Atlanta
Seems to have had some issues.
I get that it’s not usual for them to have this sort of weather, but around here, there are drifts sometimes as tall as a man- down there, you could have pulled up the hood on your hoodie and walked home through all 2″ of snow. Anyway, I hope everyone made it home safe with little damage to person or property.
Also, I have to say, there is NOTHING like having an AWD vehicle which has the oomph to seriously overpower the drivetrain going 60 down an icy road sideways with all four tires throwing up roostertails of slush while the 50something owner grins like Alex in Clockwork orange. if you have ever watched Mika Hakkinen flick and you didn’t involuntarily stomp your foot down on an imaginary accelerator, you will never understand.
16 comments Og | Uncategorized
“pulled up the hood on your hoodie and walked home through all 2″ of snow”
Snow wasn’t the problem.
Ref picture.
See all that glossy pavement? It’s not wet. And there’s not a set of snow tires or chains in the whole state, or enough salt trucks to melt a Wal-Mart parking lot.
lord, I know what the problem was, but again, you could have walked home from wherever your car was stranded. Or walked somewhere safe.
“there is NOTHING like having an AWD vehicle which has the oomph to seriously overpower the drivetrain going 60 down an icy road sideways with all four tires throwing up roostertails of slush”
One of the reasons I drive the Dodge.
Once you get the turbo wound up and the crank turning at 3.5K, it is all fun.
Yeah baby!
That can indeed be fun. last time I was around a 4×4 throwing rooster tails out of all four tires is was a ranger with and injected 454 running in a mud pit. Could go from standing to full tilt fast enough run a 100 yard course in 2 seconds and change. Now that was a machine.
I’m willing to cut Atlanta some slack on this one. It doesn’t matter how good you are in the snow if the roads in front of you and behind are at a dead stop with other spun-out cars.
And I would add to the joys of AWD the additional happiness from having high ground clearance and a healthy skid plate. I have left the Interstate to join a side street without an offramp at least once.
Yeah, the problem was black ice accidents blocking traffic. The issue in Atlanta is most commutes are 40 miles. Nice walk home. There was an ice storm in Atlanta 30 years ago when I was at Emory. I took my lab Prudence down to Ponce de Leon Avenue and watched the slow motion wrecks. The ones the driver knew he couldn’t prevent, 5 miles per hour, 30 seconds in the making. A guy would slide by, look at me, throw up his hands, and point to the car he was going to eventually hit. It was awesome.
Indeed! That’s the best part of the whole affair- offroading!
I’m specifically referring to the “Thousands of people stuck in their cars”. We have plenty of people around here who can’t drive, but leaving your car here, unless you’re prepared, can be a death sentence. In ATL, it was- well, even at 9 degrees, not remotely life threatening, just get out of your damned car and walk to someplace warm and wait it out.
Indeed. Simply walking a block or three would take you to a place where it is warm and dry….unlike here in NWI where the walk of a 1/4 mile can literally kill you in some weather.
Was watching a news channel where the overriding complaint was “the government didn’t tell us to go home until it was too late!” Assholes. yer big boys and girlz. act like it, make yer own decisions.
I just want you to know how badly I suffered here, what with 3″ icicles dripping from the porch steps and truck’s bumper. Suffered.
Good thing I stayed in and had hot coffee, tea and chocolate at hand. I don’t know how I’d have survived, otherwise.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
roflmao.
I was in one of those slo-mo wrecks when I had my 74 Pinto (God I miss that car). I hit one, three hit me before I could get out. Walked to a discount store a block and a half away and called my dad to pick me up. Some guys moved my car off the road. It was fine; I was in shock. Haven’t been able to drive on snowy roads since.
What grills my cheese sandwich is what B touched on that I’ll expand; the Katrina Syndrome of “it’s all the government’s fault I sat in three feet of water waiting for the gubmint to get me and now I have gangrere and it’s all their fault and where’s my hefty settlement?” I would’ve liked to see the governor get on TV and say, “I’m not your momma, the mayor’s not your poppa, the school city’s not your Bubba. You knew what it was, you were told, and you took it upon your own volition to go out into it. Now before you get a blamestorming session going (Og,you don’t know how often I’ve used that term that I learned from you) on which official is to blame, put your big boy and girl pants on and own your decision. Our rescue people will try their best to get you when it’s ***safe for them to do so***. Because you’re a fool doesn’t mean we’ll order them to be the same darn fools and risk their lives in return.”
But of course if he said that, being and R to boot, he’d be called a heartless sexist racist homophobe and it’s all Bush’s fault because he hates black people. Now my auto premiums will go up because 2000+ people decided to make scrap metal out of 2000+ perfectly good rides. “But I have 4WD! I thought my Explorer could do black ice since it scaled a red rock in Nevada 90 degrees vertical in the TV commercial!” Even a tank tread can’t do black ice. It’s been 20 years since I did that under orders on frozen cobblestones dodging 500 year old structures, and my unmentionables have yet to descend from the experience.
Yeah, everybody in cold climates are snickering. And yes, more people should have shown some personal responsibility: Paid attention to weather reports (which were “a dusting, a dusting, a dusting, 2-3 INCHES!”) bought groceries earlier, put gas in the damn tank, looked out the window … not waited around for the boss man, the mayor, the governor, the school superintendent to tell them what to do. None of the above mentioned authorities should have sent everybody home AT THE SAME FREAKING TIME. Literally a million idiots took to the expressway at the exact same time … AND put all the schoolbuses on the road … AND all at the exact same time the salt and sand trucks were supposed to be on the roads. Actual love note from the DOT: “We can’t do our work until you MOVE.” You can’t plow around gridlock.
Lessons learned from this one, I hope.
No one can drive on black ice except maybe Joie Chitwood, and he’s dead. (And the rest of us don’t feel so good ourselves.)
Why didn’t they walk? Some did. Thousands of abandoned cars. Hard to walk around jacknifed tractor trailers … afraid someone else will hit you .(a valid fear in Atlanta anytime) … gonna walk 20, 30, 40 miles home? In 10 degree weather?
It’s not all awful stories. Big kudos to all the people who provided services to strangers … picked them up, took them home, opened homes and businesses as warming shelters … passed out food, coffee, soup, water, gasoline, jumped off cars, moved cars, and in general pitched in and took care of others, sometimes at great personal risk and for no compensation whatsoever except “thank you.”
Jenny