Snow Jam '14

Since I haven't worn makeup much this week and it's really been the last thing on my mind, I thought today I'd post something a little different.

We have been snowed in here in the good ol' ATL since Tuesday afternoon.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I'm sure people living in Northern climates are having a good laugh at our silliness, because after all, it was only 3" of snow and the city went into full-fledged gridlock insanity.  However, one thing to keep in mind before you slap your knee and cackle at our stupidity: this is "Hotlanta"!  It snows here every few years and we've only had a major snow/ice event four times in my entire 33 years of living here.  There was "SnowJam '82", the "Blizzard of '93", a severe ice storm in 1999, and in 2011, ice and snow shut the city down for almost a week solid because the snow kept melting and refreezing, creating an icy mess on the roadways.  We have 30 salt/sand trucks for a city of 6 million people because snow is just not something we have to worry about very often.  So it shouldn't be a total shock that 3" of snow can shut this puppy down within a matter of hours.  However, Southerners are pretty good natured and can deal with some ribbing and laugh at themselves for the chaos and insanity.  Atlanta, the setting of the AMC TV show The Walking Dead, seemed to look eerily similar to the promo images used by the network!  Ya know, minus the zombies and plus the snow.

Jason and I got VERY lucky.  We both work within 3 miles of home and managed to make it to our place with relative ease.  One of the biggest problems was tractor trailers getting stuck across major highways and the snow turning to ice while the cars behind them waited.  Some people were stuck on the roads for more than 24 hours!  I thought I'd share a few pictures I found online and two stories from some of my favorite co-workers to illustrate just how crazy Snow Jam '14 was!

Tuesday evening (image credit: @primetimeatl)

Wednesday morning (image credit: @primetimeatl)

From my friend Frank, one of the kindest and most positive people you'd ever hope to meet.  After being on the road for 7 hours, his car slid into another car, and that turned into a 12 car pile-up.  Everyone was unharmed and the damage was minimal, but there was no way Frank could drive any farther.  Another person involved in the pile-up invited Frank to walk the 0.6 miles off the highway to her house to sleep for the night.  It took them 2.5 hours to walk there in the ice and snow.  This is the rest of his story as of Wednesday evening:
I am not home yet but I'm safe and warm. The nice South African lady who put me up for the night and I walked 2 1/2 miles to look at our cars at noon, but the hill on Northside Drive was still too icy. A kid drove by with a Georgia Tech license plate, and I waved him down. My daughter is a freshman at Tech, so I thought maybe he could drive me down to her dorm. Turns out he's a senior at Tech, but he wasn't headed down there. Just the same, he said I could hang with him for the time being. He then had the idea of taking me to the MARTA station at Medical Center, and so I rode it down to North Avenue. I'm now hanging with my daughter and her boyfriend in her dorm room, and her boyfriend said I could sleep on a futon in his dorm for the night. Then hopefully sometime tomorrow (Thursday) the ice will have melted enough on the hill where I'm stuck, my wife can drive down from Marietta and give me a lift, and all will be well!

Abandoned cars and those trying to navigate around them Wednesday morning. (Image credit: CNN)

From my friend and boss Mack, a fantastically funny man I respect and love:
I left the Capitol at 2:30 and, after 8 hours in the car and walking a mile or so, I made it to Publix at Northside Drive and West Paces Ferry.  I slept at the Publix and their floor is really hard. First shift I slept on the floor on aisle 3 between the ladies feminine products and the greeting cards.  I walked around the store at about 3:00 am to loosen up, and for the second shift, I moved over to aisle 5 and stretched out between the coffee display and the chow mein.  What a night!  I got a ride from a limo driver Wednesday afternoon and he dropped me off at Interstate 75 & Windy Hill and I walked home from there. Glad to be home.

One positive outcome of all of this is the wonderful stories of people helping others.  There were two kids who bought 200 biscuits from McDonald's and walked to the highway to hand them out to people stuck there.  All of the businesses who stayed open round the clock so people could sleep there and get a hot cup of coffee were vital to people who couldn't get home.  I love that the worst of mother nature brought out the best of human nature and it makes me proud to say I'm an Atlanta native.

In true Georgia fashion, it's forecasted to be 60℉ this Saturday!

What's your craziest snow story?