snowed in from noth ga

[ArmyPair2]

For us it's not the snow that gave most problems, it was that the freezing rain hit us first and then the snow. Today our county roads were open for us to drive but there is one mayor that gave orders to his Chief John Law to ticket anybody driving on the streets. The photo is when the storm first hit us.

 

[mark02tj]

ArmyPair2 - I just noticed you're from Alabama. I have a friend that lives in Hoover, south of Birmingham. I know they got hit hard also as Birmingham. My friend is a pastor at a small church that also has a daycare. They had parents that couldn't make it to get their kids. So 7 kids and several adults ended up spending the night at the church. Several of the adults weren't even the day care workers - they were church members that heard about the situation with the kids and ventured a couple of miles from their homes to take food, air mattresses, etc. to help out the kids! It was really cool to hear about folks stepping up to help others! You don't hear too much about that any more, especially on the national news. And I don't think I heard a single word about Alabama on the national news. I know that ATL is a big city, but Birmingham ain't exactly small.

Hopefully y'all thaw out today! It's going to be in the mid-30's here today and people are acting like it's a heat wave after our several days of sub-zero weather!

 

[3930dave]

I was able to cross the SR20 bridge over the Apalachicola River {between Blountstown and Bristol Fl} this morning at 0700. They had plenty of sand down, and had reduced the speed limit. I carried my wife to catch her ride to Orlando. There was a few icicles on her friend's car when they left. I doubt they are still there now.

Down here some of our transplanted Yankees were complaining that the county erred too much on the side of caution. Schools and the courthouse was closed here yesterday and today. It's true they could have been opened back up today, {the ice on my house melted about 1130 today} but they had already decided for two days. About 25 years ago when we had iced up bridges, there was an elderly lady being taken to her doctor's appointment by the county's Sr. Cit. Org. The car wrecked on the I-10 bridge and it killed her. So they were not going to take any chances of something like that happening again.

Hope you guys thaw out soon.

Larro

Taking an extra day is wise.

1) That one extra day will seem really short for all the EMS teams, as they'll be pretty burned out, and likely still have a backlog of problems to deal with.

2) We have all the heavy equipment up here, the sand, the salt and people have no excuse for not expecting Winter to arrive. Still, we get plenty of crashes, esp. at the start of the Winter season, caused by people not driving for the conditions.

Best wishes for a return to normal, Temperatures and Roads.

Rgds, D.

 

[J F]

My wife made it home yesterday morning around 9:00 a.m. after her night shift at the hospital. She said the roads were fine (14 mile commute, about 40 miles N. of Atlanta, no "back roads"). Part of it may have been that she was just tired of being stuck at work for two days though...and her driving is "suspect" even under the best circumstances. :laughing:

 

[3930dave]

ArmyPair2 - I just noticed you're from Alabama. I have a friend that lives in Hoover, south of Birmingham. I know they got hit hard also as Birmingham. My friend is a pastor at a small church that also has a daycare. They had parents that couldn't make it to get their kids. So 7 kids and several adults ended up spending the night at the church. Several of the adults weren't even the day care workers - they were church members that heard about the situation with the kids and ventured a couple of miles from their homes to take food, air mattresses, etc. to help out the kids! It was really cool to hear about folks stepping up to help others! You don't hear too much about that any more, especially on the national news. And I don't think I heard a single word about Alabama on the national news. I know that ATL is a big city, but Birmingham ain't exactly small.

Hopefully y'all thaw out today! It's going to be in the mid-30's here today and people are acting like it's a heat wave after our several days of sub-zero weather!

Today, it's great to hear about people coming together like that. Had some great stories from a number of summers back during the big NE power blackout - the big cities get the news coverage, in part because you don't expect small-town like cooperation there.

What made the news here was a high school (ATL area I think) that had something like 800 teenagers staying overnight. We all prefer different battles, but I know I'd sooner be working on clearing vehicles from an Interstate, than trying to wrangle 800 teenagers ! :shocked:

At least for the kids and teens, it was a neat adventure.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

My wife made it home yesterday morning around 9:00 a.m. after her night shift at the hospital. She said the roads were fine (14 mile commute, about 40 miles N. of Atlanta, no "back roads"). Part of it may have been that she was just tired of being stuck at work for two days though...and her driving is "suspect" even under the best circumstances. :laughing:

I'm sure that she's glad to be back home - good to hear.

And, I take it she doesn't read TBN !

Rgds, D.

 

[DeereMann]

Unbelievable. Saw on the news this morning cars that ran out of fuel abandoned in the middle of the interstate highway!!

Of course, the media loves conflict - all because we watch it, I suppose. Nothing much to do in the winter except remove snow & try to stay warm.

We had 6 more inches of snow here yesterday. My normal 40 minute commute in to work took 2 1/2 hours, nearly 4x longer. Today 'only' 2x longer. At least my truck didn't run out of gas in the middle of an interstate highway.

 

[J F]

Thanks Dave, and not enough to worry about. :laughing: (I've had her read some threads in the past...I'll probably skip over this one :dance1

 

[rd_macgregor]

I have to be sympathetic about the issue in Georgia and neighboring states.
Here, we have all kinds of snow removal and sanding equipment, but they get pulled off the roads if there is severe blowing/drifting (a frequent occurrence here). But it isn't just snow: ice storms are the worst. I've left long gouges in ice sliding backwards through 180 degrees down the hill on the road near my house...momentum took me partway up the hill, but studded snow tires wouldn't hold me there. After ice storms, there are cars and trucks in ditches everywhere...including sand trucks and other highways Dept. vehicles.
It isn't any surprise that governments in the South don't maintain a big inventory of snow removal equipment, nor that drivers shun winter tires. Even occasional storms like this will hardly change the economics of winter readiness investment...though there is likely other, less capital-intensive, readiness planning/preparation that can be done.
Bob

 

[aczlan]

Your tractor should handle that without a problem. Put it in 4x4 drive. You probably could pull everything back up the hill! When we get 3 "- we don't bother to clean it up usually. Most of the danger comes from overuse of the brakes and sudden use of the steering wheel- starts a skid. Use low gear going down the hill. Coming up do it at a higher speed. Always stop and slow down in a straight line. Try not to slow as you start a turn (drifts on you). I think the real danger is in getting hit by other drivers! Your golf cart has all of the wrong gear ratios for snow driving. Never spin the tires.
Learn by doing! We have all done at least 1 360. Once I did a 180 and ended up straight in the other lane facing the other way!
Have some fun with it.

The problem is the freezing rain that they got first which went landed on unsalted roads and froze making them a sheet of ice. I would not drive on it till it thaws unless I had studded snows AND HAD to get somewhere bad enough to make it worth risking someone else sliding into me. My sister lives near Atlanta and she said that she has been watching people slid into the gate of their complex all day. Thats from ice, not snow.
From her Facebook post:

Every time a car goes careening down the slip and side of our complex I brace for impact with the front gate. A remarkable number of people manage to either stop, or skid through the median and go out the broken entrance gate. The road is looking vaguely better, but its still littered with abandoned cars.

Reading, it appears that Atlanta has 30 sanders and 40 plows, the rural county where I live in Upstate NY probbaly owns more plows and sanders than the city of Atlanta.

Golf cart tires are about as useless for traction as you could get. First time it snowed here, I thought I would use the cart to do some chores, I got the back tires about half way out of the garage and it wouldn't go forward or back. I managed to push it back into the garage. Wife got it stuck in some small bit of mud trying to go across the pond dike on a road we have there. After that, I got some bar lug tires from Buggiesunlimited.com and it was an almost unstoppable beast with those tires on it. Looked pretty cool too with them on front and back. Now we use the RTV and rarely get the golf cart out.

We switched from the "Golf Cart" tires that came on our carts to Carlsile Turf Saver tires (these ones: Carlisle Transportation Products ) They do much better in snow and mud
Tread:

You should have no problem driving the tractor on that little bit of snow. Where it gets really tricky is if you have a bit of freezing rain that coats everything in black ice, then snows on top of it, then nothing short of tire chains will be safe to drive with.

Thats what they got.

Aaron Z