This is so wrong, but

[motzie]

I am having a hard time not laughing at some of these pictures coming out of Atlanta after their epic storm. And really, CNN, with the dramatic headline, "IT DIDN'T HAVE TO HAPPEN"

There is like a single inch of snow. I'm not seeing any reports of accident related deaths, just lots of people spending hours on end in their cars on the highway.

[cuddlyevil]

I have a friend who is stranded in Houston right now because his flight got cancelled.

[margarita]

LOL at "IT DIDN'T HAVE TO HAPPEN"

A wee bit dramatic, no?

[motzie]

Ugh, now I'm reading kids had to stay overnight in schools. Why the heck didn't they cancel?

[partiallysunny]

::giggles::

I know it's because they aren't prepared for such weather, but it still makes me giggle.

[Chirp]

My employer has an office outside Atlanta. I'm in PA, a couple hours from Philly.

We get a foot of snow, we still have to report to work. The GA office gets an inch and they shut down the building for the remainder of the week. What the mother...?

[Muddled]

I miss living in the south so much.

[sparksfly]

Jan 29, 2014 11:23:30 GMT -5 Chirp said:

My employer has an office outside Atlanta. I'm in PA, a couple hours from Philly.

We get a foot of snow, we still have to report to work. The GA office gets an inch and they shut down the building for the remainder of the week. What the mother...?

My old job the corporate office was in AZ, so they didn't get the concept of weather related issues. The decision would fall to the region, but they would get grief from corporate. And don't get me started on the day our parking lot was a solid sheet of ice. Our managers told the office staff to stay home. Problem with that? We had to either us a vacation day or work on Saturday. Since the region was open, we should have been at work! Didn't matter we didn't get a say.

[bowies]

My FB feed has been epic. Apparently a lot of my old sorority sisters live in Atlanta and they are FURIOUS. I guess they have a right to be...no one thought to cancel school/work or at least do an early release. We got 10 inches here in VA and most people were home before a single flake fell. We know our weaknesses here and plan around them.

[neonpink]

I live in Atlanta. The problem is they should have sent everyone home earlier when it started sticking. Instead people got trapped on the roads. The roads turned to ice and we don't have the experience to drive on ice up hills. Our entire city is full of hills. I walked to work today and all the streets are sheets of ice.
We have few salt trucks, no chains for our tires and little to no practice driving in weather like this. This happens once every 3 years. The last time in 2011 my street froze so much you could ice skate on it.

that's a video of it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg7Rtm4dSMY

My FSIL could not get home last night. It took her 9 hours to get to her brothers house she gave up trying to get to her home. A drive that usually is 25 minutes. People were running out of fuel in their cars not being able to get anywhere. One lady was on the way to give birth and ended up having her baby in the car on the interstate.

My happy ass was in a pub last night, enjoying some beer and then I went and enjoyed sledding with people in the park.

In the same token that you guys giggle at us we laugh when northerners bitch about summer heat waves that are 85+ and our regular days lately are in the 100s.

[ECB]

Jan 29, 2014 11:56:21 GMT -5 bowies said:

 We know our weaknesses here and plan around them.

100%!  Snow in the forecast?  I tell my boss I'll be leaving early.  There was that one incident 2 years ago where it rained before it snowed so they couldn't salt the roads - people were stuck on the highway for 8+ hours.  For some reason I had gone home early that day.  Not because of the weather.  But ever since then - if I hear "snow", i pay attention to the full forecast and make plans based on it!

[neonpink]

Since we don't really get snow often we don't have proper sleds. There were a few people that had them and snowboards. The ingenuity that everyone had to make a sled was pretty funny. Last night I saw everything from cardboard, lids to storage totes, wake boards, recycling bin lids, vinyl signs, and half of trash cans and a kayak. The absolute funniest sledding device and two people brought them were double air mattresses. It surprisingly made a really good device to go down hill. Someone loaned me a proper sled which was fun.
I'm originally from Michigan so I love the snow when I get the two days to play in it.

[motzie]

Jan 29, 2014 11:56:21 GMT -5 bowies said:

My FB feed has been epic. Apparently a lot of my old sorority sisters live in Atlanta and they are FURIOUS. I guess they have a right to be...no one thought to cancel school/work or at least do an early release. We got 10 inches here in VA and most people were home before a single flake fell. We know our weaknesses here and plan around them.

This is just crazy. Don't they normally overreact and preemptively close everything? I feel bad for those poor kids.

[motzie]

Jan 29, 2014 12:00:54 GMT -5 neonpink said:

Yes, exactly.

So no one went on the news and said GO HOME NOW, close everything, the highways will be officially closing at ___blank___ time?

[bowies]

One of my local friends bitched on FB about businesses closing early yesterday and I lightly took her task for expecting others to put her anticipated needs above their own employees' safety. Shit, give them a ring before you go out of your way to visit them, you know how closures work around here. I was happy to see I wasn't the only one thinking she was smoking crack.

[neonpink]

Jan 29, 2014 12:13:58 GMT -5 motzie said:

Jan 29, 2014 12:00:54 GMT -5 neonpink said:

Yes, exactly.

So no one went on the news and said GO HOME NOW, close everything, the highways will be officially closing at ___blank___ time?

Motzie, usually they close preemptively if it even looks like a flurry.  I don't know why they didn't this time. I saw on the news this morning a school bus full of kids just finally got back to the school at 5am. School buses are not warm. I feel so sorry for those kids.

[bowies]

Jan 29, 2014 12:09:22 GMT -5 motzie said:

Jan 29, 2014 11:56:21 GMT -5 bowies said:

My FB feed has been epic. Apparently a lot of my old sorority sisters live in Atlanta and they are FURIOUS. I guess they have a right to be...no one thought to cancel school/work or at least do an early release. We got 10 inches here in VA and most people were home before a single flake fell. We know our weaknesses here and plan around them.

This is just crazy. Don't they normally overreact and preemptively close everything? I feel bad for those poor kids.

I don't think the original forecast called for snow accumulation.  I think Atlanta was supposed to be in the freezing rain band?  Regardless, since it's not an every winter thing, the people in charge don't really "get" it.  We got lucky with a trial run in SE VA last week - communication was off and some workplaces didn't shut down when they should have.  Those lessons were thankfully applied to the real storm yesterday.

[Deleted]

This happened in Raleigh in 2005. It was awful. I was only in the car for about three hours, but a friend was there for 9 hours or something and had to pee in her coffee cup.

[malibu]

I can't help but laugh. Living in MN makes this very amusing.

[Deleted]

Jan 29, 2014 12:48:18 GMT -5 malibu said:

I can't help but laugh. Living in MN makes this very amusing.

Well to be fair, the south really isn't equipped to deal with any type of frozen precipitation. We don't really have a ton of trucks/salt/plows etc. and when it's the threat of ice, it's very scary down here. I have been in some bad car accidents in the ice down here and navigated just fine up in MA when it snowed. I know better than to go out in it down here now! It took me 15 minutes to get to work today when it normally takes about 2-3 minutes because the roads are in such bad shape. No sand/salt on them. 

[malibu]

I know. I still look at the pictures and think "that's it?"

I am a little surprised that no preemptive action was taken knowing that half the country is in a POLAR VORTEX (I think that phrase is hilarious). It was bound to make its way south eventually.

[Muddled]

Not only does it not make sense to put a lot of resources into snow removal, but the real problem in the south tends to be ice and there's just not much you can do about straight up ice.

[Deleted]

Jan 29, 2014 13:07:01 GMT -5 malibu said:

I know. I still look at the pictures and think "that's it?"

I am a little surprised that no preemptive action was taken knowing that half the country is in a POLAR VORTEX (I think that phrase is hilarious). It was bound to make its way south eventually.

Well the thing is that they get flack either way. For example, yesterday our county canceled school based on the weather forecast. Well it didn't start snowing until 6pm last night so people are questioning WHY the school did that. Well they didn't want to have to have early dismissal at 2pm and have everyone grid-locked like 2005 or in Atlanta. 

[partiallysunny]

I'm only a few hours from where I grew up and there is a big difference on how each place handles snow/ice.

It's remarkable.

I wilt in humidity, so I will never move south.

[partiallysunny]

But this -15 shit is for the birds.

[captainmel]

My dad is in GA for some random class he decided he needed to take. Since everything is closed today he decided to walk 8 miles to the coast and stick his toes in the Atlantic.
Signed, person who has never had a snow day, ever. (Greatest snow on earth!)

[Chirp]

I just got an email from someone in our GA office. I asked them for some data and they said they'll have to get it when the office re-opens down there. And then she went further to explain that she's "telecommuting because of black ice".

Dude, I don't need that level of detail. Just say that you're telecommuting today and will get it when you're back in the office no biggie. And really, I telecommute because of pajamas.

[partiallysunny]

Chirp you're just jealous because you don't get to telecommute because of black ice, lol.

[Chirp]

Jan 29, 2014 14:21:43 GMT -5 partiallysunny said:

Chirp you're just jealous because you don't get to telecommute because of black ice, lol.

LOL. Jammies are a far better reason for telecommuting.

I'm still laughing at how specific she was.

[pinkplasticdoll]

Jan 29, 2014 12:48:18 GMT -5 malibu said:

I can't help but laugh. Living in MN makes this very amusing.

This isn't snow like you get in MN it is sheets of ice. I have seen posts on some of the other boards of people who grew up in parts of the country where it snowed and now live in the south saying that it is like comparing apples to oranges because its ICE not snow. Also, Atlanta and the area surrounding is very hilly and has many bridges/overpasses elevated which freeze quicker and for longer periods of time, I am not sure if that is the case in other parts of the country but I know that in Texas it is one of the things that makes the storms worse for us. And as said we aren't really equipped to deal with this on a regular basis but I know that with the expectation of winter weather in south texas the DOT moved or borrowed equipment from surrounding states to the areas that were in the pathway to help salt and sand the roads.