[jszucs]

I drive on solid ice all the time and have 0 problmes Infact ive frozen my whole driveway into an ice rink so we can skate for a few years now...... because I use real winter / mountain rated tires. You don't need chains to hill climb, just tires made of a compound that warms itself properly, and skinny enough to cut in. At most if you have something majorly missweighted (like a truck) you will have to make a weight box and play around with weight and distrobution. Do both and you will be fine. I have driven in show 1/2 way up my doors just plowing it out of the way.

 

Your example of the 1 ton with off road tires.... off road tires are just as bad and can be worse if they are not made of a compund designed to warm itself in cold temps. Typically off road tires are also wider and you want skinney tires for winter so they cut through and in. Problem being when it gets to about 50 (pavement temps) you need to get them off or they will melt in a few thousand miles.