China Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 Sorta like around here sometimes: Ice turns North Carolina commute into chaos 3,000 pupils stranded at schools overnight The Associated Press Updated: 9:44 a.m. ET Jan. 20, 2005 RALEIGH, N.C. - A surprise 1-inch snow that turned to ice on frigid roads crippled North Carolina’s capital, trapping motorists in epic traffic jams and stranding some 3,000 pupils overnight at schools. The governor urged people to stay home Thursday while crews clean things up. Highways were clogged with desperate drivers whose commutes Wednesday stretched to as long as eight hours. Law officers tallied about 1,000 accidents in the Raleigh-Durham area, but there were no reports of fatalities. “You’d move a little bit, then you sat ... then you moved a little bit, then you sat,” said salesman Brian Baldelli, who took seven hours to go nine miles on one highway. Gov. Mike Easley declared a state of emergency, allowing him to open two state government buildings in downtown Raleigh as shelters. Department of Transportation crews “have been out all night scraping the roads and spreading salt, but their work is not yet complete,” Easley said early Thursday. “If people can stay home, especially this morning, I am encouraging them to do so.” School buses suspended Some 3,000 students spent the night at Wake County schools after bus operations were suspended and parents were unable to come get them. With Thursday classes canceled, school officials planned to have the stranded youngsters bused home during the morning. Such a mess from a mild snowfall stunned even the forecasters. “In the 24 years I’ve lived here, I have never encountered the traffic situation I saw today,” WRAL-TV chief meteorologist Greg Fishel said. He apologized on the air for what the station’s “embarrassing” forecast — a few flurries. National Weather Service forecaster Brandon Locklear said very dry snow packed onto roads that were frigid after two days of below-freezing temperatures. “You had some melting from the compression of people driving on the roads, followed rapidly by refreezing,” he said. Road crews were forced to try applying melting agents to jammed roads. Sleeping at grocery store Lisa Sun of Raleigh resigned herself to spending the night inside a 24-hour grocery store when police closed an ice-covered bridge, cutting her off from her home. She had already spent four hours covering a distance that usually takes half an hour and saw “a slew of accidents.” Almost two dozen people at the grocery early Thursday, watching TV or sprawling on air mattresses. “They have food and a restroom,” Sun said. “We’re pretty happy.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cskin Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 How on earth are parents unable to pick their children up from school, causing them to have to stay the night. We're talking 1" of snow. That's crazy. Get an SUV for god's sake. :doh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prosperity Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 :laugh: suck for them I got my 2 days off from school. 4 day weekend, kick ass! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeaconBlue Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 Well they really(as a generalization) have no idea how to deal with winter weather down there. While I was living in south carolina for a time I recall a story about some medium sized small town down there having something like 30 0r 40 accidents resulting from like 2 inches of snow. I guess since they rarely see the stuff they freak out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDiplomat Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 Yeah the high school I attended and the Elementary schools that I visit for PEPI both had kids spend the night. It was hilarious watching the kids asleep in a class on tv. I originally from DC and I remember going to school in 5 or 6 inches of snow. It's crazy down here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aikmans Killer No.56 Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 happens there every year...you'd think they'd have learned by now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 If 80 percent of the fools in Va have no clue as to how to drive in snow, I'd imagine it's only worse the further south you go. Of course it doesn't help when VDOT drops the ball and does nothing until the snow is about over with... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsCrunkin Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 VDOT is a joke, but I honestly can't imagine anything getting that bad over just an inch of snow, honestly that is pathetic, you may not be used to the stuff but that is just down right sad.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselPwr44 Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 It depends on where you live here in NC. I can imagine in Raleigh, where it's mostly flatland and they don't see frozen precipitation that often, alot of people really don't know how to handle it. Now up here where I live( the NW mtns of NC) we see the frozen stuff on a regular basis and can handle it. The worst snow/ice drivers I've ever seen?? Had to be Illinois. Going up Interstate 24 from Nashville thru Kentucky and into Illinois, the interstate had at least 4 inches of snow on it. Yet, people were passing me(I was going 45mph) like I was sitting still. Ten miles up the road, they were stranded in the median when I passed them back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted January 21, 2005 Share Posted January 21, 2005 We had buses on the road up to 9pm. It was nuts. And people don't know how to drive in the ice... there were over 100 accidents in 2 hours.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 VDOT is a joke, but I honestly can't imagine anything getting that bad over just an inch of snow, honestly that is pathetic, you may not be used to the stuff but that is just down right sad.. Vdot hadn't touched 234 until after 11:30... Where some of the issues were was roads like Liberia which is the main cut through from one side of Manassas to the other. Liberia was a sheet of ice from the traffic compacting that little bit of snow down to an ice layer. THAT's what the problems were. By the time Vdot decided they ought to do something, enough traffic had converted the snow to ice on some of the roads. .... I never realized it but I think every one of the stop signs on Liberia is on a slight incline.... if you are heading east, almost every one you stop at, you have to go at an UPHILL incline, which isn't easy when it's ice. you may not be used to the stuff but that is just down right sad I can handle snow fine. I don't mind it at all. I just mind the morons who cannot drive or don't think... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 Salt trucks and snow plows ain't exactly in the state or individual city budgets... Never had any significant winter weather here. Some ice waaay back when. Maybe 98 or so. I think everyone got a 2 hour delay.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 Originally posted by codeorama We had buses on the road up to 9pm. It was nuts. And people don't know how to drive in the ice... there were over 100 accidents in 2 hours.... Out your way, I'm not surprised. I was out there during the great ice storm of 97/98 I think it was. I was on 64 when they closed it. No one out there could drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickfox45 Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 at first glance it sounds ridiculous, but its not that surprising. i dont think most maryland drivers can handle snow very well either. but the best part of any snowstorm is when we're going to get 1-2 inches and the news stations turn it into 'BLIZZARD WATCH 2005!':laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboDaMan Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 Originally posted by BG Salt trucks and snow plows ain't exactly in the state or individual city budgets... Never had any significant winter weather here. Some ice waaay back when. Maybe 98 or so. I think everyone got a 2 hour delay.... That's a big part of the problem that people forget. Southerners can be clueless in 1" of snow. But as a transplanted New Englander, I can tell you that Northerners can be just as big a menace, because they're used to properly treated road surfaces. Its a surprise to them to find untreated streets two days after a snowfall. Plus in the North snow gets packed hard and stays that way. In VA it will melt and refreeze so that every day you can find a new ice patch in a spot that was clear yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woofer Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 It's also much worse for driving conditions when it is only 1 inch. You think, "Oh that's not anything" and try to drive normally. Which is fine until you try to stop. Not even ABS can help when you are sliding. Up here, north of the Mason-Dixon line, we get a fair amount of snow. The biggest menaces on the roads are 4 wheel vehicle drivers. They think just because they can go, they should go fast just to show how great their vehicles are. But 4WD or not, they still have to stop. Most of the accidents I see are 4WD vehicles that rear-ended someone or they slide through an intersection and hit cars coming across. Once, driving on I81, there was about 4 inches of snow. The highway had been plowed, but more snow had fallen. A guy in a Bronco was tailgating me in the slow lane. He tried to pass me on the left, lost control of his Bronco, spun out into the median and nearly onto the other side of the highway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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