GRIDLOCKED: What Atlanta should have learned from the 2005 RTP Gridlock
On Monday, I reminisced about the Gridlock in the RTP. This video
I found online does not give the true picture of the literally bumper to
bumper traffic.
MyFaceBook shared a link.
Do y'all remember the Ice gridlock of 2005 in the Triangle?http://raleighskyline.com/content/2006/11/21/the-half-inch-of-snow-that-paralyzed-raleigh/
It snowed in the Southeast yesterday. Winter Storm Leon came through and shut it down. People in Atlanta have been stuck out on roads and highways, abandoning cars, and having to find shelter. Kids have been stuck on school buses and some had to stay at schools all night.
BOY OH BOY DOES THIS SEEM FAMILIAR!!
In 2005, I was in law school and lived in Raleigh, NC. My commute from school to home typically took twenty-five minutes. On January 19, 2005, it took me SEVEN HOURS to get home!
What happened?
1/2 INCH OF SNOW AND ICE
It started lightly snowing and then got heavier around 1 p.m.. I remember being at school and deciding to go home around two or three. One of my classmates lived in Cary. So we ended up leaving at the same time. She and I talked on the phone along the way from Durham, but did not realize our brief commute would become such a foolish ordeal.
The Traffic Gridlock
As we left downtown Durham to hit 70 East, we were met with non-moving traffic. Apparently people had already sat on the roadways since around noon or one o'clock. The temperature dropped, and the small amounts of snow and ice were turning into sheets of solid ice.
People were running out of gas, running into each other and panicking. I looked over at one point and saw an elderly man slumped over in his car on the side of the road. He looked to be having some type of health issue, but I could not get to where he was, so I called 911.
Unfortunately, I don't know what happened to the gentleman. We continued to inch along for several hours with people slipping and sliding. I really did not have an issue driving (until I reached an icy hill once in Raleigh), and I had enough gas to make it home...as my Pop always told me to never let my tank get below the halfway mark.
I finally slid home around ten o'clock.
It was all an unnecessary mess!
What went wrong
- Government officials did not take the storm too seriously. We were only supposed to get flurries. The temp had been in the 70s the week before.
- Schools were unexpectedly let out at or around the same time, causing parents to flee the RTP to pick up their babies. ALL AT THE SAME DARN TIME
- The roads were not treated properly.
- Traffic was at its highest point when the temp and ice were at their worst points.
- People did not know how to drive in ice...and did not fill their gas tanks.
So here we are in 2014. I live in Charlotte and left the office at my regular time last night. As I walked out of the building it was virtually a ghost town in the parking lot. My car was probably one of three.
Everyone had cleared the mean cold streets and high tailed it home. There was some ice on the roads, but the DOT had already treated the roads earlier in the day. I drove 40 miles per hour and made it safely home. I didn't know the level of what was going on in Atlanta until I watched the State of The Union address last night and perused Facebook.
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