Relevant: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b9/7f/9f/b97f9f50763aad2f81ae23ac0cb4cbde.jpg
(Having lived in Tennessee, Virginia, and North Dakota, I can testify that this is completely accurate.)
So basically, it’s the same scenario as Los Angeles getting 3 to 4 inches of rain. Gotcha.
I live in Atlanta. My workplace shut down at noon today, as did most of the other universities around. Spring classes for us don’t start until Monday, so if it was going to happen, this is a good time for it.
It’s not going to shut things down for 3 days, but they’ll say that to keep people off the roads which will likely ice over (where I live we’ve been having freezing rain followed by “ice pellets” since around 5-5:30 PM. Before that it was a cold rain starting around 1:30 PM. )
The biggest problem right now is that so many people remember the 2014 “Snowpocalypse” where people were stuck in their cars/on the interstate for many hours. That was a function of very poor planning. 1) Forecasts were right that it would start icing mid morning. But most school systems in the area had classes anyway 2) All the school systems and workplaces in the area let out at the same time, dumpling ~1 million cars and buses on the road. Sure, that many cars travel our roads anyway but over rush hours that last from 4PM-7PM. So you got that gridlock, and all the people who don’t know how to handle slippery conditions when it’s just raining, and the combination was terrible. That event is still close enough in our memories that we’re a bit over reactive about shutting down early.
All that said, this has been the thing that has annoyed me most about the pre-“storm” reporting. TEH DRAMAS (or the attempts to increase the drama).
As I mentioned, I’m around a 2 hour drive from Atlanta (to the sort of North-East.) My snow totals from this storm were in the 1 to 3 millimeters range.
Where I am (inside 285), there’s a layer of ice with a dusting of snow on top. I’ve not gone outside yet, so couldn’t tell you how thick the ice is. I don’t think it’s very thick.
Fri. evening the NWS was predicting 1-4". The local CBS affiliate was saying 4-6". It was still just rain at this point. I was keeping an eye on the radar all day. My prediction: a light dusting.
This AM: A very light dusting.
So, no driving problem, right? Wrong! Some of that rain is now frozen solid on the roads. It was 23 this morning. High predicted of 32. Low tonight 16. Things are going to be very slick for a while.
The enormous cost of having enough sanding trucks to deal with this compared to the weak benefit is staggering. It just doesn’t pay. And the cost to cars and infrastructure if they go the mega-salting route is even worse.
When I lived in the frozen north with salt dumped everywhere, all the time, we still had several days a winter where it was time to just stay home. So why can’t Atlantans stay home, too?
So everyone keeps things chill for the day. No biggie. It doesn’t happen that often.
I used to live in VA Beach, and when it snowed, they didn’t even attempt to plow the secondary streets. You were on your own getting out of your neighborhood.
Also, I remember the weather reporter on TV patiently explaining that yes, you still had to stop at red lights when it was snowing. :eek::smack:
OK, I’m seeing on the weather channel that you folks got an ice storm instead.
NM… ice storms always suck and short of strapping these things to the bottoms of your boots, its dangerous to even walk outside.
Driving should be avoided unless you have a Zamboni or a dog sled*.
*Important PSA- Tying your dogs to a flexible flyer and shouting, “YYAAAH-Puppies…! Budweiser…! MUSH…!” is NOT a dog-sled…
A week or two back, we had “freezing fog.” Unlike freezing rain, snow, etc… which just puts ice on the top surface of things, the freezing fog solidifies on all sides of things. (Wasn’t thick enough to be a problem, though–just a neat effect.)
It’s not even that people don’t know how to drive in the snow. You know how driving on an inch of snow is different from driving on a clear road? It isn’t. The problem is that people don’t know that they know how to drive in the snow.
Clearly (heh) this must have been considered before but… couldn’t snow removal equipment and operators be brought in from another area when this sort of weather is predicted for areas that are not used to it? Seems expensive but not nearly as expensive as the economic loss due to accidents, deaths and missed work.
Of course this could only work if the other area didn’t need the equipment at the time but there’s gotta be some Northern-ish city that doesn’t have a snow emergency right now. Is this ever done? Has it ever been?
I don’t understand why people from northern climes are sniggering at Atlanta. Snow and ice are dangerous to drive in, especially ice. And it’s completely understandable that local governments don’t have the same snow removal equipment as places where it’s needed more regularly.
Good luck to our Georgian Dopers! Stay safe and off the roads!
It’s…I think today is Saturday, January 17, 2017. By the position of the Sun, it’s probably mid-morning. (The Sun! What a cruel mockery the Sun is now!)
I have a fair amount of wooden furniture, so I should be able to stay warm for a while longer. There is food here in my apartment–several cans of tuna, some beans, and some peanut butter. I recently had my front door reinforced, and so far the Others haven’t been able to get in.
My laptop battery is fully charged, and I was able to get a dial-up connection to an old BellSouth number that is still working. I have a connection to the outside world! I will have to be careful of the laptop battery, but I probably have several hours of usable power.
I will try to keep posting for as long as I can.
Great God, this is an awful place.
That onion probably saved your life by warding off the insane killer plow driver of the Blizzard of '79.
Apparently people panic everywhere, not just in Atlanta, and oddly the default survival mechanism is to frantically make fresh french toast or pancakes.. 
People are idiots.
So my home, Atlanta metro, is forecast once a year (or 2 or 3 years) to get some winter weather. That’s predictable. What is just as predictable is this thread.
Okay, let’s cover the municipalities.
[ul]
[li]we don’t have snow removal equipment[/li][li]we don’t have huge stockpiles of road treatment chemicals[/li][li]we don’t have seasoned snow plow operators who know how and when to do what they do[/li][li]when don’t have a huge infrastructure to support a fleet of vehicles/employees/supplies that we would use once every other year or so[/li][/ul]
Lets talk about the people
[ul]
[li]Snow tires? seriously, I bet you can’t find a single tire dealer in ATL that stocks snow tires[/li][li]All season tires? Less than 1/2 of cars here, I bet. [/li][li]Snow chains? Again, seriously? To use once every 2-3 years? Nope, I’d get more use out of a croquet set.[/li][li]salt or similar for sidewalks? Nope. I’ve lived in GA for 20 years and have never owned a bag of driveway salt.[/li][li]Know how to drive on snow? I do. I lived in the mountains of VA before moving here. Guess what, all my (probably rusty) skills don’t overcome a sheet of black ice.[/li][/ul]
I don’t want my local and state governments spending billions on an infrastructure to deal with a snow storm that happens 2-3 times a decade. I’d rather see money spent to
[ul]
[li]repair Atlanta’s sewer system that has parts that were last touched when they were built around 1900[/li][li]expand our pathetic mass transportation system, since horrible traffic happens every fucking day, not 2-3 times a decade[/li][/ul]
So, my fellow Dopers who live in the northern climes, here is a deal. Don’t guffaw at us when one inch of snow shuts our city down, and we won’t laugh at you when your cars break in half from all the rust and corrosion.
Deal?
All y’all sure have a heap of military trucks, military people, military shovels, and military dirt, so use some of those six-hundred billion or so greenbacks to militarily shovel that military dirt into the backs of yer military deuce-and-a-halfs, and then militarily shovel it off on the icy civilian roads.
And yes, I’m serious.
Of course Toronto and its tiny perfect mayor were laughed at by the rest of the nation for being such wusses, but the fact remains that the military helped get the job done.
I realize that it would not be cost effective for many areas of the USA to have sufficient equipment and personnel available to adequately handle rare winter storms, but you do have sufficient equipment and personnel available through your military to take a big bite out of the problems caused by rare winter storms simply by using the Armstrong Ice Mitigation Method.
And for those worried about being trapped in their homes for a few days, collect your parents ahead of time, and then enjoy the down time and cuddle up with your honey and your kids.
The snow removal budget alone in Milwaukee is $8 million or 18% of your Atlanta Public Works budget. That stuff isn’t cheap to just keep laying around.
And here I was going to organize a benefit to help you out.
Well, so much for… Salt-Aid…
Very true but with the way it’s been lately, the roads have been a mess. Where I am they’re still covered in ice. I hadn’t heard about the salt thing, that’s neat. Though I dunno how good it’ll do us. My town doesn’t have any trucks to lay down the salt lol The big storms of 07 and was it 13? Recently. But our roads only got cleared after enough residents in big trucks ran them up and down the roads enough to make them passable for smaller cars. Luckily it looks like it’s not going to be that bad this weekend.