Deb and Ed M wrote:
Life-long Michigander (and weather-geek) who drove through the north end of that mess on Tuesday. I knew when the storm was supposed to hit because I checked the NWS website; so we camped N of Macon, and left early in the AM to be out of GA by noon. We also watched a local forecast - and the weatherman was saying that the rogue band of snow that was farther north than anyone expected was producing snow - but it "wasn't hitting the ground". I found that odd, because rain can evaporate (Virga) but snow??
Contrary to the weatherman's advice, by Adairsville, the snow was indeed hitting the ground, and turning to glare ice. Kudos to the folks who were sharing the highway with us - they were driving slowly and sensibly for the (awful) conditions. It took forever, at 2 mph, to finally reach the Tennessee line, where we could finally drive at highway speeds again.
So what was the difference?? Tennessee said "Snow coming? Let's get some salt on those roads" Georgia must have been hoping it would melt - because we SAW the GDOT salt trucks trying to salt the roads about an hour AFTER everyone starting sliding and crashing on black ice.....
I suspect this is Georgia's routine response to snow: pray it melts. But the air temps were in the mid-20's; most folks would understand that nothing melts at those temps
Here is a post I made on the last thread about the last Atlanta Storm:
Many years ago (I want to say around 93) I drove to Florida to visit my parents that lived down there in the winter. They got 6 inches of snow in Paducah Kentucky and everybody there thought the world had come to a end. We couldn't even get any food because they shut down all the stores and restaurants. The next day we took off down the interstate and it was terrible. The semi trucks had been running all night and they had all the snow packed on. All that was on the road was me in my RWD 81 T-Bird and semi trucks. I stopped at one truck stop and told a trucker I was thinking about quitting and he said don't give up your about 10 miles from the state line. The plow trucks from Kentucky hadn't been plowing at all during the night but, Tennessee had learned it's lesson from a storm a few year earlier and had been up all night clearing the roads. He was right, once I crossed the state line it was all good road after that because the Tennessee DOT was on the ball and kept the plow trucks going all night long to keep the snow off. The Kentucky DOT had not done that and there roads were packed solid with snow.
So, another vote for the Tennessee DOT knowing there stuff. Maybe all you southern states should take a lesson from them !
