One mans opinion on how to prevent another Atlanta

One thing I think is happening this winter is that the TV/cable networks are really competing for viewers - and blowing up every snow fall, every ice coating into a 'HUGE STORM'.

Good Morning America is talking this morning about the 'paralyzing storm' in the NYC / Northeast - with 700 flight cancellations. Heck that's less than 1 hour of normal flights at the three main NYC airport.

carmelo wrote:
I submit that Father Monk has it correct:

Father Nathan Monk
I am really getting tired of northerners mocking the emergency aspect of the snow storm coming to Florida. We understand that you get snow more often, we know ...that your schools often don't close, and we get it. But there is a lot of realities you are ignoring. People in Florida are not prepared for this kind of weather, the majority of houses use heat pumps for warmth, but in extreme cold they will not hold up. Most people don't have winter clothing, and cars are not winterized, nor do they have the proper tires. Not to mention our local government doesn't have access to salt trucks, or other large equipment to clear the roads and keep people safe. A lot of people live in Florida for a reason, because they aren't equipped to live in colder climates, which is why we have a lot of elderly folks living here. Many of them moved away from the cold and snow for health reasons. You guys remember that little storm you got a while back? Hurricane Sandy. That was a category one hurricane. You know what we call a category one hurricane on the panhandle? Rain. But I happened to be up there during Sandy, and everyone was running around in a panic, national guard was walking around with assault rifles, and guess what, it caused a lot of damage. You know why? Because you guys weren't prepared for a hurricane anymore than we are prepared for a snow storm. In other words, your experience doesn't diminish other peoples experience.

Well said!

I submit that Father Monk has it correct:

Father Nathan Monk
I am really getting tired of northerners mocking the emergency aspect of the snow storm coming to Florida. We understand that you get snow more often, we know ...that your schools often don't close, and we get it. But there is a lot of realities you are ignoring. People in Florida are not prepared for this kind of weather, the majority of houses use heat pumps for warmth, but in extreme cold they will not hold up. Most people don't have winter clothing, and cars are not winterized, nor do they have the proper tires. Not to mention our local government doesn't have access to salt trucks, or other large equipment to clear the roads and keep people safe. A lot of people live in Florida for a reason, because they aren't equipped to live in colder climates, which is why we have a lot of elderly folks living here. Many of them moved away from the cold and snow for health reasons. You guys remember that little storm you got a while back? Hurricane Sandy. That was a category one hurricane. You know what we call a category one hurricane on the panhandle? Rain. But I happened to be up there during Sandy, and everyone was running around in a panic, national guard was walking around with assault rifles, and guess what, it caused a lot of damage. You know why? Because you guys weren't prepared for a hurricane anymore than we are prepared for a snow storm. In other words, your experience doesn't diminish other peoples experience.

7ofus wrote:
"Between 5 and 10:30 a.m., State Patrol troopers were called to 67 crashes in the metro area, seven of which involved injuries not considered serious or life threatening. Troopers also responded to more than 100 cases of cars spinning out or running off the road, the patrol said."

Guess where this happened Thursday due to 6 inches of snow?

Not Georgia, but Minnesota.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25029791/forest-lake-chain-reaction-spinouts-caught-minnesota-dot

Kind of ironic given the first post in this thread.

I kind of thought that I had. I am not so sure that northern drivers are so much better drivers than southern drivers, or that they keep all of their vehicles in immaculately maintained condition compared to souther (poor folk, as alluded above), but I think the main difference is how the municipalities keep the roads treated for the conditions.

Thanks!

jeremiah

CavemanCharlie wrote:
So nobody is in charge of anything down there???

Kind of - the big problem is too many people are in charge of their small part of the big picture.

CavemanCharlie wrote:
it sounds from what your saying a lot of the problem is because there is no one in charge.

Folks down in this region are more setup for short fast moving disaster situations like tornados and major wind damage storms.

Small local area disasters.

Wide area emergencies like these ice storms are not something we do well.

No the mayor can't close the schools, nor the County Judge (an administrative title in Texas and other states) not the Governor unless he declares a certain type of disaster has already occurred.

That said - what happened in Atlanta wasn't a disaster. It was a massive inconvenience, it caught a lot of people stopped where they should not have been. It made a lot of money for the news media, tow truck companies and a few others. And nice entertainment for a lot of the country.

Few people were in life threatening situations.

There were four lives lost during the ice storm in the DFW area in December that I remember. Which is actually fewer than a normal weekend.

Including one very unfortunate young lady, who skidded on an icy bridge and went into the lake. She should not have been out driving on the ice before dawn. But she had a relatively new job, and her employer had a no excuses absence policy. If she missed a day without prior permission, she would be fired. So she felt she had to go to work.

"Between 5 and 10:30 a.m., State Patrol troopers were called to 67 crashes in the metro area, seven of which involved injuries not considered serious or life threatening. Troopers also responded to more than 100 cases of cars spinning out or running off the road, the patrol said."

Guess where this happened Thursday due to 6 inches of snow?

Not Georgia, but Minnesota.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25029791/forest-lake-chain-reaction-spinouts-caught-minnesota-dot

Kind of ironic given the first post in this thread.

When anyone down here even thinks "SNOW", everyone knows that it is mandatory to go get milk, eggs, bread, and especially TOILET PAPER!!! Even if it does snow or freeze, it will either melt within 24 hours, or TDOT will have it cleared in less than that. Southerners can go through a lot of french toast in that time!!

On the subject of "traction",....people sure are ignorant.
I've got gobs of experience driving on slippery surfaces. I can say with authority that ONE small tire air-gauge in your glove box, plus a little experience will tell you: Simply stop, and instead of 34 psi, just lower your tire air pressure to 18-to-20 psi. You will be impressed with the increase in traction. And, NO it's not at all dangerous because the ambient temperature AND the temperature of the driving surface is SO LOW your tires are certainly NOT going to overheat. Besides, on ice, you're going too slow to build up any tire heat.

NOW, did anyone see anybody stop and lower their tire air pressure?

jerem0621 wrote:

wny_pat wrote:

Horizon170 wrote:
.
Thankfully this only happened once or twice a year. I would hate to see all that road clearing machinery sitting under a shed depreciating for 51 weeks of the year here in Atlanta.

And I would hate for you to have to be paying the taxes to own, maintain that fleet of snow plows, let alone be paying that manpower to operated it around the clock for a couple days each year. Any then there is all rock salt and places to store it. Better that the powers to be declare a driving ban and actually enforce it until the roads clear up.

I live and work in Tennessee. We have multi use vehicles in our highway department. They look like large dump trucks. They are used for everything from hauling debris, picking up road kill and doing general work most of the year. During the winter they wear snow plows and those nice truck beds turn into salt spreaders. We have about 20-30 of these in our area. They are used to help keep Monteagle Mtn and the surrounding area including Chattanooga taken car of in theses inter conditions.

There is more than one way to handle this and fortunately a modular vehicle system works well for our area in Tennessee.

When our roads get bad we just need to wait a little while and TDOT will get things passable soon enough.

Thanks,

Jeremiah

And yet again, another vote for Tennessee knowing there stuff . You guys should capitalize on there in a ad campaign for tourists.

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:

CavemanCharlie wrote:
a local weather forecaster from here in MN posted this on how he thinks we could avoid another Atlanta type snow storm problem

It's pretty bad when a professional shows he is as completely clueless about what really happened as that blog post.

I've not seen such an inaccurate description of what really happened with the weather as his.

Snow was not a problem in Atlanta.

What was a problem is that the falling snow ALL melted when it hit the roads, and turned into glaze ice.

Driving in Atlanta had absolutely nothing in common with driving in winter weather in Minnesota. People up north simply don't experience the type of ice storms we get along the freezing limit line.

The ground down here is very warm and we get ice, lots and lots of ice.

The only comparison I could make is if all the roads in MSP turned into hockey rinks over a couple hours.

Nothing but glazed ice. Before the traffic ground to a standstill - there was two to four inches of ice on overpasses and elevated roadways.

Now, yes, Atlanta had a lot of issues.

One of the biggest is the lack of an emergency control system like most northern cities have.

Neither the mayor of Atlanta, nor the governor, have to power to order the schools closed. Several dozen individual school districts make that decision on their own.

Neither can they close municipal offices or other government offices except for their individual workers.

Metro Atlanta is about the size of the entire state of CT.

There are over 40 different municipal, county and state governments - each of which makes their own decisions.

The mayor of Atlanta has no authority or funding for sanding freeways. That is the state highway department.

They deployed their limited sanding and anti-icing capability to the middle part of the state - where all the weather forecast predicted the worst icing.

Despite the false claims in the blog - no one predicted an ice storm to freeze-up metro Atlanta during the day. The storm arrived a few hours early.

At almost all the schools, the government offices, and the various companies - managers viewed the weather predictions - and expected a near normal day.

Then as the weather turned bad - almost everyone was sent home at the same time - doubling normal commuter traffic, with school traffic mixed in.

Freezing belt metro areas - like Atlanta, Dallas, etc - need to develop a comprehensive area wide plan for central control of such emergencies.

Though that will never happen, because the next Winter Weather Warning - will be a non-event.

It takes about a one or two degree change in actual temp - between the gridlock ice storm like Dallas/Fort Worth experienced in December and Atlanta just experienced - and just a cold rainy day. Even one or two degrees colder might have been better - giving the snow a chance to stick rather than melt immediately.

I've never seen a private forecasting company, or a TV weatherman, willing to bet on their predicted temps being exact - no more than two degrees off.

That's all it takes between major ice storm or cold rain.

So nobody is in charge of anything down there??? No wonder your disasters always turn out to be worse then they would have to be. Here in MN the governor can call school off for the entire state and he did once this year when it go to cold. He can also order the DOT to be out or, to come in. And if he orders them in he closes the roads. Or, the local sheriff can order the roads closed under the advice of the DOT. That also happed here a couple of weeks ago when the visibility got too bad. Many people were stranded so the local Red Cross and Salvation Army worked together to open up a building and put down cots and bring food and water for people. If you get caught driving on a closed road it's a big fine. If you get stuck in your car there is a charge to send a road grader out to rescue you.

I understand the lack of equipment because it's not often needed, and I understand the weather is unpredictable, but, it sounds from what your saying a lot of the problem is because there is no one in charge.