Tuesday January 28th, 2014 it began to snow around 10:30 am. It continued to snow steadily for around eight hours. It was beautiful, but also disastrous for the city and suburbs of Atlanta. Proper salting/sanding of the roads did not happen and schools and businesses let out at the same time-just after lunch. The streets and highways became parking lots. There were hundreds, if not thousands of wrecks. The police quit responding to calls. A baby was born on 285. Her parents named her Grace. People were stuck in their cars without food, water, blankets and eventually gas. Kids had to spend the night at school. Some were forced to spend hours and hours on school buses-all without bathrooms, food or water. People abandoned their cars and started walking. Walking to find warm shelter, walking to a friend's house or their own, walking to get home because that was actually quicker than sitting, waiting and wishing. It was taking an hour at the minimum just to travel a mile. Thankfully (and I've never been more thankful), Donald started getting sick Saturday night. He was still sick come Monday and not 100% on Tuesday so he didn't go to work. Because of that, we weren't negatively affected by the 2+ inches of snowfall, but many, many people we know were.
Laura and Erik ended up walking to meet each other.
Sweetman walked home.
Dobbins hitchiked and walked to Sweetman's house.
Lacie traveled 20 miles in 10 1/2 hours just to get home to John Garrett. Jeremy had to spend the night in his work van at work.
Bob, after waiting to venture out at 10 pm, turned around and spent the night at his office.
Tiffany (after fighting traffic to get home) had to spend a couple of nights alone at home with Landon because Daniel's flight got cancelled from Buffalo.
HJ and a few other people spent the night at JAMCo.
Julie's husband, Jeff abandoned his car and walked to a church to spend the night.
Kim's mom, Lisa spent the night in the lobby of the La Quinta Inn on Delk, but was almost forced out until she threatened the manager.
Kelsie sat in traffic for 8 hours to get to Bennett then had to spend the night at the daycare lady's home because she couldn't leave. Patrick was stuck in downtown because of a meeting and walked to a friend's house. Those same friends were out giving out hot chocolate and made the news.
Alex was in traffic for hours, left his car in downtown Alpharetta and walked the rest of the way.
Sarah's husband, Adam, sat in his car for 7 hours from Roswell Road in Sandy Springs to our neighborhood.
The stories go on and on and on. Some were stuck in their vehicles for 20+ hours. But there was a lot of good to come out of the bad. I was unable to sleep well Tuesday night because I felt horrible that we couldn't help. A Facebook page was started called SnowedOutAtlanta where people could list either if they needed help or were there for helping. People with 4 wheel drive pulled people out of the way. Strangers were buying food and water and bringing it to the roads to pass out. People were passing out food and water to students stuck on buses or others trapped in their cars. Stores stayed open to let people take refuge and sleep. A Chick-Fil-A in Birmingham gave out food for free to people after it closed, but the employees walked back because they knew they'd never get home.
I started getting sick Wednesday, but felt ok that afternoon and had this pulling inside of me to go sledding. I felt as though we needed to since we bought those two Snow Caterpillars three years ago and had not used them once since purchasing. I figured since we were already sick, we couldn't get any worse. We put Stella down for a nap and ran across the street to use Willadene's yard.
Here are some of the photos from around the neighborhood.
Even though the door was shut to the back screen porch, the flakes found their way through the screen and covered it in snow.
Our street looking up it, west.
He's hot on the trail of something!
I felt horrible, awful, miserable on Thursday. Donald was supposed to fly to Houston Thursday morning, but because the roads were bad and he wasn't able to get to the office on Wednesday for his laptop, he cancelled the flight. But he still had into the office for a tele-meeting on Thursday. Luckily, he made it there safe and sound. I was feeling much better by Friday so Tiffany and Landon came over for a playdate. It was so nice out so Tiff brought over the wagon. Stella loved being pulled around the yard and driveway.
Later on inside, they were trapped like rats!
Yesterday we still had a tiny bit of snow in the yard and the neighbors. We also left the house for the first time since Tuesday. That was a relief.
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