"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
01/31/2014 at 13:49 • Filed to: None
5
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"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
01/31/2014 at 13:49 • Filed to: None | 5
| 3 |
As I led a corporate committee meeting on Tuesday morning, I casually glanced outside at the unusually large, dry flakes falling. The weather reports predicted the wintry mix would hit 100 miles south of us here in Birmingham, so the usual “Everybody Panic!” mentality was conspicuously—almost obnoxiously—absent. Even the state DOT had repositioned all of their snow-clearing equipment (which I believe consists two four-wheelers and a lawn tractor) to the southern part of the state in preparation for the onslaught. Grab the bread and milk and fire up the Netflix, we’re going to be home for a while!
The dry snow began to coat the unusually cold ground and gusted freely around, creating little concern for onlookers. After all, this wasn’t like the slushy messes that we normally see this time of year. This is just harmless powder, a light dusting. Never mind that the temperatures hadn’t gotten above freezing for almost a week. We’ll be fine. The ground can’t be that cold. It won’t stick.
Then around 11am, the reports of school and work closures began to flood in. The normally quiet downtown streets filled with cars at such a rate, even perfect weather wouldn’t have mattered. Birmingham is among the most car-dependent cities in the country, at some points ranking #1 for vehicle usage per capita. When you consider that the metro area is built across three significant ridge systems and countless smaller hills, the topography adds insult to injury. Atlanta is similarly hampered by infrastructure limitations and some hills, but has exponentially worse traffic issues on a good day…and plenty of media outlets to draw attention to their snowy plight! At least Atlanta predicted this weather and made preparations, even though the outcome would lead most people to believe otherwise. That’s just water under the bridge (or over the levee, or falling frozen from the sky).
The fine powder was quickly compacted into ice due to the excessive traffic, making a marginal situation worse by the minute. “I’ll wait until the initial rush is over and then leave,” I thought. My wife pleaded with me to get home to her and our two young kids. “Just wait a little while,” I insisted. “Once the rush of parents getting their kids clears out, I’ll head out.”
I thought about my ’98 VW Passat in the deck across the street. I had new tires, which was probably good. But they’re crappy tires (I won’t name names, but let’s just say they’re pretty F*lken’ bad). Front wheel drive, okay, maybe I’ll be grateful for that today for the first time ever. Stick shift? Eh, I can start in second gear, it’ll be great. iPhone at 80%, should be good. Google Maps? The interstate is jammed, but local roads look good. 30 minutes home? Great, let’s do it!
Janine, a 60-something coworker who lives near me, had asked to let her know if I was leaving. She said there was no way she was staying in the building overnight; her husband had just attempted to come pick her up, but had slid their new Mercedes E350 into a line of stopped cars less than a mile from their house.
So we packed up and headed out.
The chaos was very orderly. Imagine a normal downtown traffic jam where everybody had taken a Xanax. No horns, no road rage, almost no accidents. But flat, gridlike roads are not hard to negotiate, even with unexpected snow and ice. This flat, logical road structure is norm for most American city centers, so it’s no wonder most places don’t face tremendous chaos with snowfall. It was slow going, but peaceful and orderly. Until it wasn’t.
Since 90% of drivers were heading for either I-65, I-20, or Highway 280 to leave our low-lying downtown, they had to negotiate an onramp. So it only takes one minor accident to block this onramp for thousands and thousands of other cars. A handful of choke points is all it takes, regardless of weather.
After three hours of attempting downtown streets, Janine and I threw up our hands and backtracked on the wide-open interstate, going against the rush. Lanes were unidentifiable under the white blanket. It was exhilarating to be above 1mph for the first time all afternoon, but it was short-lived as we exited to a gas station for a bathroom break and strategy session.
It was at this random gas station that I bumped into my next-door-neighbor, Corvette Bob. Corvette Bob has a beautiful black example of one of the last C6 models made. I rarely see him driving it except in the best weather, and then only to the golf course. Upon returning, he’s in his driveway washing the minute amounts of brake dust from the wheels before pulling it back into the garage. Today he’s stuck in a gas station parking lot with no cell phone and no way to move. Panhandlers are literally circling the parking lot, no doubt grateful for the new captive audience the weather has delivered them. I relayed a message to my wife about Corvette Bob’s safety, then offered him the chance to ride home with us. He just laughed and said “I’m not leaving my car here, I’ll sleep in it.” Can’t fault that logic.
A retired couple from Michigan also stood next to me, their trip to the beach stymied by the weather “they thought they had left behind.” Janine and I got back into my car as the Michigan couple returned to their Dodge Caravan armed with my hopeless advice to just backtrack an hour to try finding a hotel with vacancies. “A lot of folks will be sleeping in their cars tonight,” they joked with a prescience that only comes from spending half of every year at home in similar conditions.
The next 45 minutes were glorious, cruising from 40-60mph on wide-open interstates, with just a dab of oppo to correct every minor fishtail. I channeled my inner Colin McRae as the radio reports flowed in about how many churches, schools, community centers, YMCAs were opening themselves to stranded motorists. It’s amazing how much anxiety is reduced when there aren’t many other drivers around to hit. As we made our way the LONG way around town—the flat way—we had a sense of progress and accomplishment, with the hope that we’d be home before total darkness in an hour.
Then back to the surface streets.
The suburbs were a little better than downtown, but fewer cars gave way to more hills. Car after car attempted to go up the hills around our nearby retail center. Maybe 10% were successful, and that was assuming there were no accidents or abandoned cars blocking their way. That’s the whole problem with this debacle – no matter how great your personal car, tires, skills, or patience were, the weakest link in the chain ruins the whole system.
All three roads we tried were blocked or impassible as we watched whole families park their cars at the retail center and begin the long, cold walk uphill in the dark, 15-degree weather. As my hubris mixed with desperation and cockiness, I jumped back on the interstate to try the one last path up the mountain where Janine and I both live. Gridlock. Side streets, shortcuts through neighborhoods, impassable hills, and lots of stationary three-point turns executed by spinning the front end around the back, moving a fraction of an mph down the road while the speedometer reads 20 in reverse. People who drive in the snow frequently are probably no stranger to this, but for most of us, it’s on-the-job training.
We miraculously made our way back to the main road up the mountain, this time with some gaps between stranded cars. Threading the needle between them involves a little skill and a lot prayer that the space between isn’t fully iced over. Success! The roads were reasonably clear at this point and we were less than a mile from our destinations. Another split-second decision to take a side road and…gridlock again. Six hours into the drive, we were on a downhill grade between a dozen parallel-parked cars with no hope of reversing. We pulled over, curbed the car, and made plans to walk down the shoulder to our homes.
After 20 minutes of walking arm-in-arm through brutal temperatures and suffering with Janine’s bad knee, a couple in a 4WD Dodge Ram spotted us and offered us a ride. My inner skeptic knew these situations make it easy to take advantage of people, but we gladly hopped in and these Good Samaritans delivered us both to our front doors.
It was only as a passenger from the elevated vantage point of a heavy-duty work truck that the carnage became clear. Although statistically most cars and people were completely unharmed, the sheer number of minor accidents and abandoned cars made the whole town look like something from The Walking Dead (a reference I apparently made too many times, according to my wife). But amid all the chaos there was little or no looting, petty theft, robbery, anger, or frustration. People were patient, they were helping each other, and generally tolerating it pretty well.
I arrived home around 7:30 at night to big hugs from my 3-year-old son, wife, and baby daughter. Most of my coworkers had slept the night at a corporate downtown condo, something that only made sense to me in purely utilitarian hindsight. What I emotionally faced, along with most of our city, was a strong urge to get to my family at all costs. For some, that was rushing to their kids’ schools, only to find they couldn’t get there. For others, it was just getting home. Thousands of kids in our area spent the night at schools, and many thousands more workers trudged for miles after giving up hope that their cars would be of any more use to them. The day after the storm, my brother-in-law drove halfway to his daughter’s high school, then hiked 3 miles (each way) just to bring her to the car. There was just no other way to get there. Imagine this scenario repeated thousands of times.
Thankfully (and ironically), there were no widespread power outages or major service disruptions to complicate things further. It was just tens of thousands of cars stuck or crashed on the roadways, while their warm, lit homes sat often within shouting distance. I was finally able to retrieve my car after 2 days, once the ice had softened enough to find traction. No worse for the wear.
This was not an exercise in proving “whether or not Southerners can drive in the snow” (from what I saw, they did a really damned good job) or how poorly the meteorologists did at predicting the storm’s path. This is what happens when you tax a system—in this case, road infrastructure—beyond what it can handle. A torrential downpour in New York City might create flash flooding, but it’s not because their storm drains are too small. It’s because nobody can predict every possible scenario, and systems simply aren’t built for every 0.001% Black Swan that might come along.
As one of my Northern-transplanted coworkers quipped this morning, we could have put 100% Michigan drivers with snow tires out there on Tuesday, and nothing would have been any different. I lived in Central Pennsylvania in high school during the major blizzards of ’93, dumping close to two feet on us. I’ve spent some time driving in snow and ice in Connecticut, Maryland, and Kansas over the years, in addition to the occasion Alabama winter storm. Nothing I’ve seen even comes close to the past few days. This is just one small anecdote among countless others, but it’s nonetheless one of the better driving adventures I’ve had in my 35 years on earth.
Maybe it’s the recent hubris talking, but I’ll put my winter driving skills up against anyone out there. On second, though, forget driving. I’m going to see if I can start working from home.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Ash78, voting early and often
01/31/2014 at 14:31 |
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which I believe consists two four-wheelers and a lawn tractor
Nonsense. There's a Bobcat and some Tonka dump trucks too, didn't you hear?
Good write-up, and as always, good to see you.
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Ash78, voting early and often
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/31/2014 at 14:49 |
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Thanks, RR, good to see you too. I'm completely stuck using iphone to view and post here, and still cant figure out how to make posts show up on oppo. I left because the Kinja redesign was the most maddening thing I'd ever seen on the web and it's still like that :(
Any tips?
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Ash78, voting early and often
01/31/2014 at 14:55 |
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I can't say I have any, other than maybe getting chrome for iOs. I oppo via droid chrome, and via Win 7 IE and FF (depending on which browser is getting the shaft through which API fucking up in a given week). Never seem to have problems with chrome on mobile, though the interface is less optimal.