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Now Others Have a Taste of What an Atlanta Ice Storm is Like
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Sunday, January 14, 2007
4:30:00 PM EST
People in the Midwest are learning something we in the South have known for a long time--ice storms are evil, pure evil. I have friends from the North that never cease to make fun of the way we (as in Atlantans) react to ice and snow down here. I have been told that Southerners don't know how to drive in snow, we act like a bunch of panic-stricken fools over an inch of snow, and we are pretty much stupid about something that the rest of the country has to deal with every winter. What most of these nay-sayers don't get is that when we get snow down here, it doesn't come alone, and it often isn't the drifty, soft stuff that falls in other parts of the country.
Our snow is accompanied by ice. It sticks to our bridges and roads, it turns our trees into silvery weapons of mass destruction, it hides underneath the snow lulling us into a false sense of security. It's just snowy, I'll be able to drive through that. This is why we go into lockdown here in Atlanta and other Southern localities. The snow is beautiful, but the ice can kill you.
I've driven in the kind of conditions those folks in the Midwest are facing, and let me tell you, it's terrifying. At any second, you could face sliding uncontrolled into other drivers foolish enough to try and get to work. You also have to watch all the trees (especially the pine trees) because you just don't know if they can stand up to the weight of the icy coating on their branches. Then there's the added stress of wires falling on your car, and killing you. Unless you've lived through this sort of thing, you really can't understand.
A couple of years ago, around this time of year, we had an ice storm over a weekend. I got up to find that my minivan was coated from stem to stern in an inch of ice. Gina was up in Kennesaw, which is about thirty minutes North of where we live, and I needed to go get her. What usually takes thirty minutes to drive, took me over an hour--that is, after the thirty minutes it took me to chip into my minivan (actually that part was pretty cool. The ice came off in sheets). Luckily, by the time I got on the road, the ice was pretty much cleared, but still it was tough going.
Anyway, my prayers go out to all those folks who are going through this terrible ice storm The best thing y'all can do at this point is act like us Atlantans--stay home, sip hot chocolate, eat all that extra bread and lunch meat you bought when you heard it was coming, and snuggle with your honey while watching the Weather Channel. Stay warm, and just remember that spring will eventually come again.
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4:30:00 PM EST
Now Others Have a Taste of What an Atlanta Ice Storm is Like
People in the Midwest are learning something we in the South have known for a long time--ice storms are evil, pure evil. I have friends from the North that never cease to make fun of the way we (as in Atlantans) react to ice and snow down here. I have been told that Southerners don't know how to drive in snow, we act like a bunch of panic-stricken fools over an inch of snow, and we are pretty much stupid about something that the rest of the country has to deal with every winter. What most of these nay-sayers don't get is that when we get snow down here, it doesn't come alone, and it often isn't the drifty, soft stuff that falls in other parts of the country.
Our snow is accompanied by ice. It sticks to our bridges and roads, it turns our trees into silvery weapons of mass destruction, it hides underneath the snow lulling us into a false sense of security. It's just snowy, I'll be able to drive through that. This is why we go into lockdown here in Atlanta and other Southern localities. The snow is beautiful, but the ice can kill you.
I've driven in the kind of conditions those folks in the Midwest are facing, and let me tell you, it's terrifying. At any second, you could face sliding uncontrolled into other drivers foolish enough to try and get to work. You also have to watch all the trees (especially the pine trees) because you just don't know if they can stand up to the weight of the icy coating on their branches. Then there's the added stress of wires falling on your car, and killing you. Unless you've lived through this sort of thing, you really can't understand.
A couple of years ago, around this time of year, we had an ice storm over a weekend. I got up to find that my minivan was coated from stem to stern in an inch of ice. Gina was up in Kennesaw, which is about thirty minutes North of where we live, and I needed to go get her. What usually takes thirty minutes to drive, took me over an hour--that is, after the thirty minutes it took me to chip into my minivan (actually that part was pretty cool. The ice came off in sheets). Luckily, by the time I got on the road, the ice was pretty much cleared, but still it was tough going.
Anyway, my prayers go out to all those folks who are going through this terrible ice storm The best thing y'all can do at this point is act like us Atlantans--stay home, sip hot chocolate, eat all that extra bread and lunch meat you bought when you heard it was coming, and snuggle with your honey while watching the Weather Channel. Stay warm, and just remember that spring will eventually come again.
Written by aurielalata Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
1/17/07 10:37 PM