Help!! Brother in law stuck on i75 in atlanta for 20 hours!!!

[corwin]

What can be done, any advice. Hes running low on gas.
20 hours and counting....

Damn....I almost forgot your plea for advice....send him a link to this thread so he can laugh while he dies from hypothermia :awe:

 

[SlickSnake]

I think you should just be thankful he's giving your sister's hoohaa a break. 😉

Really, it's his stupid bro in law, for heavens sake. His sister could dump this guy when he freezes to death in a heart beat. Right? Am I right? What's your sisters phone number BTW, just in case, you know.

 

[Paratus]

You guys have no idea on the magnitude of the gridlock. No superior snow driving ability is going to help you if the traffic is at standstill and not moving. Imagine moving 1 block in like 2-3 hours. Imagine 5 million people moving all at once and the roads are frozen in inches of ice and snow. Probably 40% of people living in Atlanta are Yankees. I lived in Chicago for 4 years and drove there and in Canada during the winter. That's cakewalk to what I experienced yesterday. I was slipping and sliding everywhere. I'm thankful I got home after 7 hours without an accident.

Been there, done that. Hurricane Rita evacuation. 3 hour drive from Houston to. San Antonio became 14 hours in 100 degree heat. A friend who evacuated to Dallas took 40 hours instead of 5. 😱

(At one point a guy on the frontage road lost it. He revved his engine and then slammed into the car in front of him, threw it in reverse and hit the car in back of him, and then threw open his door and ran off screaming into the woods. )

 

[Jaskalas]

Not just Atlanta. This disaster stretches across Georgia and Alabama. It is continuous in all points in-between.

They sent kids to school and people to work on Tuesday and most will not be able to return home until afternoon on Thursday.

 

[gorcorps]

lol

 

[Meghan54]

Hilarious atlanta basically shut down over a few inches. In upstate NY it would have a monumental blizzard to produce the results of what is happening down there.

Yet, during the last two years, when I lived on Cape Cod, when it'd hit close to 90F in the area, the "Heat emergency" screaming, waving of arms, sort of like Chicken Little, would happen. NY, PA, MA, Ct....all would get into a tizzy about temps during the summer that the south would, and did, laugh out loud about.

It's all what each area is used to. You certainly cannot expect an area that averages under 1" of snow every year to be anywhere near as prepared or experienced to deal with snow and ice like what happened yesterday, although much of it was self-inflicted.

corwin, i agree but they knew it was gonna be bad and could have said "dont fing drive anywhere"

which they did someplaces, driving bans and whatnot

And that's what was so stupid. The storm wasn't something sudden, yet schools weren't closed, gov't workers drove into work, etc., etc. Then, at noon when it was starting to get bad, the gov't workers were sent home, schools were closed and students sent home, putting hundreds of thousands of drivers onto roads that weren't in the best of shape.

That and the inexperience of drivers in the south dealing with snow and ice that's rarely seen every decade, and you have what amounted to self-inflicted gridlock that could have been avoided if some sense had been used, like closing the schools yesterday, telling non-essential employees to stay home, etc.

The level of stupidity shown by the current administrations in GA and Atlanta (city and county and even state level) is mind boggling.

Really? You guys cannot drive 5mph and be safe? just take your foot off the gas and brake and you will crawl along and things will be fine.

Just slow the hell down and snow isn't that hard to handle.

It's not, really, except that a LOT of the traffic problems came as a result of semi-trailers jack knifing on the I-285 loop around Atlanta. Watched the crap snowball yesterday via the traffic cams around Atlanta...trucks sideways everywhere, blocking traffic.

True, the inexperience of drivers in snow down here didn't help one bit, but not all the problems were due to the car drivers. The roads turned to ice by noon, and even up north, icy roads aren't exactly easy to handle.

 

[dainthomas]

Yet, during the last two years, when I lived on Cape Cod, when it'd hit close to 90F in the area, the "Heat emergency" screaming, waving of arms, sort of like Chicken Little, would happen. NY, PA, MA, Ct....all would get into a tizzy about temps during the summer that the south would, and did, laugh out loud about.

It's all what each area is used to. You certainly cannot expect an area that averages under 1" of snow every year to be anywhere near as prepared or experienced to deal with snow and ice like what happened yesterday, although much of it was self-inflicted.




And that's what was so stupid. The storm wasn't something sudden, yet schools weren't closed, gov't workers drove into work, etc., etc. Then, at noon when it was starting to get bad, the gov't workers were sent home, schools were closed and students sent home, putting hundreds of thousands of drivers onto roads that weren't in the best of shape.

That and the inexperience of drivers in the south dealing with snow and ice that's rarely seen every decade, and you have what amounted to self-inflicted gridlock that could have been avoided if some sense had been used, like closing the schools yesterday, telling non-essential employees to stay home, etc.

The level of stupidity shown by the current administrations in GA and Atlanta (city and county and even state level) is mind boggling.

Isn't the Weather Channel even based there? Someone in the city government there should definitely be raked over the coals for this one. As well as school superintendents.

Of course people need to be responsible for themselves. If I lived in Atlanta and had seen that forecast, I would have called in sick and kept my kid home (knowing what idiots other people are).

 

[corwin]

Been there, done that. Hurricane Rita evacuation. 3 hour drive from Houston to. San Antonio became 14 hours in 100 degree heat. A friend who evacuated to Dallas took 40 hours instead of 5. 😱

(At one point a guy on the frontage road lost it. He revved his engine and then slammed into the car in front of him, threw it in reverse and hit the car in back of him, and then threw open his door and ran off screaming into the woods. )

Funny but during the evacuation for hurricane Ike I didn't have any problems with traffic...of course I was driving IN to Houston and not out of it:hmm:

 

[Perknose]

Turn the car off and be patient. Not going anywhere, so save the gas.

You need to run the engine to keep the battery charged to run the heater to stave off the cold. This is why, among a host of other emergency things, I keep several of those sheets of emergency heat retention foil in my car.

Get out of his car and walk somewhere?

Depending where you are on an interstate, the distance to someplace warm can be daunting. But yeah, barring rescue, there may not be a better alternative.

I wonder what the authorities are advising people to do.

 

[corwin]

You need to run the engine to keep the battery charged to run the heater to stave off the cold. This is why, among a host of other emergency things, I keep several of those sheets of emergency heat retention foil in my car.

You do know the heater doesn't run of the battery right? The fan does but the heater itself does not...

 

[Perknose]

You do know the heater doesn't run of the battery right? The fan does but the heater itself does not...

Yeah, meant the fan. 🙁

 

[Nintendesert]

You need to run the engine to keep the battery charged to run the heater to stave off the cold. This is why, among a host of other emergency things, I keep several of those sheets of emergency heat retention foil in my car.

Same. I keep mylar blankets, some 18 hour body heating pads, light sticks, flashlight and duct tape in a bag in my truck. People have laughed at me as being some doomsday prepper. 🙄

I also keep a gallon of water and a fire extinguisher. I'd be having a picnic watching everyone else freeze to death around me.

 

[Perknose]

Same. I keep mylar blankets, some 18 hour body heating pads, light sticks, flashlight and duct tape in a bag in my truck. People have laughed at me as being some doomsday prepper. 🙄

I also keep a gallon of water and a fire extinguisher. I'd be having a picnic watching everyone else freeze to death around me.

All of that (and more) really doesn't take up much space in the trunk, and only makes sense to have along. You may never need any of it, but if you do, you'll be happy to have it.

 

[Uppsala9496]

You need to run the engine to keep the battery charged to run the heater to stave off the cold. This is why, among a host of other emergency things, I keep several of those sheets of emergency heat retention foil in my car.

I'm assuming (falsely) that he is dressed appropriately. Run the car for 10 minutes, turn the car off for 50 minutes or an hour. You should be warm enough if you repeat that cycle to stave off death.

 

[Red Storm]

I also keep a gallon of ice and a fire extinguisher.

Fixed. 😛

 

[Bird222]

All of that (and more) really doesn't take up much space in the trunk, and only makes sense to have along. You may never need any of it, but if you do, you'll be happy to have it.

I am interested in your list of items.

 

[Demo24]

It's been fun so far. Got off work 2 hours early, and no work at all today. Roads are perfectly clear where I am.

 

[Printer Bandit]

walking bad

 

[Zee]

Fixed. 😛

correct. any water stored is frozen.

The only answer is MRE and eat the snow

 

[Triumph]

This happens what, once a year or two in atlanta? And every year, the same result happens. Doing the same thing and expecting different results, isn't that the definition of insanity?

 

[ponyo]

Also, AT&T and Verizon voice cell service were overloaded. I couldn't make a single voice calls from my AT&T iPhone 5s for couple of hours while stuck in traffic. Texts and data worked though. I communicated with my daughter via FaceTime because I couldn't call home.

 

[IAteYourMother]

Yet, during the last two years, when I lived on Cape Cod, when it'd hit close to 90F in the area, the "Heat emergency" screaming, waving of arms, sort of like Chicken Little, would happen. NY, PA, MA, Ct....all would get into a tizzy about temps during the summer that the south would, and did, laugh out loud about.

It's funny because if the governments in the South had made a big deal about the snow/cold in the same way the Northeast did about the heat, then all of this could've been avoided.

 

[jaedaliu]

It's funny because if the governments in the South had made a big deal about the snow/cold in the same way the Northeast did about the heat, then all of this could've been avoided.

They did. The weather forecast predicted that the areas wouldn't get hit. So they shifted supplies and support to the areas that would get hit.

Turns out there was snow everywhere. If they had a better forecast, I'm sure the governors would have called a state of emergency before the snow even started falling to let the work crews keep the streets clean.It's hard enough to drive on ice with studded winter tires, imagine trying to do it in all season or summer tires.

 

[Aikouka]

Hear AL got pounded. SunnyD, got an update/

It's fine here, but that's because it mostly hit the southern areas of Alabama. I heard some stories that are about as bad as the OP's where people got stuck. It wasn't a matter of driving slowly to get home. The roads were shut down, so you couldn't get anywhere!

 

[cyclohexane]

Got home on 4 hours yesterday, 9 mile drive.