(01-29-2014 04:51 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:27 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:09 PM)MemphisCanes Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:06 PM)IBleedBlue Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:04 PM)MemphisCanes Wrote:  UNC-GTech game is unable to be broadcast because of a little snow.

Atlanta is a war zone right now. Hawks game postponed too.

Yeah, I was being facetious. Some folks were stuck in traffic for 9+ hours and even overnight.

Mayor/Governor dropped the ball bigtime.

More important than that would be the school superintendents that took that chance.

Hard to figure out who to blame, if anyone, yet. National media jumping on the governor and mayor of Atlanta, but mayor has nothing to do with interstates, or with all the suburbs.

Al Roker took a shot at them this morning. Of course, he's sitting on a flat island 3 feet above sea level, in a city with the largest municipal snow removal fleet in the country.

Atlanta sits in the trailing foothills of the Appalachians, 1000 feet above sea level, with not a single flat street of any distance anywhere, in a metro area of 5 million+ people, who all mostly drive back and forth to work. And we get maybe one snow event every 5 or 10 years, with dozens of municipalities responsible for their little areas, and no state legislator outside Atlanta willing to have their constituents help pay for equipment only used once a decade, and mostly in Atlanta (middle and south Georgia are basically flat).

Then the forecast didn't help. It was all supposed to stay south of the city, but of course, didn't. And it came in a little earlier than anybody thought. So, most school superintendents (again, lots of different school systems, b/c unlike Memphis, Atlanta metro includes 13 counties) thought they were good for the day, and got caught about an hour before school let out.

Complicating the situation were hundreds of 18-wheelers trying to take shortcuts through the city interstates (it is illegal unless you are delivering a load there), and then jackknifing and stopping traffic. And the snow hit not long before afternoon rush hour.

Anyway, maybe a lot of folks could have been smarter, but it's not as simple a situation as outsiders want to assume.

My oldest daughter lives in Sandy Springs right inside the loop.

She was stuck on I-285 for 18-1/2 hours.

.

^ That's terrible. Glad she is okay, I presume.

The best part of last night was hearing the UT/ Ole Miss fans whining and complaining that they are 2 of the 3 largest fan bases in Memphis and their game wasn't on here.

(01-29-2014 03:26 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:06 PM)IBleedBlue Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:04 PM)MemphisCanes Wrote:  UNC-GTech game is unable to be broadcast because of a little snow.

Atlanta is a war zone right now. Hawks game postponed too.

My cousin's daughter was one of the teachers trapped at school last night? Did they not know this was coming?

8 hrs warning per Al Roker .

#justsayin

(01-30-2014 08:33 AM)MemphisTiger15 Wrote:  The best part of last night was hearing the UT/ Ole Miss fans whining and complaining that they are 2 of the 3 largest fan bases in Memphis and their game wasn't on here.

That game was terrible.

(01-29-2014 10:36 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:46 PM)jgardne Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 05:20 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 05:07 PM)holyterror Wrote:  When school supts get fired they'll never risk this again in Atlanta. Cancel far in advance. (That's what they did on ms gulf coast the other day. Treated ice storm as if it were a hurricane.)

Is the state going to fire dozens of them for a one-time incident, for not closing school an hour before they did, when the forecast said the storm would stay completely south of I-20, and the problems were mostly well north of that area? They were simply under a "watch," not a "warning."

I've lived here 33 years, and nothing like this convergence of events has ever happened before. C'est la vie.

I lived in the south most of my life, and have been in the midwest now for almost 8 years. I have no idea how < 1 foot of snow can cause the chaos it did in Atlanta. Even if the conditions are icy it just slows traffic to a crawl. Obviously, Atlanta traffic is terrible even in optimal conditions (i lived there for 4 years too), but nothing should be causing 9 hour delays except . . .

idiotic driving. It doesn't take a bunch of people, but maybe 5% of the population driving too fast and trying to turn on ice and then causing multiple wrecks and stopping everything with multiple wrecks that can't be cleared.

Apparently, people in Georgia and Alabama are awful wintery conditions drivers. Or at least 5-10% are.

Yes, we have a lot of impatient drivers. Fun fact. Way more than 50% of the metro area population are transplants. The great majority are from the northeast and midwest, lol.

Hard to drive with ANY ice or snow on the road, with hilly terrain everywhere, and lack of snow removal equipment, for a once-every-few-years event. Especially with jackknifed tractor-trailers blocking every interstate.

It was taking 3 hours to go one mile. Peeps ran out of gas and just abandoned their cars, to keep from freezing to death.

One year, I got stuck in my driveway, in a 4-wheel drive Jeep. Hills are a b****, lol.

Believe it or not, winter tires make a huge difference. We have them, you guys don't.

(01-30-2014 08:33 AM)MemphisTiger15 Wrote:  The best part of last night was hearing the UT/ Ole Miss fans whining and complaining that they are 2 of the 3 largest fan bases in Memphis and their game wasn't on here.

(01-30-2014 11:12 AM)Stammers Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:36 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:46 PM)jgardne Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 05:20 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 05:07 PM)holyterror Wrote:  When school supts get fired they'll never risk this again in Atlanta. Cancel far in advance. (That's what they did on ms gulf coast the other day. Treated ice storm as if it were a hurricane.)

Is the state going to fire dozens of them for a one-time incident, for not closing school an hour before they did, when the forecast said the storm would stay completely south of I-20, and the problems were mostly well north of that area? They were simply under a "watch," not a "warning."

I've lived here 33 years, and nothing like this convergence of events has ever happened before. C'est la vie.

I lived in the south most of my life, and have been in the midwest now for almost 8 years. I have no idea how < 1 foot of snow can cause the chaos it did in Atlanta. Even if the conditions are icy it just slows traffic to a crawl. Obviously, Atlanta traffic is terrible even in optimal conditions (i lived there for 4 years too), but nothing should be causing 9 hour delays except . . .

idiotic driving. It doesn't take a bunch of people, but maybe 5% of the population driving too fast and trying to turn on ice and then causing multiple wrecks and stopping everything with multiple wrecks that can't be cleared.

Apparently, people in Georgia and Alabama are awful wintery conditions drivers. Or at least 5-10% are.

Yes, we have a lot of impatient drivers. Fun fact. Way more than 50% of the metro area population are transplants. The great majority are from the northeast and midwest, lol.

Hard to drive with ANY ice or snow on the road, with hilly terrain everywhere, and lack of snow removal equipment, for a once-every-few-years event. Especially with jackknifed tractor-trailers blocking every interstate.

It was taking 3 hours to go one mile. Peeps ran out of gas and just abandoned their cars, to keep from freezing to death.

One year, I got stuck in my driveway, in a 4-wheel drive Jeep. Hills are a b****, lol.

Believe it or not, winter tires make a huge difference. We have them, you guys don't.

Nobody here buys winter tires. Not sure they're even widely available. But we do have chains. I have a set in my trunk. But with a steep enough hill, nothing matters, and the drive was hemmed in by a house and a fence.

Did anyone have trouble getting the game on direct tv? A friend of mine said they had Temple on both U and 2 on his. I got cable so I had no issue.

(01-30-2014 11:03 AM)TIGER DENO Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:26 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:06 PM)IBleedBlue Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:04 PM)MemphisCanes Wrote:  UNC-GTech game is unable to be broadcast because of a little snow.

Atlanta is a war zone right now. Hawks game postponed too.

My cousin's daughter was one of the teachers trapped at school last night? Did they not know this was coming?

8 hrs warning per Al Roker .

#justsayin

Al Roker is full of crap. He's mad b/c the governor partially blamed the confusion on the national weather forecast that caused almost everybody to go to work and school.

AFAIK, there was NEVER a WARNING above I-20, only a WATCH. We get those a dozen times a year, and rarely does anything occur that causes serious problems.

The worst problems were in the areas well north of downtown, where people thought they were going to be missed, based partly on Roker's own forecast, lol.

Plus, even if there had been warnings, eight hours BEFORE the storm hit, many people were already up and headed out.

Just one of those things. The perfect storm. Nobody died. Al Roker can kiss my Atlantan butt.

Memphis has had several inches of snow without similar problems. It was not the snow- it was how quickly it became ice- and yes the fact that too may people drove not giving it enough thought.

It happens.

A tip- if the weather is really really cold and it may snow- it could be a lot worse than just snow on the highway which gets mushed by tires and is usually manageable with slow careful driving. That is what happened- due to bitter cold.

I also lived up north- sometimes there would be feet of snow. People would stay home. Some would wreck. But when it black ices over no one gets around period. And watch the local weather. The drivers were by far most to blame for their predicaments- which does not make the situation any better.

Next time- stay home.