Our Wintery Hell
Jan. 29th, 2014 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxNot the specific road that I was trapped on, but they might as well have been. It was the exact same.
Apparently a ton of people were trapped on roads overnight.
It's been really freaky because it's just not conditions that we ever have here. On the rare times that it snows, it usually just AS the temperatures are falling from above freezing so the snow melts off the roads, leaving traffic clear. This time it began snowing (with some freezing rain) after it had been 19F (-7C) the entire night before so when it began freezing rain turning quickly to snow, the roads immediately hard froze. Plus, because it virtually never snows, no one was actually expecting that it would (forecasts aside) and it hit just after everyone had already gone to work/school.
Plus the topography of Birmingham is not conducive for this sort of thing. Birmingham is in the foothills of the Appalachians and is a series of valleys bordered by forested large hills/tiny mountains. There's really no "out" without crossing through several relatively steep passes. Even though I live and work "over the mountain" (referring to Red Mountain that separates downtown from the southern suburbs) it's just yet another valley bordered by ridges of hills on both sides.
Still I only had to make it THROUGH the valley. My two ways home were Cahaba Valley and Valleydale. Since I work on Valleydale and my parents live on Valleydale, that was my chosen route home. And as hellish as it was, I was probably fortunate compared to many. Interstate 65 became an impassable parking lot, and I cannot imagine the hell it must've been to be caught on Interstate 459 which has wide swathes of forest on either side and most of the exits beyond Mountain Brook don't lead to much development.
Luckily/unluckily Valleydale is just a two lane road with a turn lane that passes through mostly residential areas. Unfortunately it's also one of two major connections between major traffic arteries Hwy 280 and Interstate 65, so the people stranded on those roads try to detour onto Valleydale.
But, unlike I-459, at least when I got out of my car to begin hiking, I was in a residential/commercial mix where I knew even if I couldn't make it to my parents home, I'd at least pass the high school, two churches, and a fire station, so I could stop if I needed to. Luckily, I didn't need to. Though hiking in 17F(-8C) didn't help my head cold. I am thanking all luck that when debating what to wear to work yesterday morning I decided against the ballet flats and went with the boots. If I had worn the ballet flats or my heels, I don't think I could have made the hike the way that I did. I may not have had a hat or gloves, but I at least had a good coat, a fleece scarf, and boots for the trek. That was what was disturbing to me, here I am perfectly healthy (except for the cold) and reasonablyunderdressed. What about someone trapped in that mess who couldn't just say, "Screw it, I'll walk"?
They did say last night that the high school I pass on Valleydale had been turned into a shelter, and the fire station I passed is always a "safe place" shelter. So, again, at least there were readily available refuges in the immediate area.
I spoke with Peter, my cubicle-mate at work, and he said he'd had to abandon his car once he got off of I-65 and that he had to hike 10 miles to reach his home yesterday. And that his wife, an elementary school teacher, has his home full of stranded teachers.
My brother-in-law had to hike home after a 24 hour shift at the hospital, and my nephew never made it back from UAB dental school but stayed with some school friends. Some of his friends, though made it as far as my sister's house so she seems to be running an impromptu shelter for displaced dental students. I assume my other nephew slept at the hospital since he was on-call.
Roads are still frozen all over town (a result of it having been 8F (-13C) overnight and it's expected to do more than climb to 24 today. There are apparently tons of people who have been stranded on the roads the ENTIRE TIME. And thousands of students who have had to sleep in area schools overnight because no one was able to get through to take them home.
It's a MESS.
At any rate, I made it to my parents and have sheltered there (it's another 4 miles to my house and it's over a HUGE hill, so not even worth the effort. I and my puppy are here and here we'll stay. I may or may not attempt to retrieve my car today. Since I managed to park it in a real parking space in a real parking lot rather than just the side of the road, I don't feel like I have to rush to do it. So it may have to wait until tomorrow when it's supposed to begin to thaw. Today I'm nursing my cold, petting my puppy, and reading on my parents couch... and thankful that I have that much comfort and wasn't one of the many who had to sleep in cars and are still stranded in shelters or on the highways.
It's crazy!
Apparently a ton of people were trapped on roads overnight.
It's been really freaky because it's just not conditions that we ever have here. On the rare times that it snows, it usually just AS the temperatures are falling from above freezing so the snow melts off the roads, leaving traffic clear. This time it began snowing (with some freezing rain) after it had been 19F (-7C) the entire night before so when it began freezing rain turning quickly to snow, the roads immediately hard froze. Plus, because it virtually never snows, no one was actually expecting that it would (forecasts aside) and it hit just after everyone had already gone to work/school.
Plus the topography of Birmingham is not conducive for this sort of thing. Birmingham is in the foothills of the Appalachians and is a series of valleys bordered by forested large hills/tiny mountains. There's really no "out" without crossing through several relatively steep passes. Even though I live and work "over the mountain" (referring to Red Mountain that separates downtown from the southern suburbs) it's just yet another valley bordered by ridges of hills on both sides.
Still I only had to make it THROUGH the valley. My two ways home were Cahaba Valley and Valleydale. Since I work on Valleydale and my parents live on Valleydale, that was my chosen route home. And as hellish as it was, I was probably fortunate compared to many. Interstate 65 became an impassable parking lot, and I cannot imagine the hell it must've been to be caught on Interstate 459 which has wide swathes of forest on either side and most of the exits beyond Mountain Brook don't lead to much development.
Luckily/unluckily Valleydale is just a two lane road with a turn lane that passes through mostly residential areas. Unfortunately it's also one of two major connections between major traffic arteries Hwy 280 and Interstate 65, so the people stranded on those roads try to detour onto Valleydale.
But, unlike I-459, at least when I got out of my car to begin hiking, I was in a residential/commercial mix where I knew even if I couldn't make it to my parents home, I'd at least pass the high school, two churches, and a fire station, so I could stop if I needed to. Luckily, I didn't need to. Though hiking in 17F(-8C) didn't help my head cold. I am thanking all luck that when debating what to wear to work yesterday morning I decided against the ballet flats and went with the boots. If I had worn the ballet flats or my heels, I don't think I could have made the hike the way that I did. I may not have had a hat or gloves, but I at least had a good coat, a fleece scarf, and boots for the trek. That was what was disturbing to me, here I am perfectly healthy (except for the cold) and reasonably
They did say last night that the high school I pass on Valleydale had been turned into a shelter, and the fire station I passed is always a "safe place" shelter. So, again, at least there were readily available refuges in the immediate area.
I spoke with Peter, my cubicle-mate at work, and he said he'd had to abandon his car once he got off of I-65 and that he had to hike 10 miles to reach his home yesterday. And that his wife, an elementary school teacher, has his home full of stranded teachers.
My brother-in-law had to hike home after a 24 hour shift at the hospital, and my nephew never made it back from UAB dental school but stayed with some school friends. Some of his friends, though made it as far as my sister's house so she seems to be running an impromptu shelter for displaced dental students. I assume my other nephew slept at the hospital since he was on-call.
Roads are still frozen all over town (a result of it having been 8F (-13C) overnight and it's expected to do more than climb to 24 today. There are apparently tons of people who have been stranded on the roads the ENTIRE TIME. And thousands of students who have had to sleep in area schools overnight because no one was able to get through to take them home.
It's a MESS.
At any rate, I made it to my parents and have sheltered there (it's another 4 miles to my house and it's over a HUGE hill, so not even worth the effort. I and my puppy are here and here we'll stay. I may or may not attempt to retrieve my car today. Since I managed to park it in a real parking space in a real parking lot rather than just the side of the road, I don't feel like I have to rush to do it. So it may have to wait until tomorrow when it's supposed to begin to thaw. Today I'm nursing my cold, petting my puppy, and reading on my parents couch... and thankful that I have that much comfort and wasn't one of the many who had to sleep in cars and are still stranded in shelters or on the highways.
It's crazy!
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 05:27 pm (UTC)I've been watching some of the coverage out of Atlanta, where I've got a number of friends, and it looks to be just as bad. I've been impressed with the number of places that stayed open to act as shelters for people who were trapped (like Home Depot), and several of my friends ended up hosting friends of friends (i.e. people they didn't even know) who couldn't get home.
So glad you were able to get to your parents... and that your dog was already there! One less thing to worry about.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 08:27 pm (UTC)According to the news here, tons of people in Birmingham were left seeking shelter in Rite Aids, CVSs, and Publix.
Not long before I gave up, I had to stop at a gas station (I had been in traffic by that point for three and a half hours and my morning coffee was giving my bladder fits) and another woman in line said that she was just trying to make it to the Elementary school up the road. Considering that she was behind me in line and I only managed about 3/4 of a block from the gas station before giving up, I've thought about that woman. No way, no how did she ever make it to Inverness Elementary School. It's on the OTHER side from my parents home and, at the point I gave up on driving, it was 3.2 miles to my parents house (making it 5+ miles to the school). And as I walked I passed the massive wreck that had completely stopped traffic, there was no through (heck there was no through on Wednesday afternoon when I hiked BACK to see whether I could retrieve my car.)
I now have my car, just drove to work (1:30pm Thursday) and there is STILL ice and there are still abandoned cars all down the road (so I won't stay at work beyond about 3:30.)
I actually had two co-workers who after a wreck just outside the office building were stranded in our office all night long and well into Wednesday.
Yikes!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:25 pm (UTC)The place where I finally completely gave up on the fantasy that if I were patient enough I might make it through and began fearing that it might get dark and thus worse, I was just about a 1/2 mile from the High School and Middle School campus. The road had become impassable at that point. Looking at the wrecks as I hiked by, no one on that road was going to get through. Even today (Thursday) there are still dozens of abandoned cars near that park and schools. They said on the news that the High School and Middle School I passed were turned into impromptu shelters with many of the kids having to stay one or in some cases even two nights.
And I remembered that where I stoped at the gas station, the woman behind me in line for the rest room was saying that she was trying to make it to the Elementary school. There's simply no way that she made it. We were on the only road to get there and she was behind me, and I gave up less than a 1/2 mile further down the road. That was 3 miles short of my parents home and 5+ miles short of the elementary school. There were teachers on the news last night saying that elementary school still had 60 students in the school and that the only way that parents had reached it in the last 24 hours was by walking.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 07:06 pm (UTC)Whatever you do, don't go out there yet! That's why God created telecommunications. ;) Stay warm and be safe.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:27 pm (UTC)My brother-in-law had to walk from the hospital, my nephew slept at the hospital, my other nephew stayed with friends downtown near the university. My niece lives in the dorm at Tuscaloosa so she was fine and my sis and parents were both at their respective homes, so ultimately it was just myself and my B.I.L who had to hoof it to someplace.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:29 pm (UTC)The entire town was frozen into a 36 hour impassable traffic jam. They keep showing Atlanta on the national news, but Birmingham was in just as bad of a mess. In fact, I'm pretty sure the entire stretch of I-20 from Birmingham to Atlanta was the exact mess, so we're talking traffic jams hundreds of miles long.
Local news said that 10,000 students had had to stay in various schools over night. It's been nuts.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 08:06 pm (UTC)I'm gLad you were OK; Hope the car is OK too.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:34 pm (UTC)I did have to hike the same 3+ miles back to it yesterday, though. My parents were going to drive me, but traffic was still moving so slowly and with so many abandoned cars, that I told them that I'd walk. I was able to retrieve my car (and go to the grocery store... which had also been acting as an impromtu shelter. They complained that they'd been there 24 hours and also wanted to go home). I didn't try to make it back to my house though, and simply returned to my parents. News reports all said 280 was impassable, and to get to my home I'd have to go up a pretty steep hill on 280, and it would be another 4 miles. So even today I haven't made it home, since I made it to work instead. My parents said they'd try to make it to my house to check whether any pipes had frozen and to get clothes for me, as I'll spend one more night there since their place is closer to my work, anyway.
no subject
Freezing rain sucks, you have no chance against it.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 12:09 am (UTC)South Carolina wasn't hit that bad - apparently, there was no ice on the roads in Hilton Head, but it did cover the patio furniture.(According to my mother.)
And Long Island got 4 inches, but we're used to it. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 03:16 am (UTC)It's hard to comprehend in this day and age, with today's state of weather forecasting, and today on the news the governors of those states were questioned why they went ahead and allowed schools to open.
I can't imagine spending the night on the road in such freezing cold, it's no joke, it's very dangerous! And your 3-mile trek in windy 17F is no laughing matter either, it's great that you at least had a scarf, coat and boots, but I would check that head cold if it won't pass in a few days.
Hope you'll be able to stay warm and recover soon! And hope all those poor stranded people could get to their homes soon...
Wow. It's been all over the news, I've never seen anything like it! Poor, poor people. But the authorities should really have listened to weather forecasts and at least kept the schools closed... If if there is no snow/ice clearing equipment available, it should have been a state of emergency and road curfew, it was done couple of times here in New England.
Wishing you all the warmth, hope this wretched winter goes away soon!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:39 pm (UTC)According to the news 10,000 students were left in area schools over night because no one could reach them. And even today the roads are littered with abandoned vehicles. I didn't even chance the 10 miles to work until well into the afternoon today (and there are only 3 of us who made it in at all... though we did have two poor souls who were stranded here overnight DURING the thing. I've felt terribly sorry for Katy and Andrea who spent the night here. We really aren't set up. We don't even have a sofa in the place and have concret floors. And whatever food is in the place is the odd mix-match of what people stash in the refrigerator from lunch. It mustive been a truly weird selection).
All in all it's been a crazy week.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 03:28 am (UTC)Meanwhile, they're talking about it maybe hitting 80 here. :P
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:43 pm (UTC)It's actually supposed to warm back up to 60 for the weekend. But people are still trying to retrieve abandoned cars today (Thursday).
I had to hike the same 3+ miles back to my car yesterday. My parents were going to drive me to it, but traffic was still so backed up I told them not to bother. Since I had my old ski parka and my dad's long johns, hat and gloves, it wasn't nearly as bad of a hike. I still could only make it back to their house so I still haven't made it to my home (hope no pipes froze!)
Today at 1pm I tried to make it to work and made it through. Only 3 of us have, though and I'm leaving early to avoid icing because roads are still wet and they'll freeze again come night time.
We even had two unfortunate co-workers who got caught in a skid-wreck less than a mile from our office and who had to sleep here all of Tuesday night and then had to hike miles and miles Wednesday to reach home. Considering we don't even have a sofa in our office (anywhere!) and only a bizarre mix-match of left over food in the fridge, it had to be pretty miserable for them (neither of them came in today).
It's been a crazy week.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 06:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:44 pm (UTC)I hiked back 3+ miles yesterday to get my car, but still didn't chance the drive to my place and slept again at the parents house. Made it in to work today at 1pm, but only 3 of us have. Am now leaving early before the roads freeze again.