Many of you have gotten lots of this 'inconvenience' correct. But let me give you a little more info. Georgia has 159 counties and only around 540 DOT trucks. That breaks down to a 3 per county. The state owns many more dump trucks but they aren't equipped with snow plow adapters. I'll bet there will be many more conversion kits bought now! You guys are also correct in saying that the Governor does not have the authority to close schools here. He/she also, cannot close businesses or private firms, only the state offices. What has come out of all of this, is that our GEMA director, received an updated forecast around 0315 in the morning, and failed to notify the Governor until just after 0900 that morning. It is also true that the storm was supposed to go farther south and some equipment had been moved that direction. But this is the WEATHER folks, and no one controls it. You guys are also correct in saying that people need to be prepared themselves. That is where most of the blame lies. Even if you are held at work, you knew there was potential, so be prepared for it. The citizens have gotten to rely on technology too much and in this situation, it clearly was evident. It is also VERY true that the people making decisions at the higher state levels do not have much experience at all in other than 'tabletop disaster management'. The local governments did a much better job than the state did in this situation . It didn't show on the news much, but a lot of the secondary streets in Atlanta were in much better shape than the interstates. True that there was not as many people on them, heck they couldn't get there!:) Funny thing, the people involved in public safety departments everywhere are confident in taking care of the public when it comes to events like this, but they are only so big and have limited resources. They also train and prepare for situations like this. The state's job, in the past, has been to re-enforce the local municipalities and not to take a lead role. Again, I think that may change. Not many can navigate in the types of situation like we had here last week. Hardly no one in the south has tire chains/cables and studded tires are illegal here. True it isn't that often we deal with things like this, and it is usually on the national news when we do. I would take snow any day over the ice/slushy mess that we contend with here. The main instance that angered people the most here last week was getting their children home. We had children stranded on buses for longer than 16 hours in some places and had 1200 kids stay overnight in one school. I don't have anything bad to say about the kids IN the schools, but the kids on the buses should have gotten off earlier. Yes it is true that the National Guard was immobilized here the evening of the storm. In my opinion, the first order of business should have been to remove every child off of the stranded buses across the region. Many more instances came up here that has not made the national news, but I think many lessons were learned. Just as in the storm of '82 here, but I hope the things learned are not forgotten and pushed aside. I am all for not having to go through this again. Again. these are just a few of the things you guys may not know. There is a lot more, just don't have the time and space to list it.
