Atlanta and Winter Weather

Atlanta gets a lot of flak for how its residents handle winter weather.

Some of it's warranted. I once saw a woman drive 10 miles an hour down hill riding her brakes because it was predicted to be bad. . . soon.

I've also seen:

• The grocery stores completely emptied gladiator style of bread and milk because a flake of snow was predicted in the next 24 hours. Soccer moms were fighting over the nesquick on aisle three and the stock boys huddled in a mass in the floral department crying or catatonic.
• A college campus cancel class because the student body was outside trying to catch snow flakes that were melting before they got below the tree line on their tongues.
• A whole group of adults slipping, sliding, and giggling like little kids on a patch of 'ice' that was actually just a bit of wet pavement.

On the other hand, when Atlanta gets winter weather it doesn't get snow. Snow is actually relatively easy to deal with. Any northern city moves it out of the way with their fleets of plows before it has a chance to melt and refreeze. So it sits mounded up like bumpers on a bowling alley until a thaw. Even in Atlanta, most of the time snow is not a problem. It hits the ground and melts within a day. Most of the time.

The problem is, every once a while, about once a year or so, Atlanta gets an ice storm. Before moving to Atlanta, I'd only ever seen one ice storm. It was severe enough that it shut southern Michigan down for two days and a week later you could still see pine trees snapped in half like toothpicks along I-75. Granted, things were back to business with in 48 hours but it's one of the few times in my childhood I can remember the state still shut down two whole days after the weather was over.

Ice is nasty business and Atlanta gets a lot of ice storms. We don't get a lot of snow down here but when the weather turns "cold for us" it hovers right at the freezing line. So what'll happen is that Atlanta and the environs will get 2 to 6 inches of freezing rain. If we are lucky it'll just coat the roads and turn them into canals of sheet ice. If we are not lucky, the ice coats everything from tree branches to powerlines. Trees come down, power lines snap, and whole communities are without power for a week because the service trucks can't get past downed trees across iced over roads. In a weird way, it's beautiful but it's hard for people to appreciate when they don't have power and can't navigate their ways to the grocery stores or emergency rooms. And that's the situation if we are lucky and the low temperature is just a 24 hour dip.

Unfortunately, every couple of years Atlanta gets the ice along with a more serious cold snap. So we get all the initial nastiness followed by a rapid cycle of thawing and refreezing as the temperature gets just above freezing during the day and then refreezes overnight. Over and over and over. This creates massive sheets of ice that stretch along the roads for miles and just shuts the city down until the temperatures come up. The worst cycle I've seen lasted 10 days.

• I watched cars slide down hills a quarter of a mile into intersections and not because the driver made any mistake, aside from being on the road.
• I've seen the interstates completely covered over with sheets of black ice.
• I've seen people abandon their cars on roads that really were practically undrivable...even for me... because we don't have the vehicles down here or the equipment to handle snow and ice on consumer vehicles.
• I've seen conditions on the road get worse 3 days after the precipitation was over as the snow slowly turned to ice perfect enough to skate on.

So yes, Atlanta gets a little hands in the air, head exploding, panicked about winter weather. Yes, no one down here know's how to deal with it. And yes, a northern city/state wouldn't get paralyzed under the similar conditions.

Want to know why?

1. Northern cities have the infrastructure to deal with these conditions. Up north, once the weather turns, it stays cold for 3 to 5 months before a thaw. So, the cities and states invest in salt trucks and plows to keep the roads moving. The power lines have stronger reinforced connections to the poles and can handle more weight. And all of this is a good use of civic funds because it prepares for conditions that last at least a quarter of the year. Georgia had, last time I checked, 5 plows for the whole state because this only happens once a year...and not even every year. It's not a good use of funds maintaining a large fleet of plows for one week of the year that may or may not happen.

2. Georgia doesn't get snow. It gets ice. Snow is much easier to deal with. You can shovel snow. In the worst of the ice storms I've seen people out with pick axes and mallets breaking the ice up before it could be moved.

So go gentle when you mock the South and its attitudes on winter weather. Because it doesn't happen often, but when it does it's worse than "a little bit of snow" and we don't get opportunity to practice as much. It makes an impression and it's scary. The people get a little ridiculous. It's true. However, you would too if a brief snap of winter weather could mean isolation from grocery stores and basic medical care. Or if it meant the loss of power and therefore heat for up to two weeks. We are a little complacent in the North about what the weather can mean without our plows, salt trucks, and tire chains.

Go gentle. It's ok to laugh, we laugh at ourselves and our helplessness. But what would you do without the plows and salt trucks. What would you do without power. What would you do without access to food and medical care.

Go gentle.