Schools were not released until the worst was underway, buses in ditches, 400+ students in my district alone having to spend the night at school. Thousands stranded on I20 and I75 in Atlanta, some of my family members included. My commute that usually takes 30 minutes took me over 6 hours today and I cant even be upset considering what some face tonight. Unbelievable.
Mass Chaos in Atlanta
- Thread starter UGA12
- Start date
Believe it or not it gets worse. There are daycare and school students still stuck on buses on 285 as of this post. Dozens if not hundreds of cars just left in the middle of the interstates due to being out of gas or just tired of waiting. My SIL had to abandon her car and walk a couple of miles to sleep in a hotel lobby. To say it is a fucked up mess is an understatement.
Holy cow! I hope the big hoax didn't hurt anyone.
Uga,
Stay safe brother. That's going to be a mess for days.
the last big storm we had in 2011 was a nightmare . Georgia officials said it would never happen again as they were not prepared with snow plows for secondary streets etc.
So this time the officials know it is coming. They can see it on every weather map WEATHER WARNING
so what do they do. They allow kids to go to school. They at the last minute they let them out at 2 PM
By that time alot of people see the snow really coming down and leave work early. Others trying to pick up
their kids.
So the Goverment realizes its too late to sand any roads as there are thousands of cars now on the road.
All them new trucks they bought , all the new salt and sand stations they set up........useless
someone is going to answer for this bebeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
people still sitting on 75 from last night.
had to be a way to work this out with emergency declared in state of Ga.
uhhhhhhh.................. no brains in Ga goverment
So this time the officials know it is coming. They can see it on every weather map WEATHER WARNING
so what do they do. They allow kids to go to school. They at the last minute they let them out at 2 PM
By that time alot of people see the snow really coming down and leave work early. Others trying to pick up
their kids.
So the Goverment realizes its too late to sand any roads as there are thousands of cars now on the road.
All them new trucks they bought , all the new salt and sand stations they set up........useless
someone is going to answer for this bebeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
people still sitting on 75 from last night.
had to be a way to work this out with emergency declared in state of Ga.
uhhhhhhh.................. no brains in Ga goverment
- Mar 19, 2006
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Hundreds of kids stranded
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...s-stranded-at-schools-in-georgia-alabama?lite
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...s-stranded-at-schools-in-georgia-alabama?lite
And Reed promised transparency while also urging motorists to stay home and let emergency crews respond to stranded drivers. Road crews will treat icy highways and snow-covered streets throughout the night, he said.
Both politicians said they had learned valuable lessons from the 2011 ice storm that brought metro Atlanta to its knees, and that closer coordination and more resources have prevented the gridlock from becoming worse.
?There are certain things we don?t have control over and one of those is the weather. This came rather unexpectedly. The time frame in which it hit was a very short time frame,? said Deal. ?And I think we?re better prepared now than we were in 2011.?
Still, to many who had endured the gridlock, the words rang hollow.
Thousands of motorists were trapped on clogged streets deep into the night, turning minutes-long commutes into hours-long affairs. The traffic jams in the storm?s wake also left students stuck in school buses and classrooms across metro Atlanta, and Deal said he?s dispatched state troopers to schools to help.
Atlanta?s mayor, dealing with his second major weather crisis since taking office in 2009, quickly addressed what he saw as the region?s greatest failing: timing.
?The fact of the matter is we do take responsibility for having the business community, government and schools basically leave all at once,? he said. ?We created a situation from a traffic standpoint that was very challenging.?
And remains so. More than 12 hours after the storm began to drop snow on metro Atlanta, maintenance crews and emergency responders still couldn?t get passed many clogged streets to clear accidents, rescue stranded motorists and cover icy streets with gravel and salt.
Reed and Deal said getting motorists off the road and home is their top priority, but state officials said they were still trying to determine just how many students were stranded on buses and at schools across the region.
Still, Reed said the response was far better than it was during the 2011 storm. He said crews already had about 70 pieces of equipment on the road - more than first-responders had at the same stage in 2011. And he noted no fatalities had been reported and that entrances to hospitals and fire stations were clear.
?We are coordinating our resources much better than we did in 2011 and we?re going to be out of this much faster as a result,? said Reed.
The governor urged drivers to stay off the streets as ice that?s melting will re-freeze amid plunging temperatures, causing more traffic headaches on Wednesday. He said the National Guard is working to extract ?fragile? motorists.
The public?s reaction to the storm and its handling has been constant and intense throughout the day, surging in the late-night hours with criticism during the leaders? press conference.
Whitney Dozier, a teacher, tweeted that she was frustrated that Deal, Reed and other local officials ?let us down once AGAIN.?
Another Twitter user, who writes from the account @warpedelf, said local and state officials ?Failed to be prepared? and that the transportation department?s workers ?need a public spanking.?
Atlantan Kevin Kiernan, who tweets from an eponymous handle, simply wrote this to the Twitterverse late Tuesday: ?Embarrassed for my city.?
Deal, though, pleaded for patience as crews work to unclog roads and stranded commuters slowly make their ways home.
?It is not a simple solution,? Deal said. ?I wish we could just wave a magic wand but we have to deal with reality.?
....................................................................................................................................
they could have prevented this by not having kids report to school
To get traffic moving, get emergency vehicles to the head of the jam and get them moving one at a time while you sand and salt the roads ahead of them
send in the National Guard with their humvees and get ppl home safely
get every wrecker in atlanta to load cars and take them to a storage yard for pick up on warm up
ppl spending 16 hrs on the highways from yesterday
that is truly unacceptable stupidity
Both politicians said they had learned valuable lessons from the 2011 ice storm that brought metro Atlanta to its knees, and that closer coordination and more resources have prevented the gridlock from becoming worse.
?There are certain things we don?t have control over and one of those is the weather. This came rather unexpectedly. The time frame in which it hit was a very short time frame,? said Deal. ?And I think we?re better prepared now than we were in 2011.?
Still, to many who had endured the gridlock, the words rang hollow.
Thousands of motorists were trapped on clogged streets deep into the night, turning minutes-long commutes into hours-long affairs. The traffic jams in the storm?s wake also left students stuck in school buses and classrooms across metro Atlanta, and Deal said he?s dispatched state troopers to schools to help.
Atlanta?s mayor, dealing with his second major weather crisis since taking office in 2009, quickly addressed what he saw as the region?s greatest failing: timing.
?The fact of the matter is we do take responsibility for having the business community, government and schools basically leave all at once,? he said. ?We created a situation from a traffic standpoint that was very challenging.?
And remains so. More than 12 hours after the storm began to drop snow on metro Atlanta, maintenance crews and emergency responders still couldn?t get passed many clogged streets to clear accidents, rescue stranded motorists and cover icy streets with gravel and salt.
Reed and Deal said getting motorists off the road and home is their top priority, but state officials said they were still trying to determine just how many students were stranded on buses and at schools across the region.
Still, Reed said the response was far better than it was during the 2011 storm. He said crews already had about 70 pieces of equipment on the road - more than first-responders had at the same stage in 2011. And he noted no fatalities had been reported and that entrances to hospitals and fire stations were clear.
?We are coordinating our resources much better than we did in 2011 and we?re going to be out of this much faster as a result,? said Reed.
The governor urged drivers to stay off the streets as ice that?s melting will re-freeze amid plunging temperatures, causing more traffic headaches on Wednesday. He said the National Guard is working to extract ?fragile? motorists.
The public?s reaction to the storm and its handling has been constant and intense throughout the day, surging in the late-night hours with criticism during the leaders? press conference.
Whitney Dozier, a teacher, tweeted that she was frustrated that Deal, Reed and other local officials ?let us down once AGAIN.?
Another Twitter user, who writes from the account @warpedelf, said local and state officials ?Failed to be prepared? and that the transportation department?s workers ?need a public spanking.?
Atlantan Kevin Kiernan, who tweets from an eponymous handle, simply wrote this to the Twitterverse late Tuesday: ?Embarrassed for my city.?
Deal, though, pleaded for patience as crews work to unclog roads and stranded commuters slowly make their ways home.
?It is not a simple solution,? Deal said. ?I wish we could just wave a magic wand but we have to deal with reality.?
....................................................................................................................................
they could have prevented this by not having kids report to school
To get traffic moving, get emergency vehicles to the head of the jam and get them moving one at a time while you sand and salt the roads ahead of them
send in the National Guard with their humvees and get ppl home safely
get every wrecker in atlanta to load cars and take them to a storage yard for pick up on warm up
ppl spending 16 hrs on the highways from yesterday
that is truly unacceptable stupidity
Friends and families still stuck on the interstate some 15-18 hours later. Very helpless feeling when there is zero you can do to help.
Wishing for the very best. Has Atlanta area not received snow before? I suppose down there, very few front wheel and 4 wheel drive vehicles, really need to know how to drive in snow with just plain rear wheel drive. Are pipes freezing too? I have heard of only one death so far so that is one positive considering the accidents. Yep looking at it live on CNN, wow, feel really bad for the Truckers.
Let me set the scene for you. Weather man called for worst to go South of Atlanta. Forecast changed in the early morning hours of Tue(it still went even further North than even this projected). Some school systems closed around the area and others went with the knowledge of an early release if needed. Well below average temps this winter already have the ground very cold so any precipitation is going to stick. It hit hard and it it hit fast. As schools and businesses saw the writing on the wall by about 10am a mad scramble began to get people home which essentially swamped every major road. There is already a very limited amount of sand/salt trucks and what the city/state has are useless when the roads are parking lots. An often overlooked portion of this equation by most northern and midwestern flatlanders is that this area is anything but flat. There are many elevation changes of 200,400, and 600+ feet that are quite a bit harder to navigate than your average "flat" land. Now I am sure that 3 inches of snow and ice is a no-brainer for those that live in cities with proper amounts of equipment, chains for their tires, and probably most important flatter terrain, but this is far from "Have they ever seen snow before" or "you just have to know how to drive in it". In the end, the magnitude of this situation could have been reduced with some different decisions from government and businesses alike, but it most definitely would have never been totally prevented because of the quickness of accumulation and lack of resources and tax dollars devoted to these types of situation.
pretty much right on except your 1000 AM timing\
The schools let our at 2 pm right as the snow was really falling hard and turning to sleet in some cases
I was in union city at 1000 and not even snowing yet. Drove to Tucker area and ate some lunch at 1130.
Still no snow falling hard.
On the road at 130 PM and it was starting to fall hard then.
They had plenty of time to make good decisions.
look who is in charge
they are just stupid
By 1130 there was an inch of snow on the ground and building fast in the western metro area as it had began snowing about 10. I am sure it was a little later in the middle of Atlanta but people started to see what was coming and essentially ran straight into it as most of the interstates were "jammed" by 1230. There were some leadership breakdowns of course, but there were also things that just were not going to be prevented given all the circumstances.
Regardless of the whose and whys, it is a very large shit sandwich!
yeh now that yu say that part , I remember hearing on weather station that Cherokee and Cobb cty were very slippery at that point.
I went east to avoid that and managed to beat it out of there.
I went east to avoid that and managed to beat it out of there.
Fuck you and your dumpster fire of a city. I only wish it was you instead of decent humans stuck on the interstate you miserable piece off shit.
And in Massachusetts when they give us the day off or early release so they can clear the roads without fighting traffice Republican Radio goes insane. Best thing is to keep people off the roads so these situations do not happen.
Very sad situation and equally disappointing for us trying to get to Vegas. Missed flight. Can't get out of neighborhood, temps staying below freezing through tomorrow late, flights backed up for rescheduling, etc. Regardless, have got to be back for Monday Regional meetings at 8AM, so may not be worth going out for just 2.5 days there if we can get pout by Friday. . Very bummed. I-285 and 75 toward airport a ghost town even still. Oh well, not meant to be. :nooo:
