re: Why are so many Ranters complaining about the winter weather?

50% of our fleet (at least) will be back up and running in that area tomorrow so the roads must be clearing up.

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50% of our fleet (at least) will be back up and running in that area tomorrow so the roads must be clearing up.

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They are in places. They've been sanding the major highways and roads leading to schools. The problem is that all the back roads and neighborhoods are still frozen over. It's supposed to get above freezing tomorrow during lunch so things should start to clear up then.

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You sound upset. Would you like to talk about it?

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Absolutely. Why don't you just have a seat right over there while I tell you about my feelings.

should we even mention walking up the Hill to campus from Pomfret in a foot of snow???

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should we even mention walking up the Hill to campus from Pomfret in a foot of snow???

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Yes, I remember watching people faking injuries to delay the start of class.

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Try 4 inches instead of 1 or 2

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Is there really a difference between 2 inches of ice on the road an 4 inches of ice on the road? It's just as slippery

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The hills here are steep. It doesn't matter if it's a mountain in Arkansas or a 20 foot hill in my neighborhood, if it's steep and covered in an inch of ice then you aren't making it over in your RWD sedan with normal street tires. All it takes is one person getting stuck at the top or sliding back down to frick everybody else up.

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You're right about all it taking is one idiot to frick everyone else's day up, but yes you can manuever in big heavy RWD cars with street tires, I've done it all winter.

A set of chains will help bigtime, what really sucks is when the slush packs into the tread on your tires, then you're skating and have to get creative. 2x4's or cardboard can help.

Not sure if anyone has touched on this cause im not reading the whole thread, but there were a few reasons why we had the cluster frick we did down here in Birmingham the last few days.

We arent prepared for conditions like this because we very rarely get them. This is only the 3rd time in my lifetime that we have had this big of a mess. Really only the 2nd because while 1993 was literally 5 times worse in terms of snowfall and length of time affected, we knew it was coming and were prepared and therefore there wasnt a mess of people stuck out in it. The county is broke, they just declared some type of record breaking bankruptcy recently. There is no money at all to be spending on stuff to prepare for things that hardly ever happen. So we dont have 40 snow plows and sand trucks, and we cant use salt because, unlike up north, the metal guard rails and interstate signs down here arent treated to avoid the rusting problems that salt causes to metal. We would have to replace every single metal component of our roadways to be able to use it. So we just use sand ONCE we can get out to use it.

Another reason is because we had no idea it was coming. The NATIONAL weather service (notice that didnt say "Southern Inbred Hillbilly fricktard Weather Service") said that Birmingham would only get a SLIGHT dusting if we got anything at all and that the snow would be in montogmery. However, Tuesday morning the storm took a northern turn which caused the northern edge of the snow line to move 125 miles to the north.... 125 miles. Normally when we are going to get snow, we know that we arent prepared for that type of weather so we shut everything that isnt vital down and just stay home. Its kind of like knowing you cant swim so you just stay your arse out of the water. Its called being smart enough to avoid bad situations. Unfortunately we DIDNT know so we werent aware that we NEEDED to avoid it.

Then when it DID start, and the weather folks realized what was about to happen, everybody started sending folks home at once and all the schools started sending kids home. This would have been fine except that this storm did 90% of its damage in its first 2-3 hours, causing all these people to pack down those 2 inches of snow into 1 inch worth of solid fricking ice. Birmingham is in the foothills of the Appalachians. In order to travel north or south across it you have to traverse 2 or 3 different mountains. (technically hills since they dont meet the actual geographical height requirements to be called mountains but they are still pretty fricking tall when they are covered in slicker than owl shite ice) This makes driving on the ice much more difficult than if the roads were mostly flat. You are then left with a situation where thousands and thousands of people are trying to leave a city where the vast majority of people live in 1 of 2 directions from it (south or east) and the roads are all of a sudden, AFTER they have already gotten on them, unsafe to drive on with anything other than a 4wd/awd. The people had no idea it was going to happen like that. It wasnt irresponsible driving or idiots that had no business out in conditions they had no idea how to drive in. When they got in their cars they thought it was just gonna be a slow, traffic filled drive out because everyone was going at once.

All of these things resulted in blocked roadways due to jack knifed trucks, cars in ditches, and cars that had been abandoned because they couldnt make it up the ice coated hills. When there arent any ways out of a city, all the people inside are trapped. Its not rocket science to figure out what happened from there.

My daughter spent the night last night in her elementary school while my her mother stayed overnight in the school where she works about 6 miles away and there was no way either could get to the other because roads were completely blocked. I took my Jeep all the way down and got about 6 miles from them and had to turn back because all roads in from where I was were blocked by huge pileups from cars sliding down hills.

5 people lost their lives because of it. All because of a busted weather forecast. Not because of idiots not knowing how to drive. Not because of idiots getting on the road when they shouldnt have. Not because Southerners lose their minds when it snows. Because of a busted weather forecast. Not really the weatherman's fault either since every single weather man in Alabama AND the National Weather Service all got it wrong too.

So to anyone talking shite about southerners and snow, you can suck our collective fat fricking dicks.



:nb4tl;dr:

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You're right about all it taking is one idiot to frick everyone else's day up, but yes you can manuever in big heavy RWD cars with street tires, I've done it all winter.

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Yeah, my truck is RWD and I never once got stuck. Slid a couple times but I've driven through a blizzard in Iowa so I was alright. My problem was every time I tried to go up a hill somebody was stuck at the top and I couldn't get safely around. But I had an advantage over most people in their tiny sedans and mini vans because my truck is so heavy.