Snow-Pocolypse 2014

Tuesday night was absolutely the craziest driving day I've ever encountered. We joke about Atlanta drivers when snow hits but this was absolute chaos. I watched as people abandoned their cars on the side of the road. My commute home is normally 40 minutes. On Tuesday, it was 400 minutes (six and a half hours). I'm a southerner born and raised but snow doesn't scare me nor does ice. I've driven in both many times. Still what happened in Atlanta a few days ago was like a scene from "The Day After Tomorrow." Everyone was losing their minds. People were calling radio shows with stories of commutes of 8 hours plus and how they were losing their minds. School buses were still dropping kids off at 7 o'clock at night. People were handing out food to motorists whose cars were either stuck on the ice or who had run out of fuel.

The scariest part for me was that I didn't have the choice of staying at someone's house. I had to get home to do my therapy. That's all I could think about. Fortunately I had enough gas and I was given a great shortcut by mom that probably saved me at least an hour. Thanks Mom! I haven't ever seen that many blue lights flashing in Atlanta. There were tons of accidents. I probably witnessed at least a dozen. There was a bright side too. There were a lot of good samaritans out there. People offered their homes to those who needed places to stay. We actually took a family in too. People were handing out food on the side of the road. I saw strangers helping strangers push their cars off of the ice. It was refreshing in many ways.

What has this storm taught us in Atlanta? Probably not much. We probably need a better mass transit system that can reach the suburbs instead of mainly the city. We don't have the equipment to handle a storm like this nor should we spend the money to do so since storms like this occur every 3 to 5 years. I do believe that every kid should learn how to drive on ice when taking their driver's test and maybe adults need to get recertified too. We have over 6 million people in this city and they all left for home around the same time and that was another problem. I wish that our mayor, who quite frankly does not have the ability outside of the metropolitan area, had the authority to tell everyone when they could leave for home. The schools should have left first.

Thank goodness Tuesday is over but it sucks being the laughing stock of the country. Perhaps we'll be ready next time but I doubt it. I know this. If aliens wreak havoc, they'll probably want to start in Atlanta. Chaos is guaranteed especially if they have a little white powder that they can pour from the sky for a few hours.

I hope everyone got home safe on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Enjoy the Super Bowl.

Andy