Yeah, this is what can happen if people don't cancel schools or warn people to get off the roads. We have family friends in ATL and it took one of them 9 hours to go 10 miles. Eff that.
Lol this. So many sarcastic comments about no incidents yesterday and very little ice...maybe it was because better precautions were taken? Houston would've looked like that yesterday rush hour if schools and businesses hadn't closed down. All it takes is a couple of supermen hitting an ice patch at 50 MPH to screw it up for everyone.
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2014/1/29/5357246/heres-how-hothlanta-happened-again Good write-up by EDSBS exploring how Atlanta screwed the pooch with this storm.
When it comes to snow, trains don't exactly GAF. <object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/6acPX_00M9Q?hl=en_US&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/6acPX_00M9Q?hl=en_US&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
If it comes to this, I think more people and businesses will ignore the warnings and go about their usual daily routines. If you get a storm that hits during the day as opposed to overnight, you get the same situation as Atlanta.
The difference between the two situations is that the Atlanta forecasts were completely ignored by the State... despite all of them being dead-on accurate even on the day of. Houston made its decision well in advance, regardless of what the day-of forecasts ended up showing. I expect this thing to yo-yo the next time it happens... there is no perfect system.
They need to give people some leeway so they can make plans. Waiting until the last minute isn't very smart either. What time would you propose that schools, etc. announce closings? When the forecast calls for it 3 hours out? 6?
Less than the 18 hours they did last time. That was too much leeway. It shouldn't be as hard in the constant/uptodate information age we live in now. The city didn't fall apart when they used to have only tv/radio to announce school closures in the late 90's.
17? 16? Even at 12 hours, the forecast didn't look all that different. It wasn't until 10:30 or so that a meteorologist friend of mine who had been tracking it and providing updates on Facebook indicated that it could be a bust. And the city didn't fall apart yesterday either. I think a lot of this hand-wringing over the timing is a perfect example of hindsight being 20/20.
Sure, if the solution is to shut the city down at the slightest threat of a freeze, there will never be any accidents... but you'll also start to see a lot of logistical issues with all the missed days (and a lot of angst if the missed days were all for little to no reason). Its about finding a better system... because next time, regardless of the forecasts, more businesses/schools will decide to now wait too long because of the lack of issues last time. I don't think its unreasonable to make the call around 2am... don't think that would put too big of a wrench into the next day's plans. Again, utilize the information age's biggest asset (instant notification/news). The biggest issue is of course if something catastrophic happens during the day AFTER everybody has already made their safe commute (as is what happened in Atlanta).
A freeze isn't the issue. It's rain during that freeze. And it only happens early like once a year. This year isn't the norm. I remember seeing flurries start to come down plenty of times, while already in school. The issue with waiting until midnight or 2 am is that people who have to be up early are sleeping by then. So making the announcement at 5am is not that much different than at 2 am. They'd have to make it before 10 or 11 for those people to know what plans to make, or not make, the next morning.
