Atlanta Gambled With Winter Storm and Lost

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Kim Severson reports at the NYT that by keeping schools and government offices open, and by not requiring tractor-trailers to use chains or stay out of the city's core, metropolitan Atlanta gambled and lost. "We don't want to be accused of crying wolf," said Gov. Nathan Deal, who pointed out that the storm had been forecast to just brush the south side of the city. If the city had been closed and the storm had been as light as some forecasters had told him it was going to be, he said, money would have been lost, and people would have complained. Tuesday's snowfall, that brought only 2-3 inches of snow to most of the Atlanta metro area, and the hundreds of thousands of motorists who flooded the metropolitan area's roadways as the storm moved in — created travel nightmares for commuters, truckers, students and their families. Some commuters were stuck in their vehicles up to 18 hours after they first hit the roads. Others abandoned their cars in or beside the road. Hundreds of students spent the night at school. Some surrounding cities, including Hiram, Woodstock, Sandy Springs and Acworth, opened emergency shelters for stranded motorists. "It's an easy joke made by Northerners," wrote Joe Sterling and Sarah Aarthun. "A dusting of snow shuts down an entire city and hapless drivers white-knuckle their way through a handful of flurries." Further North streets are salted well in advance of a coming storm but Atlanta doesn't have the capacity for that kind of treatment. "We simply have never purchased the amount of equipment necessary," said meteorologist Chad Myers adding Atlanta had plenty of warning. "Why would you in a city that gets one snow event every three years? Why would you buy 500 snowplows and salt trucks and have them sit around for 1,000 days, waiting for the next event?""

Comments

Re:Pffft

[Greyfox]

That's what they SHOULD have done. You may not be prepared for your one snow event every three years, but if you're not, you fucking shut your city down when the forecast calls for 2 inches! If that costs more than keeping that fleet of 500 vehicles and stockpile of magnesium chloride on hand, then maybe you should be better prepared the next time it happens!

Re:Canadian driving

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I'm currently down in Georgia on work-related travel. I'm in Columbus, but (hopefully) will by flying out of Atlanta later today. I've been here all week. I live in New Jersey.

Yesterday morning, I experienced perhaps the most dangerous driving conditions I've ever seen, and I've lived in Maine. What most people don't understand is that places that handle this type of weather regularly are prepared for it. I've been told that there are eight salt-spreading trucks in Georgia. Eight, for the entire state. How the fuck were they supposed to prepare? Purchase more snow management equipment on short notice? Maintain a large fleet of trucks for the rare occasions that stuff like this happens?

When I was driving in to work yesterday, the roads were nearly deserted. The few cars that were on the road were flying all over the place. While it's possible to drive [relatively] safely in such conditions, it's a skill that I don't expect Georgians to have. This just doesn't happen that often down here.

The roads were entirely covered in a solid sheet of ice. Ice, with no road salt, no gravel, no sand. If you live in an area that regularly receives some snowfall, you've never driven on anything quite like this, because you've got snow crews prepping roads before the snowfall, plowing for the duration of the snowfall, and then conditioning the road surfaces after the snowfall. Georgia has none of that. After having experienced this shit for myself, as a "yankee", all I can say is that I will never again make light of how the south "shuts down" for what I would consider to be mild flurries. Without any of the snow management gear, mild flurries (followed by a deep freeze) make for some truly horrendous driving conditions.

Re:I grew up in Atlanta...

[unimacs]

hmmm. I've lived in the Minneapolis area for close to 50 years and I'm tempted to call BS on this one, - at least partly. The first snowfall of the year does lead to more spinouts and traffic delays than usual because at least some people have forgotten how to drive in that kind of weather.

But "panic reigns"?

Uh no

If you lived in Minneapolis proper you'd know that in residential areas (outside of snow emergency routes) you may not even see a plow for that small amount of snow. Most streets within a mile of our house have had layers of compacted snow and ice on them for weeks. Yes it is dryer here on the whole but we get plenty of days with precip when the temp is hovering around freezing. It is quite common to go from rain, to freezing rain, then to snow and have the whole mess freeze over.

My guess is that a big reason you find it easier to get here around in winter is that the other drivers know what they are doing. But the other reason is that city has the equipment and know how to deal with snow and ice.

Re:Pffft

[ShaunC]

NOAA/NWS may be underfunded, but they do an absolutely outstanding job. They are the only government agency that I trust, implicitly, up to and including with my life (I live in "tornado alley"). NOAA/NWS has no political bent, they use real science to make increasingly more accurate forecasts, and better products come out almost every year. Huge portions of the US population and economy rely upon NOAA/NWS, not the least of which being every single person in an aircraft at any given time, from airline transport pilot all the way down to cropdusters - and of course the passengers.

You can insult my government all day, every day; I do it too. But don't question the ability of NOAA/NWS.