Sprawl City on Ice

For days the weather forecast had been return of sub-freezing temperatures on Tuesday, and the possibility of snow.  Maybe it would stay to the south and miss the city, or maybe it wouldn't.  According to this morning's AJC, the weather service's advisory was escalated to a winter storm warning around 4 a.m.  But -- somewhat to my surprise -- the schools were open.

The weather was fine yesterday morning.  I wasn't worried about getting home from work -- if it got really bad, I could walk home -- but many of my co-workers have long commutes.  I was surprised at how many of them were at the office yesterday morning.  But the office wasn't closed, and people hadn't been told to stay home, so I shouldn't have been surprised that people had come to work.

There was an emergency message from the school mid-morning.  I said, "That's my son's school closing.  I'll let Tom deal with that."  I didn't read it until later, that it was just a cancellation of after school activities.

At noon there was a message that we could go home.  A lot of people left.  I finished up a few things and left a little after 1.  But traffic was terrible on Clifton and it took a long time to get home, and the drive was harrowing.

This photo doesn't capture it completely because I don't stay on the bumper of the car in front of me when roads are slick.  I think it took me around 40 minutes from the time I left my office until the time I got home.

At 2 p.m. there was a message from school that due to deteriorating road conditions dismissal was beginning at 2:15 p.m.  Tom was out in the northern suburbs somewhere and was stuck in traffic.  He said he might be stuck there over night.  I dismissed that as hyperbole and headed off to pick up Iain and our exchange student.  

It took almost an hour to get to the school.  Roads were packed and some intersections were gridlocked, as drivers filled up intersections and kept cross-traffic blocked.  The short section of Peachtree that I had to drive on was the worst, but I did finally get to the school a little after 3.  On the way home I had to detour because a street in Garden Hills already seemed to be impassable.  We got home at 4 p.m.  Tom did get out of the traffic jam he was caught in and stopped at a Target for steaks, bread, and milk.  He got home a little while after I did.

We made it home, but lots of people didn't.  Expressways were clogged with cars and Georgia DOT couldn't get their trucks out to spread salt or sand.  It was below freezing during the day but it got colder as the evening went on, and the snow turned to ice.  School buses couldn't run, kids were stuck at school or on buses, and expressways were full of cars as bridges and exit ramps iced over.  I kept Channel 11 on last night, seeing the images of roads full of immobilized cars, the stories of children stuck at schools, people who had been in their cars for eight or more hours, trying to get to schools to pick up their children or to get home, or as the evening went on, trying to get anywhere.

I didn't stay up for the Governor's press conference, but the spokespeople for GDOT and Georgia Emergency Management had been getting asked the accusing questions by the TV anchors, why weren't you prepared?  They said they were.  But it didn't matter if they were prepared if everyone in the Atlanta area hit the road at 1 p.m., when Tom and I did.  The roads couldn't deal with the volume, and it didn't matter how ready the GDOT was, if they were caught in the same traffic that everyone else was.

It's the next morning now.  There still are people stuck in their cars.  There are two school buses with children on them at I-285 and Cascade Road.  By this morning, the TV anchors were asking an Atlanta Public Schools spokesperson why the schools weren't closed yesterday morning.  The spokesperson said the weather forecast changed, which is true, but it did change in time that school could have been cancelled.  But I'm sure they didn't believe it.  Sometimes the forecasts are wrong.  The weather was fine in the morning; people would complain if school was closed preemptively and then it didn't snow, or didn't snow much.  

Atlanta was and is paralyzed by 2 inches of snow because our city is dependent on cars and the patterns of housing, work, and school that we have chosen require lots of driving.  *That* is the cause here.  It's not Georgia DOT's fault (except to the extent they have made this car dependency possible, which or course they have), or Georgia Emergency Management's fault, or the City of Atlanta's fault (ditto), or the Atlanta Public School's fault.  It's the fault of the political leaders and private sector interests that allowed the Atlanta metropolitan area to develop this way.