Weather

These counties have no funds towards plows or salt right? No fucking wonder the roads are a mess. Not really the hillbillies fault.

I'm sure some Atlanta residents can weigh in on this. I'd be interested to hear what their thoughts are on the thesis that this is an infrastructure and urban/suburban design problem.

Atlanta Snow Storm - POLITICO Magazine

Eyashusa_sl said:

I'm sure some Atlanta residents can weigh in on this. I'd be interested to hear what their thoughts are on the thesis that this is an infrastructure and urban/suburban design problem.

Atlanta Snow Storm - POLITICO Magazine

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Everything I've ever read on Atlanta (and really, most large, suburban American cities that developed after the advent of the car) leads me to believe that there were many, many terrible decisions made in the decades after WW2 that resulted in them being massive, spread out, balkanized cities that are far too dependent on cars and freeways and have little or no centralized decision making on transit or other infrastructure. It's mind boggling to me that the city of Atlanta is actually only something like 10% of what the Atlanta metro area, population wise.

Maester Chuk_sl said:

i have a 3 mile commute from work and my last car was rear wheel drive. had a nasty fucking ice storm while i was at work 7 years ago and the bitch boss finally decided to let us poor bastards leave 15 minutes early. took me 30 minutes to get home and that 3 mile drive had me going sideways, backwards and every other way imaginable. luckily because my boss was a cunt it saved the lives of the other motorists who i surely would have smacked into on the way home. i was basically the only car on the road the whole way. with my front wheel drive convertible though i have not run into much ice but i make sure i drive granny slow the whole way just in case there is. 3inches of ice sounds pretty bad, but if you go really slow and have front wheel drive you can do it. just plan your route beforehand and if you have unavoidable big hills on the way, id say just stay home. car repairs or worse is not worth a days wage.

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My car is rear-wheel and I had never driven on ice before. I totally agree with you about not being worth it and that's exactly what I was thinking as I was sliding down a hill and whimpering through red lights.

I am considered part of "essential staff" at the hospital where I work. So during hurricanes, we are always told you are expected to be here for your shift, if you cannot make it blah blah blah you're fired.
So for this "snow", we were told the SAME crap. Be at work for your scheduled shift or blah blah blah you're fired.
If I'd known I would be driving on ice and how scary that was, I'd have just spent the night there like we do for hurricanes. but I had no idea.
And I think the "you're fired" line is BS b/c about 8 people didn't show in our dept (including the director) and I'm pretty sure they still have jobs. I'm just the idiot who fell for it. Oh well. Lesson learned.

On a side note: It's supposed to be 70 degrees here on Saturday.

TragedyAnn_sl said:

My car is rear-wheel and I had never driven on ice before. I totally agree with you about not being worth it and that's exactly what I was thinking as I was sliding down a hill and whimpering through red lights.

I am considered part of "essential staff" at the hospital where I work. So during hurricanes, we are always told you are expected to be here for your shift, if you cannot make it blah blah blah you're fired.
So for this "snow", we were told the SAME crap. Be at work for your scheduled shift or blah blah blah you're fired.
If I'd known I would be driving on ice and how scary that was, I'd have just spent the night there like we do for hurricanes. but I had no idea.
And I think the "you're fired" line is BS b/c about 8 people didn't show in our dept (including the director) and I'm pretty sure they still have jobs. I'm just the idiot who fell for it. Oh well. Lesson learned.

On a side note: It's supposed to be 70 degrees here on Saturday.

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i feel you man, i have driven some bad cars in my time and i have lots of horror stories, i have lost brakes driving downhill using the transmission and the curb to slow my car from killing the motorist in front of me, car caught on fucking fire, i hit a parked car that i was sure was owned by a mafia guy... twice. had gas lines break and left a lake of gasoline around my car at traffic lights, flew off the road at 30mph after hitting a patch of black ice, hit a deer at 40 mph and was luckily the deer was uber fast and only his hoof tinked my grill and assorted other white knuckle situations. driving home in the ice storm with rear wheel drive with little control on the road is right up there, i basically ended up idle driving the car home. i figure at under 10 mph i could not get into too much trouble. it worked, but i wont do that shit again. i have had too many close calls.

The "you're fired" is mostly a bullshit line. It would be more accurate to say "We will be looking to replace you as soon as we possibly can, because fuck you".

You can't fire essential staff because they don't come in during bad weather. Legally you could probably get away with it -- but if they really ARE essential staff it's just the height of fucking stupid (like people gunna die levels of stupid) to fire them before you have a replacement.

What I don't understand is how people got stuck at the supermarket and crap like that. I mean that's just... that's some really horrible personal planning. That's not the fault of the ice, that's the fault of the people who got stuck.

What do you mean stuck at the supermarket? Do you prefer they spent the night in their cars?

Eyashusa_sl said:

I'm sure some Atlanta residents can weigh in on this. I'd be interested to hear what their thoughts are on the thesis that this is an infrastructure and urban/suburban design problem.

Atlanta Snow Storm - POLITICO Magazine

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Everything in that article is spot on. Atlanta is a MASSIVE metro area comprised of many municipalities and none of them really cooperate. Hell, the police department in downtown a few years ago lost something like half its force because the city of Sandy Springs (basically north Atlanta) poached all its employees with better pay.

There is historically a strong racial component to the composition of the city. The north side is very white, very affluent and very suburban. The south side is very black, very poor and mostly industrial and housing projects. That is slowly changing, and there are pockets all over the downtown area that are gentrifying and filling up with gay couples and hipster post-grads, but generally speaking if you look at a map of the city it breaks along racial lines. It's a byproduct of Atlanta's very turbulent integration in the 60s and 70s, and it also affected our transit system. The joke is that MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) stands for Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta, because only black people take the bus. The surrounding counties, such as Cobb (home of Newt Gingrich) refused to allow MARTA to expand outside the city, largely because of affluent suburban voters who were worried about the spread of inner city crime. It was quite literally because white people were scared black people would take the bus uptown and rob their houses.

I'm born and raised in Kennesaw, basically the point on Atlanta's Klan hood, and I fucking HATE a lot of the things about our city. It is changing slowly, and the massive influx of non-Southern people has made Atlanta itself a bit more progressive (to the point where rural Georgians no longer think of Atlanta as a Southern city). If I could choose to move my family, home and job somewhere else all at once I would, but I'm stuck with roots here no matter what.

I'm glad I never felt an attachment to a place due to "roots". I'm fond of Cincinnati, but I'm very glad I don't live there anymore.

I'm not attached to the place. I'm attached to my career, my house (and the mortgage attached to me), my family, etc. I'm too invested in Atlanta to move right now, but it doesn't mean I can't/won't down the road. If I had my druthers, I'd be doing the same job remotely from a nice little place on the outskirts of Denver right now.

Cad_sl said:

Thats no different than any city in North America besides NYC and (maybe) Chicago. Dallas is maybe 15% of the total DFW metroplex population, there are 20+ cities that would all have to cooperate. Same with Los Angeles,San Francisco, etc... I don't know too much about how European cities are laid out, but they are probably a lot more urban. Gas and cars being cheap in the US has always lead to people spreading out rather than up.

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SF is a 7x7 square mile block. There's no suburban sprawl. Sure, it's built in a grid, but that's much more efficient than the bullshit road system in old European cities. Most people who live here don't even own a car.

Heylel_sl said:

I'm not attached to the place. I'm attached to my career, my house (and the mortgage attached to me), my family, etc. I'm too invested in Atlanta to move right now, but it doesn't mean I can't/won't down the road. If I had my druthers, I'd be doing the same job remotely from a nice little place on the outskirts of Denver right now.

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I like how you were responding to him saying he doesn't have roots somewhere, then you say you don't either and list a bunch of reasons why you absolutely do have roots. If family, a house, and job aren't roots...what the hell do you think are?

Elurin_sl said:

I like how you were responding to him saying he doesn't have roots somewhere, then you say you don't either and list a bunch of reasons why you absolutely do have roots. If family, a house, and job aren't roots...what the hell do you think are?

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I took him to mean an attachment to a place because of what city it happens to be, like how all New Yorkers think New York is the center of the universe. I absolutely have a lot of history in the Atlanta area that keeps me here, I'm just not a "proud Atlantan". I feel no attachment whatsoever to the concept of living in the so-called business capital of the South. That's all.

Alex_sl said:

The weather has been nice and all this winter so far, but I wouldn't mind a long stretch of steady rain. I've never dealt with a drought emergency and I don't want to.

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Please feel free to come over here.

Up to and including January 28, the South East and central southern England had a record 175.2mm (6.9in) of rainfall in January - beating the previous record of 158.2mm for the same parts of England set in 1988.

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Sure... lets dance.

January 2014 Total 610.2mm 23 day(s)

Where do you go to find year so far total snowfall? What's the best site?