The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

My wife and I are spending the night at her office. We drove about 1/10th of a mile down the road and our car couldn't get any traction and started sliding sideways when we tried to go forward. We slid over to the edge of the road and decided we didn't want to risk having our brand new Mazda 5 slide down a hill and slam into some trees with us in it, so we abandonded it and walked back to my wife's office in the Roebuck/East Lake area. We have already been here since 11:00 AM and one of her co-workers is with us and also a police officer who stands guard at the building.

This has been a long day, but fortunately I have access to ESPN3.com and the UAB message board. I'm about to watch the Wichita State basketball game. This ain't too bad. :-)

(01-28-2014 08:04 PM)ElliotBreakingnewsBrindley Wrote:  My wife and I are spending the night at her office. We drove about 1/10th of a mile down the road and our car couldn't get any traction and started sliding sideways when we tried to go forward. We slid over to the edge of the road and decided we didn't want to risk having our brand new Mazda 5 slide down a hill and slam into some trees with us in it, so we abandonded it and walked back to my wife's office in the Roebuck/East Lake area. We have already been here since 11:00 AM and one of her co-workers is with us and also a police officer who stands guard at the building.

This has been a long day, but fortunately I have access to ESPN3.com and the UAB message board. I'm about to watch the Wichita State basketball game. This ain't too bad. :-)

That sounds kind of fun, as long as you have stuff to eat.

My wife is stuck on University/Green Springs since 1PM and it seems she'll spend the night in the car...

My kids are stuck at school until tomorrow, as well...

This weather is insane. People up north don't understand how serious this is. They just think it's because we don't know how to drive on snow. They never have to deal with the kind of weather mood swings that we have down here, where it goes from 49 degrees one day to 19 degrees the next. It was the warm weather yesterday that caused the snow to melt and re-freeze into sheets of ice today.

I'm at work, have been since 8 this morning, one abortive attempt to drive home, and a hike back to work, expect to be here until tomorrow afternoon.

Huzzah.

(01-28-2014 08:55 PM)ElliotBreakingnewsBrindley Wrote:  This weather is insane. People up north don't understand how serious this is. They just think it's because we don't know how to drive on snow. They never have to deal with the kind of weather mood swings that we have down here, where it goes from 49 degrees one day to 19 degrees the next. It was the warm weather yesterday that caused the snow to melt and re-freeze into sheets of ice today.

Incorrect.

At 4 p.m. Sunday it was 52 degrees at my house. At 8 p.m. Sunday it was -8 degrees.

Two weeks ago, we had the same weather snafu in Des Moines. A "snow squall" as it was called developed over the city during a wind advisory. We had 70+ MPH wind gusts, a sudden snow storm and -30 wind chills all hit at the same time, without warning. It created quite the blizzard and cluster****. There were school buses that took 4+ hours to get kids home that day.

It happens everywhere.

The difference here is people have experience driving in it. We also don't have any hills or mountains to drive up and down. We also have the good sense to have a winter preparedness kit (or most of us do, anyway) in the car, which includes cat litter for car traction, blankets, water (or, as we call it, bottles of ice) and food.

I stand corrected. The main difference is our inability to see it coming and adequately mitigate the bad driving conditions. :-)

(01-28-2014 09:00 PM)Grammar-Nazi Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 08:55 PM)ElliotBreakingnewsBrindley Wrote:  This weather is insane. People up north don't understand how serious this is. They just think it's because we don't know how to drive on snow. They never have to deal with the kind of weather mood swings that we have down here, where it goes from 49 degrees one day to 19 degrees the next. It was the warm weather yesterday that caused the snow to melt and re-freeze into sheets of ice today.

Incorrect.

At 4 p.m. Sunday it was 52 degrees at my house. At 8 p.m. Sunday it was -8 degrees.

Two weeks ago, we had the same weather snafu in Des Moines. A "snow squall" as it was called developed over the city during a wind advisory. We had 70+ MPH wind gusts, a sudden snow storm and -30 wind chills all hit at the same time, without warning. It created quite the blizzard and cluster****. There were school buses that took 4+ hours to get kids home that day.

It happens everywhere.

The difference here is people have experience driving in it. We also don't have any hills or mountains to drive up and down. We also have the good sense to have a winter preparedness kit (or most of us do, anyway) in the car, which includes cat litter for car traction, blankets, water (or, as we call it, bottles of ice) and food.

good googly moogly man...
move the heck out of there...that is like Mount Washington, NH weather....

It doesn't bother me too much. I've grown accustomed to it.

However, I do relish the summers when everyone in Alabama is sweltering in 100+ heat indexes and it's 82 here -- and the native Midwesterners call that hot.

(01-28-2014 09:00 PM)Grammar-Nazi Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 08:55 PM)ElliotBreakingnewsBrindley Wrote:  This weather is insane. People up north don't understand how serious this is. They just think it's because we don't know how to drive on snow. They never have to deal with the kind of weather mood swings that we have down here, where it goes from 49 degrees one day to 19 degrees the next. It was the warm weather yesterday that caused the snow to melt and re-freeze into sheets of ice today.

Incorrect.

At 4 p.m. Sunday it was 52 degrees at my house. At 8 p.m. Sunday it was -8 degrees.

Two weeks ago, we had the same weather snafu in Des Moines. A "snow squall" as it was called developed over the city during a wind advisory. We had 70+ MPH wind gusts, a sudden snow storm and -30 wind chills all hit at the same time, without warning. It created quite the blizzard and cluster****. There were school buses that took 4+ hours to get kids home that day.

It happens everywhere.

The difference here is people have experience driving in it. We also don't have any hills or mountains to drive up and down. We also have the good sense to have a winter preparedness kit (or most of us do, anyway) in the car, which includes cat litter for car traction, blankets, water (or, as we call it, bottles of ice) and food.

Terrain is a huge factor.

Bottom line - One, few drivers here have experience driving in this, and their judgement is suspect. Two, the cars themselves are not winterized in the same way. Kitty litter for traction would not occur to 1 in 100 of the people on the road, myself included, nor do we travel with blankets and winter gear just in case. Three, things like snow tires, studded snow tires, and snow chains are not a factor, and they would have been very helpful today.

Most of all, I don't care if you're from Chicago, once the roads over these hills are coated with glaze ice with snow on top, you're screwed.

(01-28-2014 11:20 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  Bottom line - One, few drivers here have experience driving in this, and their judgement is suspect. Two, the cars themselves are not winterized in the same way. Kitty litter for traction would not occur to 1 in 100 of the people on the road, myself included, nor do we travel with blankets and winter gear just in case. Three, things like snow tires, studded snow tires, and snow chains are not a factor, and they would have been very helpful today.

Most of all, I don't care if you're from Chicago, once the roads over these hills are coated with glaze ice with snow on top, you're screwed.

I had never thought of that use for kitty litter either, but the Farmer's Insurance commercial did bring it to our attention.

I hope all Blazers are safe tonite. Add me to the "sleeping at the office list". Can't complain though, I could be stuck on I-65.

Got my drivers license years ago, in January - in Michigan. Drove up there for about 10 years. While they have the equipment to move the snow -- Most of that country is flat as Indiana. My driveway in birmingham is steeper than any hill in Michigan. Terrain does make a very big difference.

Morris had a few hills that made things difficult.
The main stretch past the Baptist Church was impassable, also the road leading to the elementary school was difficult.

A young man carried me on a 4 wheeler type vehicle to get my youngest daughters from the elementary school today.

I was able to get us back to my in laws house & my brother in law eventually was able to lead me through back roads to get home.

(01-28-2014 09:00 PM)Grammar-Nazi Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 08:55 PM)ElliotBreakingnewsBrindley Wrote:  This weather is insane. People up north don't understand how serious this is. They just think it's because we don't know how to drive on snow. They never have to deal with the kind of weather mood swings that we have down here, where it goes from 49 degrees one day to 19 degrees the next. It was the warm weather yesterday that caused the snow to melt and re-freeze into sheets of ice today.

Incorrect.

At 4 p.m. Sunday it was 52 degrees at my house. At 8 p.m. Sunday it was -8 degrees.

Two weeks ago, we had the same weather snafu in Des Moines. A "snow squall" as it was called developed over the city during a wind advisory. We had 70+ MPH wind gusts, a sudden snow storm and -30 wind chills all hit at the same time, without warning. It created quite the blizzard and cluster****. There were school buses that took 4+ hours to get kids home that day.

It happens everywhere.

The difference here is people have experience driving in it. We also don't have any hills or mountains to drive up and down. We also have the good sense to have a winter preparedness kit (or most of us do, anyway) in the car, which includes cat litter for car traction, blankets, water (or, as we call it, bottles of ice) and food.

Yeah, up here around 6,000 feet in the high desert of northern Nevada, 50 degree temp swings occur regularly. Living here, I'll take the snow and ice any day over the extreme cold. Last year we had 23 days consecutive days of negative temps (-20 to -30 range for a few). That type of cold kills. Snow, on the other hand, is no big deal here. We're set up to handle the snow with our studded tires, street scrapers, salt trucks, and sand trucks. It's just a bit of a messy inconvenience. But, having lived in Birmingham, I'd have to say I would choose the extreme cold here over any amount of snow there. Alabama is just downright dangerous in the snow. People lack the experience and the hardware to deal with it (no amount of experience will help on a certain amount of ice without the proper equipment).

Walked home down 280 to find no water at my place. Warmed up and headed out to get some water at the Winn Dixie. Lost my keys on the trek over. Was finally able to get maintenance to get me in about 2 1/2 hours later. Rough day.

Sleeping at the office tonight as well. I have the feeling that tomorrow's going to be rough.

If you know people trapped in their cars, tell them to stay in the car. On a down note, a friend of mine in Atlanta posted this to Facebook earlier. He's usually very accurate and level-headed about these things, given his advanced degrees and all in the sciences:

Quote:Watching the Atlanta TV stations. The downtown connector (I-75/I-85) in Atlanta is completely gridlocked, as we near 11 pm at night. same thing on I-285. You name an Atlanta highway, and it's stalled at 0-5 mph. The masses of drivers in the gridlock have been there for 8-10 hours now. This probably won't change tonight. A lot of people are going to spend the night on the Atlanta interstates. People are e-mailing the stations, saying "my 5-year-old has been on the day care van since 3 pm, I haven't heard anything from him or the van, it was last reported at..." Unbelievable. It is slowly dawning on people that there will be NO morning commute in Atlanta tomorrow, because the afternoon commute from Tuesday *will still be on the road Wednesday morning*. There will be hundreds or thousands of cars abandoned when daylight comes, which will seriously hamper the recovery effort. You can't sand or plow a highway that has abandoned cars all over it. As I said several hours ago, this is life-threatening. People are going to die tonight, of exposure, in both Alabama and Georgia.

I fear he may be right. There may be a lot of corpses on the side of the roads tomorrow morning. I pray not, but given some of what I've read and seen from afar, I think that's a likely scenario.

I left downtown at 11am haven't made a detour or stop and I'm not at Alfred avenue exit yet. Piss poor planning. People responsible for this should lose their jobs.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk

it took me 7 and a half hours to get home today. I could have driven to my parents in central florida in that amount of time.