Terrible scene. Atlanta snow then instant ice rink.

In reply to wvumtnbkr:

Everywhere else that it snows doesnt have mass panic. Thats what created this mess. Im not disagreeing with anyone about that. I'm not disagreeing with any of the points Bobzilla made. I completely agree with all of them. Im sitting at home by a fireplace because I took a couple of those exact points.

What I am saying is right now, there's parents with kids stuck on the interstates unable to move anywhere because the roads below them are a sheet of ice. Be understanding of that when you call these people morons who have never seen snow. Many bad decisions were made, but its a really really bad situation now.

Bobzilla wrote:

lnlogauge wrote: I'd love to hear the explanation of how one can put down sand/salt, when its gridlocked. The roads are solid ice at this point, with cars on top of it. Yes, everyone shouldn't have rushed out at the exact same time. They did. So explain to me how you are going to use these ken block driving skills to get around 60 miles of gridlock? At this point, driving skills mean jack.

*There are several options: Change your leave time. Either stay later, or leave earlier. *Keep an eye on the traffic cams/websites to see what is already blocked etc. Find alternate routes as necessary. *on the alt routes, slow down. Expect to not be able to have any traction at any time. This will make good use of the little traction you can find. *be prepared. HAve extra clothes, a bottle of water and some kind of granola or similar non-perishable food item and make sure you fill the car with fuel in case the previous options don't work. *Keep your car maintained. Good tires, running right, lights working etc. When you stop for fuel, clean off your headlights/taillights so others can see them. *Be aware of what is going on around you. If others are getting off the interstate, there's likely a reason. If you notice, only one of these has anything to do with actually driving. It's about being prepared for any type of bad weather.

I feel like you don't understand the level of gridlock. I wasn't in Atlanta yesterday, but judging from reports, it was as bad as the DC event a few years ago, possibly worse.

Staying later means sleeping overnight at the office. That's what I did back in DC. Slept on the floor until 3:00 AM.

At 7:30PM, EVERY ROAD WAS GRIDLOCKED. IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE TO LEAVE THE OFFICE. Literally thousands of cars parked, without driver, in the middle of every road. Changing your leave time, watching traffic cams/websites (see my google map pic above), having a well maintained car, etc. will not help you in any way.

(BTW, in the above scenario I did have my Saturn, with a full tank of fuel, on blizzaks, with a shovel and some other preparedness items in the back).

ProDarwin wrote:

Bobzilla wrote:

lnlogauge wrote: I'd love to hear the explanation of how one can put down sand/salt, when its gridlocked. The roads are solid ice at this point, with cars on top of it. Yes, everyone shouldn't have rushed out at the exact same time. They did. So explain to me how you are going to use these ken block driving skills to get around 60 miles of gridlock? At this point, driving skills mean jack.

*There are several options: Change your leave time. Either stay later, or leave earlier. *Keep an eye on the traffic cams/websites to see what is already blocked etc. Find alternate routes as necessary. *on the alt routes, slow down. Expect to not be able to have any traction at any time. This will make good use of the little traction you can find. *be prepared. HAve extra clothes, a bottle of water and some kind of granola or similar non-perishable food item and make sure you fill the car with fuel in case the previous options don't work. *Keep your car maintained. Good tires, running right, lights working etc. When you stop for fuel, clean off your headlights/taillights so others can see them. *Be aware of what is going on around you. If others are getting off the interstate, there's likely a reason. If you notice, only one of these has anything to do with actually driving. It's about being prepared for any type of bad weather.

I feel like you don't understand the level of gridlock. I wasn't in Atlanta yesterday, but judging from reports, it was as bad as the DC event a few years ago, possibly worse. Staying later means sleeping overnight at the office. That's what I did back in DC. Slept on the floor until 3:00 AM. At 7:30PM, EVERY ROAD WAS GRIDLOCKED. IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE TO LEAVE THE OFFICE. Literally thousands of cars parked, without driver, in the middle of every road. Changing your leave time, watching traffic cams/websites (see my google map pic above), having a well maintained car, etc. will not help you in any way. (BTW, in the above scenario I did have my Saturn, with a full tank of fuel, on blizzaks, with a shovel and some other preparedness items in the back).

It does help you in every way. You know that you can't go anywhere, so you stay put. That keeps you out of the mess, and off the road.

It's not that hard. People just need to use some damn common sense. I know what gridlock in Atlanta is. I've been there. Done that. Sat for 3.5 hours to go 2 miles on the north side trying to get past 285 in the middle of a Friday afteroon rush hour. It sucks. Staying indoors, someplace safe is always an alternative.

Recently it snowed hard here, then dropped so cold that the salt stopped working. I've been driving in snow all my life (9 years of driving) and I have snow tires.

This was my first time driving where everything was smooth ice. Everything. It took me about 30 seconds to get through an interesection. Driving in a straight line, the car decided to slide and I did a 180. It is scary, and North or South, experienced or not, right equipment or wrong, there is some stuff that will make it impossible to control the car.

I would assume that nobody in Atlanta has snow tires, I know I wouldn't if I lived there. Tough situation, hope everyone is ok.

mtn wrote: Recently it snowed hard here, then dropped so cold that the salt stopped working. I've been driving in snow all my life (9 years of driving) and I have snow tires. This was my first time driving where everything was smooth ice. Everything. It took me about 30 seconds to get through an interesection. Driving in a straight line, the car decided to slide and I did a 180. It is scary, and North or South, experienced or not, right equipment or wrong, there is some stuff that will make it impossible to control the car. I would assume that nobody in Atlanta has snow tires, I know I wouldn't if I lived there. Tough situation, hope everyone is ok.

Been there. THose are the times you just stay put.

I tell friends of a ski trip I took in western NY as a kid. Snowed all night, 36" new snow. School busses ran on time the next day. So clearly it can be done with a plan and preparation.

But Atlanta govt is full of incompetence at every level. Lots of blaming going on. Nothing will change. Next time we will camp at home and not send kids to school when the forecast calls for a once a year snow/ice storm.

Problem solved.

mtn wrote: Recently it snowed hard here, then dropped so cold that the salt stopped working. I've been driving in snow all my life (9 years of driving) and I have snow tires. This was my first time driving where everything was smooth ice. Everything. It took me about 30 seconds to get through an interesection. Driving in a straight line, the car decided to slide and I did a 180. It is scary, and North or South, experienced or not, right equipment or wrong, there is some stuff that will make it impossible to control the car.

Which snow tires? The silica glass ones sound like a zipper running down ice covered roads and actually have some grip.

ProDarwin wrote: I feel like you don't understand the level of gridlock. I wasn't in Atlanta yesterday, but judging from reports, it was as bad as the DC event a few years ago, possibly worse. Staying later means sleeping overnight at the office. That's what I did back in DC. Slept on the floor until 3:00 AM. At 7:30PM, EVERY ROAD WAS GRIDLOCKED. IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE TO LEAVE THE OFFICE. Literally thousands of cars parked, without driver, in the middle of every road. Changing your leave time, watching traffic cams/websites (see my google map pic above), having a well maintained car, etc. will not help you in any way.

And, hence our point, kind of. Maybe if 1 out of 5 people used common sense and was prepared, instead of 1 out of 500 or 5,000, the situation might be better today.

yamaha wrote:

mtn wrote: Recently it snowed hard here, then dropped so cold that the salt stopped working. I've been driving in snow all my life (9 years of driving) and I have snow tires. This was my first time driving where everything was smooth ice. Everything. It took me about 30 seconds to get through an interesection. Driving in a straight line, the car decided to slide and I did a 180. It is scary, and North or South, experienced or not, right equipment or wrong, there is some stuff that will make it impossible to control the car.

Which snow tires? The silica glass ones sound like a zipper running down ice covered roads and actually have some grip.

Pirelli's of some sort, a few years old (came with the car). Great in the snow, not on the ice. But I deal with snow a lot more than I deal with ice on the roads.

It should also be noted that I'm driving a Miata with Flyin' Miata supsension. So it isn't a great starting point.

So.... I'm seeing hundreds of engine donor cars thanks to this storm down there.

Us northerners aren't completely prepared for this winter either. We've had countless water main breaks and pipe freezes in the Cincinnati area due to the extreme cold. I'm guessing those north of here could laugh at us about that...

Seriously. Indy has been a mess.

In reply to mtn:

My beater is the fukus.....it has bald all seasons and an eibach prokit on it.

The Ion Redline before, well.....I ran Dunlop Graspic's on it. Very good tires in the snow and on ice. While I want snows for the fukus, I don't plan on keeping it very long.

Swank Force One wrote: Seriously. Indy has been a mess.

Troof. We're almost 10" over our AVERAGE snowfall, we've had almost record temps and are averaging about 10-15* below average temps. This one has been harsh.

So ready to move to Hawaii right now. Showed the wife some properties on the Big Island and got her thinking.

wvumtnbkr wrote: In reply to lnlogauge: Use the trucks before the storm hits. If it is so infrequent that storms do happen, it wouldn't be a waste to put the material down if you *think* a storm *might* happen.

there was no prediction of this storm … hard to explain salting the roads when it's 60° like it was the day before the storm

The whole thing sucks no matter how you look at it. That pic of the Highway reenforces my mantra of if there is a bad storm I stay off the main roads and wind my way where ever on back roads. They tend to have less traffic and the speeds are lower.

I heard about this this morning driving to work. Kids stuck on busses OVERNIGHT!!! That is just crazy. The only thing that can even remotely make that acceptable is if the weather service botched the prediction and this caught everyone out. BUT I don't think that is the case as in Louisiana they knew it was coming and it was reported that they convicted everyone to stay home.

I would be calling out the National Guard to go get the kids out of the busses and to a safe dry warm place with some food and drink. They had no business putting kids in that kind of a situation. I could not imagine being a parent to one of those kids. Mountains should be moved to deal with that particular aspect of this mess.

Adults should know better but kids.... . .. Adults actually put kids in that situation. Makes my blood boil.

In reply to wbjones:

Well, that sucks.

Just be prepared for the next one!

Hope everybody is safe and makes it to where they need to go.

Looking at the pictures, I see hurricane evacuation levels of traffic. If you've never been through one of those, it's hard to fathom what happens when that many people all try to move at once, and that's with good roads. Throw in snow/ice and there is no amount of preparedness that would really make it better. The only thing they really could have done is shut things down the night before. Short of that, it's just a volume of people problem that no amount of snow tires could have solved.

eastsidemav wrote: Us northerners aren't completely prepared for this winter either. We've had countless water main breaks and pipe freezes in the Cincinnati area due to the extreme cold. I'm guessing those north of here could laugh at us about that...

ha-ha! oh wait. i walked away from a job for a week because their pipes burst. it's a vacation house up on the lake, with a crawl space, that all the plumbing is run through, that nobody thought to put a drain at the main shutoff of to winterize(drain) the system. people are stupid about their plumbing and driving everywhere.

wbjones wrote:

wvumtnbkr wrote: In reply to lnlogauge: Use the trucks before the storm hits. If it is so infrequent that storms do happen, it wouldn't be a waste to put the material down if you *think* a storm *might* happen.

there was no prediction of this storm … hard to explain salting the roads when it's 60° like it was the day before the storm

Y'all musthave some terrible newscasters. Ours were predicting your storm and the massive front coming through here in Indiana. Hell, they were even saying to expect delays and cancellations for flights into and out of Atlanta.

patgizz wrote: people are stupid

That was all that needs to be said.

Bobzilla wrote:

patgizz wrote: people are stupid

That was all that needs to be said.

Double QFT.

Also, didn't the retarded channel of weather which is based in atlanta give this winter storm a name to scare all you guys into buying up all the bread, milk, and gasoline down there?

Birmingham AL got hit really bad too but there the weather was suppose to pass south of them so apparently they sent all their salt and plow trucks south of there.

Edit: Album from Birmingham. http://imgur.com/a/woBtl

I was in downtown Atlanta for work 3 or so February's ago and we had an ice storm come through. It was so bad because many of the sidewalks were granite we couldn't even WALK up the very slight hills in downtown. No joke, you would get about 3 steps then slide back down to the curb/light pole/tree/etc... I wasn't even trying to drive. We finally just walked in the streets because no one was driving and the streets were asphalt, so we had some grip.

Incidentally but unrelated, I also looked out the window of the downtown office building one day in Atlanta to see a zebra walking on the highway...