... and not for a good reason.
Tuesday, January 28th, was a somewhat dramatic day here. Weather forecasters had been predicting snow for a few days, but until Monday evening, the predictions had been that most of the snow and ice would be south and east of Atlanta. Early Tuesday morning (3:39 a.m.), the "winter storm advisory" changed to "winter storm warning" and Atlanta was said to be directly in the path of the snow storm. Temperatures were not expected to get above freezing at all that day (or the next) and therein lay the problem - that would cause ice to form on the roads, and people in the South, rarely experiencing snow or ice, do not have vehicles equipped to deal with icy roads.
I have to go into the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I was on the road by about 4:15 that morning, completely unaware of the change in the weather prediction as I hadn't switched on the TV or checked the weather report online. A few miles from my office, traffic slowed down suddenly. Only one of the four lanes was open - the rest were blocked off by polices cars, all with their lights flashing. It hadn't even started snowing and there was already a bad accident on the road. That would turn out to be a sign of things to come later in the day. Because it was so early in the morning, the lorries and cars on the road got past the accident quite quickly. Everyone was very nice, letting others in ahead of them as we all got into the one open lane to drive past the blockade. I got to the office without incident and started working.
Snow began falling at about 11:00 a.m. It was light at first - bits of fluff floating in the air and not settling on the ground. When I looked out the window about fifty minutes later, I was surprised by how much snow had fallen and settled on the ground in that short time. While I had been in my cubicle working, the snowfall had gotten heavier. Ally (the other person in my department) and I both finished working at 12:30 p.m. since we had started working early, so I decided to leave then and told her she should, as well. One of our friends in the office had been checking weather and traffic conditions for the previous hour and saw traffic congestion already on the highways he used to get home. It wasn't looking good and we all wanted to get home before conditions worsened, so we left even though the office hadn't officially closed yet. (I had been in the office long enough to have worked a full day already, so that didn't really concern me. An e-mail was sent about 25 minutes later, saying our office was closing at 1:00 p.m.) Bruce's office closed at noon but he was in a meeting with his boss at that time, so he also left at 12:30 p.m.
As soon as I left our office parking lot, I was stuck in traffic. The entrance ramp to the highway that I needed to get on in order to get home was about 3 k.m. away, so I'm usually on the highway in less than five minutes. Not that day. I needed to travel east on the highway but traffic in the opposite direction was already so bad that the road from my office, which feeds to both the east and west lanes, was filled with cars trying to get to the west lanes and thus blocking the exit to the east lanes, as well. We later learned that everyone had tried leaving offices and schools at about the same time, hence the awful crush on the roads. It took me over two hours to drive just a few kilometres. Before I made it onto the highway, I thought several times about turning around and trying to get home a different way (there are a couple of other options), but as I sat unmoving in the traffic jam, I saw several cars slipping and sliding in the icy lanes going in the opposite direction. So far, there was no ice on my side of the road, which made me think it would be safer to stay where I was. Once I finally made it onto the highway, traffic conditions improved. Most of the time, we were moving slowly but at least we kept moving. I got home about an hour later. The trip took about three hours in total, very different from the usual 25- to 30-minute commute I have in ordinary driving conditions.
Bruce got home a few minutes before I did, with traffic conditions also improving for him after a very slow start. We later found out that we had been extremely fortunate compared to a lot of other people. Some spent between 12 and 14 hours on roads before making it to their homes; others didn't make it home at all that night, choosing instead to abandon their cars and walking to the closest shelter they could find (stores, restaurants, petrol stations); still others spent almost 24 hours in their cars before finally getting to move. Several motels and hotels had to turn people away because they were filled with people needing a roof over their heads when they were unable to make it home. Lorry drivers, who are only allowed to be on the road a certain number of hours each day, had to pull off to the side of the road and stop driving. Some school buses were unable to get kids back to their houses and had to return to schools, where the children spent the night. I read about one father of a kindergartner who walked six miles to get to his daughter so that he could spend the night with her at her kindergarten. And several Atlantans started taking water and food to people stuck on roads in case they wanted to stay in their cars but had nothing to eat or drink with them.
With conditions so bad, you'd think that we must have had several feet of snow fall that day. No, it was about five to seven millimetres in total. That was enough to cripple the city and parts of the state. This was shocking to states further north, used to dealing with actual snow storms that can bury whole cars, but it was the ice that caused such havoc. Cars here don't have snow tyres or chains, so when the roads were slick with snow, people began sliding and crashing into each other. Apparently, there were over 1,500 accidents that day.
The mayor of Atlanta and the governor of Georgia were heavily criticized for not handling things better (there weren't enough snow plows and sand/salt trucks on the road to remove the ice; the closing of schools and offices should have been staggered so that not everyone was on the roads at the same time; schools should have been closed that day when it became clear early that morning Atlanta was in the path of the snow storm ...). All the major newspapers and national news broadcasts discussed how the city had come to a standstill. Even our favourite comedy news show made fun of Atlanta.
Thankfully, schools and offices closed on Wednesday so people stayed off the roads. Temperatures were below freezing most of Wednesday but the sun and a couple of hours of above-freezing temperatures started the melting of some of the snow and ice. On Thursday, some offices (including mine) opened late but I telecommute on Thursdays and Bruce's office was closed again, so we both worked from home that day. (We worked on Wednesday, too, even though our offices were closed - we are such hardworking, dedicated employees!) A lot of the ice melted on Thursday, which meant those who had abandoned their cars on Tuesday could go collect them. The police and national guard were on hand to give people rides to their cars and to help them jumpstart engines that had died or fill empty tanks with some petrol so the drivers could get going. By Friday, things were almost back to normal.
Today, there is very little snow to be seen and the drama seems like something that was on TV, not something we experienced in real life. But I think if there is another "snow event" heading this way anytime soon, most people are going to stay home and will refuse to go to school/work. It was a traumatic event for many people.
After a couple of sunny days, today is a foggy one. It reminds me of early mornings in Cameron Highlands, when everything was misty and cool, and is bringing back many happy memories.
