Ga DOT dropped the ball on this storm again (Atlanta: home, buy)

[RandyWatson13]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

Would it cost much less to purchase, house and maintain the brine and equipment to lay it down and have crews ready to do this work, all winter every year for years and years of no/minimal snow? Unlikely.

I'm a liberal so I don't have knee-jerk support for cutting taxes and spending, but I am for sensible use of public resources. It annoys me when people who normally complain about "big government" and taxes start complaining that there should be more public services the moment they are personally inconvenienced. You can't have it both ways.

Beautiful! The funny thing is instead of bitching about this where taxes get raised just go out and buy some spare snow tires for around $600 you can slap on in times like this, they work wonders.

I think the DOT is fine. We have like 11 plows here, NYC has 3,000. This is a freak icestorm.

[RandyWatson13]

Originally Posted by mike7586

My parents live in Charlotte, NC and my father told me the roads there were clear (he works Downtown and my parents live 20 miles south). I'm not sure about South Carolina but from the traffic cameras their roads (mostly I-85) look better than ours.

I can definitely understand not buying all this equipment when snow like this is not that common here, but they can do a better job preparing, coordinating, and contracting out the work. They are a little slow...

Charlotte's downtown is like 4 roads

[mike7586]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

It was in the AJC...Cant find the link now though...

Found it:

Atlanta weather | Georgians urged to be patient as state digs out of ice and snow *| ajc.com

Ah, thank you! I knew I read it somewhere.

[plessthanpointohfive]

OK, yeah, that wasn't very good planning regarding the shift change. You'd think the DOT would have contacted some northern DOT to ask, "Send me your plan."

maybe they did and details just got lost in the rush.

In the end, though, this is really about a 30 year storm. We'll never be able to handle this kind of storm the way it's done where it's a 0.1 year storm. :P

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Well, for one, I can count on my hand all of the times in the last 30 years the roads have been impassable due to snow and ice. Using one hand.

It's been two years in a row now.

Besides, I was simply saying we should compare how Atlanta and Georgia handles things to the way other cities and states IN THE REGION (like Birmingham and the State of Alabama) to see if there might be better approaches. There's no need to be defensive ... but there's also no need to totally ignore what our peers are doing.

[plessthanpointohfive]

It has not been 2 years in a row that the entire city has been shut down for 3 days. Last year we got ice and while school closed the entire city did not close.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by plessthanpointohfive

It has not been 2 years in a row that the entire city has been shut down for 3 days. Last year we got ice and while school closed the entire city did not close.

He said "the roads have been impassable due to snow and ice". We had a fair number of roads totally impassable for multiple days in Cobb County last year. Anyone else remember Paces Ferry through Vinings? Cooper Lake Road north of the E/W Connector? Etc.

Changing the topic isn't constructive.

[RoslynHolcomb]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

It's been two years in a row now.

Besides, I was simply saying we should compare how Atlanta and Georgia handles things to the way other cities and states IN THE REGION (like Birmingham and the State of Alabama) to see if there might be better approaches. There's no need to be defensive ... but there's also no need to totally ignore what our peers are doing.

I can't speak for Birmingham now, but the last time this happened, which was in 1993, Birmingham was shut down for five days as well. (Actually the entire state, from Montgomery to the Tennessee line was shut down. Much of Tennessee was shut down too. I had friends stranded in Memphis who couldn't get back into the state.) I distinctly remember Matt Lauer asking our governor why the state of Alabama didn't have any snow plows. Except for my six-year stint in the military I've lived in this region (Gadsden, Birmingham, Huntsville) for all of my 46 years. The only other time I've seen this much snow was the storm of 93. Prior to that we had a helluva ice storm in I think either late 70s or early 80s, but it didn't stay this cold for this long, so it quickly melted. And that's the typical pattern we have in this area--we get ice, it warms up in a day or so, and that's the end of it. Back in 93 it got down to 6-degrees with roughly a foot of snow on the ground in Birmingham. Didn't warm up for a week, much like it's doing now.

Bottom line is, it makes no sense to buy a lot equipment and such for snow eradication in this region of the country. This is going to happen every decade or so and we just have to sit tight until it passes. It's like when they have a heat wave in a northern city. Typically those folks don't have air conditioning, because they don't NEED air conditioning. We don't have snow plows because we don't NEED snow plows.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by RoslynHolcomb

Bottom line is, it makes no sense to buy a lot equipment and such for snow eradication in this region of the country. This is going to happen every decade or so and we just have to sit tight until it passes. It's like when they have a heat wave in a northern city. Typically those folks don't have air conditioning, because they don't NEED air conditioning. We don't have snow plows because we don't NEED snow plows.

Snow generally isn't the issue with these storms. Ice is the main issue, and it's a somewhat different problem set from a simple snowfall.

[plessthanpointohfive]

Wait a minute...you're getting confused. A fair number of roads getting shut down in Cobb county does not equal a total metro-wide shut down. I live intown and I know for a fact the city didn't shut down last year.

Remember, county roads are the responsibility of the county. State roads for the DOT. In big cities like Atlanta they are responsible for city streets. So, if Cobb county had iced over roads for >1 day last year then that means Cobb county had a problem...not all metro Atlanta.

And it's probably understandable Cobb county doesn't find it feasible to spend a lot of money on de-icing equipment for county roads.

I am not changing the subject...you're just confusing administrative boundaries.