I took these pictures on I59 near my house yesterday. These are OTR truck drivers that drive all over the country in all kinds of winter weather and they still ended up in the ditch. It wasn't 2" of snow, it was 2" of mix that turned to a solid sheet of ice overnight. None of you snickering Yankees would have done any better on it. I've lived all over the country & driven in all kinds of winter weather, these roads were the worst I've ever seen. 2' of fluffy snow in Minnesota isn't the same. I'd love to have seen some of those running their mouths about "southern drivers" come & show us how it's done. They'd be the first in the ditch.
these are the same OTR truckers who wind up in the creek just west of town here because its the first time they descended down a couple of thousand feet in elevation in a few short mile, then people claim there are not enough warning signs. If your driving through the mountains and look a head you will notice prairie way below you and not that far in front of you , most people in Motor homes and trucks slow down, stop at the brake check with flashing light and give the brakes time to cool off. Not southerners, they are always the ones in the creek .
are you allowed to call it "black ice" when it exists, or am I being racist?
Just don't call it thug ice.
Hit a long, felt like a mile, patch of black ice about 60 going across Wyoming one night. Being clear ice you don't see it in the lights until you're on it. The Interstate was clear and dry all the way up to it. Fortunately the road went straight and so did the car until it (gradually) slowed down to a safe speed.
Hint to southerners. Squashing the pedals or jerking the wheel breaks traction and gets you into a skid. Plan ahead so you can react slowly, like start to slow down gradually way before you normally would at that icy intersection.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
Well, anyone who has driven through Atlanta knows it sucks...in good weather. Anyone who has driven through Atlanta knows how crazy the drivers are if there is ANY moisture and will know it sucks 10x worse. Now throw in some ice and you have ice zombies attacking the highways eating brains and not an AR15 in sight!
My wife sat in that crap for nine hours stressed out of her mind for a mere 12 miles. We both grew up in Cincinnati and anyone who lived there for any length of time knows how crappy that weather is and are well seasoned to drive in about anything.
If the news calls for flurries or extreme cold the counties will typically call off schools for the day(s) in advance and take a beating for being such "weather wimps." When the weather folks predict less than an inch and everything was going to be south of the city right up until the first flurries hit the ground and it turned out the complete opposite on both counts and the county follows their advice...you get called weather wimps. So I guess your better off being overly precautious than being caught with your pants at your ankles.
Denver is a pretty large city for the mountains but has 645,000 people and Atlanta probably had twice that amount of people hit the roads at one time in their vehicles on a 3 major highway bottleneck that became a hockey rink within 2 hours. You could call it a clusterfuk and be damn skippy saying so.
Greater Atlanta will never budget Chicago's ice trucks because this typically happens about every 3 or 4 years for 1 or 2 days at a time.
This is a classic example of why you should never put your trust in the government to bail you out and the weatherman even less! But even moreso, convince your boss that your not a pussy and let you head home early before it gets worse!
Two and 1/2 to 3 inches of snow in Atlanta, Ga and the place is paralyzed for 2 days. We wouldn't even break out the plows for 2 1/2 inches. The real travesty is that half the population is blaming the government for not warning them and/or failing to clear thousands of miles of streets and highways within an hour or so. I live on the other side of this nation, and even I knew it was coming. Don't they have phones, radios, or TV's there?
This picture was taken the next morning on a neighborhood street. This is pretty much what every single square inch of roadway in North Georgia looked like 3 hours after the snow started falling - a sheet of ice that's anywhere from a half inch thick to an inch in a half.
Normally, they just close the schools if the forecast is for more than a dusting of snow. The forecast predicted a light dusting of snow and expected nothing of significance until after 4PM. Instead it started snowing heavily at 11am and it started sticking an hour later. All the school boards decided to let out schools - add 1.5 million cars, what could possibly go wrong.
You rarely if ever get snow that doesn't turn to a sheet of ice. Also, good you don't break out the plows we don't HAVE the plows. This city has grown from 2.5m people in 1980 to 6m in 2014. The majority of the populace are transplants from the Midwest and Northeast who have spent many years in cold climates. We've had many snows where it's nothing, just a powedered dusting and there are no incidents. This time was totally different, pure ICE almost immediately. We hear the same crap year after year from newbies to the area about how they can drive in it with no problems and quite a few of them get in accidents too, sometimes by their own doing other times from an out of control car.
I lived in Michigan in '98-'99 myself. Drove in thick snow plenty of times. The ice in Atlanta on Tuesday was nothing at all like anything I've ever driven in Michigan, Colorado, Montana, or Wyoming. You can have solid ice, I'll stay home.
People died, interstates gridlocked literally for 24 hours and people had to sleep in cars in Birmingham and Atlanta because of all the wrecks big rigs that couldn't be moved and there simply was no way to reroute people. Kids had to sleep at school and some were trapped on buses miles from home until the wee hours of the morning.
I see nothing comedic or wimpy about people's suffering but then again I saw it, yanked people out of ditches all day long, and shuttled stranded people home as opposed to armchair quarterbacking from a small town 2000 miles away.
Sums it up rather nicely.
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. � WARREN G. BENNIS
We use our initiative and stay home when it gets bad. Don't need no steenkin' mayor to tell us it's a bad idea to drive in a bad storm.
Still not getting it. It did not turn bad or even look like it was going to turn bad until everyone was already at work/school. It happened unexpectely and went bad within a couple of hours time. Damn, there are some thick-headed people here.
Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
However, experience driving in such stuff, and the seat of the pants wisdom most sensible folks gain by doing it, makes a big difference when the conditions get so bad.
The average person in the southeast doesn't have such experience and, in the Atlanta situation, it seems clear that not much wisdom was applied to either prep or driving.
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. � WARREN G. BENNIS
Birmingham would be a special nightmare with all the hills, some pretty good slopes in that city.
Something like that (grin)
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. � WARREN G. BENNIS
Denver is a pretty large city for the mountains but has 645,000 people and Atlanta probably had twice that amount of people hit the roads at one time in their vehicles on a 3 major highway bottleneck that became a hockey rink within 2 hours. You could call it a clusterfuk and be damn skippy saying so.
Metro Denver has a population of nearly 2.9 million people, and has a growth rate that has consistently outpaced the national rate every decade since the 1930s. The region grew steadily in the past 10 years. And by 2020, Metro Denver's population is anticipated to increase to more than 3.2 million.
To proactively plan for the region's growth, the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) created Metro Vision 2035, a long-range strategy that addresses land use planning, development, and transportation while preserving Metro Denver's unparalleled quality of life. Metro Vision concentrates development in a defined 750-square-mile urban growth boundary and identifies guidelines for nearly 70 high density, mixed use developments in the region, many around transit centers.
A large portion of Metro Denver's population growth is due to in-migration of highly educated workers from other states. Net migration represented one-third of the region's total population change between 2002 and 2012. Metro Denver is estimated to have net-migration of 15,400 residents in 2012. The top states for in-migration are California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida.
Metro Denver also ranks first among large U.S. metros for total population gain in the 25- to 34-year age group between 2008 and 2010.
Northern Colorado's 2012 population is 572,967, with roughly 54 percent of the population located in Larimer County and 46 percent located in Weld County. Between 2002 and 2012, Northern Colorado average annual population growth (2.1 percent) was significantly faster than growth reported statewide (1.4).
Liberalism is a mental disorder that leads to social disease.
We use our initiative and stay home when it gets bad. Don't need no steenkin' mayor to tell us it's a bad idea to drive in a bad storm.
Still not getting it...
Yes I do, a little wry humor at southerner's expense. Or an attempt at it. The difference up here is we've had enough experience with forecasts being not spot on to err on the side of caution. And the consequences of "missed it by that much" with a blizzard can be much more severe.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
If we were to err on the side of caution we would be lampooned by you very same people for not going in to work/school over a couple of inches of snow. This is just another excuse to make fun of us poor dumb Southerners. Normally I would not care, but this is the time that put me over the top.
Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
so you guys down south had just ice magically form on the roads? and there wasn't more than 6 hours notice? hmmmm, I wish I could run a cable from my house to yours because we even heard the south was going to get hit by snow and cold 2 days before it happened. that I didn't know, I'm sorry. I'll post up weather I hear for all ya'll when it's sounding bad.
Beware of any old man in a profession where one usually dies young.
Don't let it get you down TnBigBore, just guys having some fun.
Hell I have thousands of miles in 4 wheel drive under my belt starting at the age of 16 and I've put them in the ditch, and over the hill once too. Get out and about in all kinds of bad weather and your luck will run out eventually. Pride cometh before a fall they do say.
Hell the closest I've ever come to cashing in was during the blizzard of '93 and that came about solely as a result of pride. Not my pride mind you, but pride nonetheless. Me and my brother were riding with my uncle back from a trip to pick up grapes and put up a batch of wine. Started in on what a POS the old 4 wheel drive my uncle drove was. Next thing you know he's taken a left hand turn to go up over a pretty bad mountain. It was bad enough at the bottom. At the top it was murder.
A full afternoon of trying to get him unstuck resulted in nothing more than all of us being frozen solid to our clothes, completely exhausted, and buried under a couple feet of snow in 20 degree weather and winds howling like a bat straight out of hell. All of it miles from any help whatsoever. We had one six pack of beer, 10 pounds of grapes, a can of sardines, and a couple cans of Copenhagen... I said the hell with it and walked off that mountain after talking the others into leaving the truck. We left right before dark and it probably saved our lives. Never forget that walk out.
Anyhow pride is a dangerous thing. Get ice on the road and you can almost see the Grim Reaper smiling through the windshield at you.
True enough, should not let it get to me. I remember the Blizzard of 93 very well myself. I drove from Knoxville, TN to Birmingham, AL during the height of that one. It took me about nine hours and I was in a two wheel drive Ford F-100. Birmingham got 17", Chattanooga got 21" and Knoxville a similar amount. Luckily I knew enough even back then in my 20s to put a few bags of sand in the bed over my rear wheels and take it slow and easy. That was just snow though, and not a solid sheet of ice. The weather people did get that one right. They had just cried wolf so many times before that winter that most did not believe it would actually happen.
Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
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