Snow Jam 2014... ATLien Style

All I can say is WOW!!!

24 hours ago, the weather was alright. Dry as a bone. Then BOOM.... SNOW.

WOW.

My city is a HOT mess right now. Hot mess. We had one to three inches of snow. And the bad thing is that it is only 12 degrees in my beloved ATL. This means that the snow and ice are not going to melt anytime soon.

Now, this would not be a problem in any other, as a couple of inches of snow is not a big deal. But here in the ATL? Uh, that might as be a couple of feet of snow.

We are not prepared for this type of thing. At all.

As a result we have this:

There's a lot of this going on.

 This actually looks like one of the streets on my commute. I wasn't stuck in all of that.

 This picture below actually looks alright.  But it was a rare thing.

Here's the problem. Folks have been stranded for hours. Many are still stranded.

Let's back up and talk about what has happened.

I have been watching the news for the past couple of days, with particular interest in the weather.  Mind you, it was near 60 degrees this weekend and very nice out.

The weather people had been saying that it was going to be snowing south of Atlanta.  The key word here is SOUTH.  Down on the southside, some 20 miles from here. We were suppose to get rain.

I thought "Hmm, that is odd. It never happens that way. It usually snows in North Georgia. How does it snow in Middle Georgia and not up here in north Georgia and Atlanta?"

These are questions I asked myself. I didn't think anything much else of it. I woke up the next morning and I texted my coworker Sushi. She was already at work. My boss later texted that we were open. And the schools were open. So I made a decision to go to work. My goal was to work from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.  I usually get off around 6:30 or 7:00 pm, and I was NOT going to stay that late if it had snowed. I didn't want to have to drive on ice.

My boss texted me at 10:52 am that there was liberal leave, and I could stay home if I wanted.

This caused me to have a mini-rant in her office.

"How you gonna text me and I'm standing here looking dead at you? Why come you didn't text me at 9 this morning?"

This ellicited the hard eye roll.

Humph.

So I was at work. Working away... then Play Mama sent me a picture.

O_O

She is in Alabama, in a city a little over 2 hours away And she sent this picture around 11:30 am.

I immediately thought, uh... maybe I should leave and go home.

But I didn't. I was off this past Monday. So I needed to work for half a day at least.

As I passed by the window at work, there were flurries. And a little later, there were plenty flurries.  This didn't look too good.

But I was like everybody else. Bump liberal leave. I wanted some administrative leave. And I was sticking around for at least half a day if I had to leave and use my vacation time.

But at 11:50, our director sent out a message. I didn't read it, but people started leaving in masses.

I was still trying to work. I walked down the hall to one of my coworkers office and she was eating her lunch. She wasn't leaving. She said she didn't have vacation time. Around this time, she opened the email, that the director had sent. It basically said, in a very professional manner... "Get the hell on!"

So that's why people were running like cattle out of there... hmm.

I soon left, around 12:20 pm.

There were just heavy flurries. I noticed it sticking in my hair.

*ladylee walking faster to car*

There was no gridlock. I was concerned about this. Upon hitting a little traffic, I took a shortcut to a better street through an underground condo parking lot.

I was headed for the freeway, but I decided against it. It didn't look all that promising. So I made a detour and took my usual street way home.

Within 15 minutes, it was looking like this:

And I slid a couple of times... Uh oh.

Snow had fell fast and was beginning to stick. And you see above how far I stay behind folks. No way am I driving like it is bright and sunny and 90 degrees outside.

I slid twice. Once on a street downtown (that was in 5 minutes of the snow falling, which was baffling), and once when stopping for a stop sign.

It took me 30 minutes to get home. Around that time, I was driving extra slow. There was a small pack of us driving extra slow.  My neighborhood is extra hilly, so I made sure to keep it slow.

Here is my house...

Snow on the roof!!

Here's my mailbox.

That doesn't look to bad. You can see my yard here. That doesn't look too bad either.

Pam was on program. There was NO way I was driving Lucy Jr. to work. I didn't think it would really snow, but no need to bust up my lexus, honey. Pam would have to do, and she was a trooper.

And she had a little snow on her by the time I got home.

I thought about parking my car at the top of the driveway. But I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon. I'm not leaving until it is bone dry outside, which means I'm in the house until Thursday or Friday. So I parked my car in the usual spot.

I came home and watched the news. I am still shocked at how fast this snow fell.

Ugh.  This all happened so fast. It took me 30 minutes to get home. And I live only 4.5 miles from work, and my usual commute is no longer than 10 minutes, 15 minutes in traffic. But I remember having to use my windshield wipers to wipe away snow. I've never done that before. Snow usually falls slowly and melts on the window. Not this time.

I was fortunate. I lived close and got home expediently with no problems.

Here's a picture taken from my bedroom window just this morning after sunrise.

Uh, no. I won't be leaving anytime soon. Maybe Thursday at the earliest.

I talked to my sister Kentucky who is a school teacher. She told me that she hated to be mean, but she stood up and hollered "No disrespect, but I'm taking it to the house!"  You got that right, Kentucky.

I think it took her a couple of hours to get home, and her commute is usually 20 minutes.

What was sad that the buses were having a hard time getting to the kids. So many kids had to sleep overnight at school. Parents are furious. Someone is going to have to answer some questions.

And then there are the stranded motorists. Jackknifed trucks on the freeway will cause that mess. People have been stranded for 20 hours. Can you imagine that? People have just abandoned their cars on the highways and sleeping in Home Depot and grocery stores.  We caught up in some third world mess.

But it will be 60 degrees this weekend. And this will all be a... memory.

Will my city learn a lesson?

NO.

Same old thing next time.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Repeat Snow Jam.