Snow in the South!

Well.. we survived Snowmeggedon 2014 in the ATL.  It was such a catastrophic event that it was covered in the national news so I'm sure everyone has heard all about it... how 2 inches of snow shut down the entire city!  NOW I understand how that can all happen.  It was a perfect storm of more snow than predicted, six million commuters leaving work at the same time, gridlock on the highways, cars running out of gas, inadequate equipment (I read that Atlanta owns 40 plows.  They used to own four, but apparently the city went through a similar 'storm' in 2011 so they upgraded to 40), icy roads, and inexperienced winter drivers.

Justin tried to make it home but after moving 500 yards in TWO hours, he gave up and went back to work.  Luckily he happened to be running a training class at a hotel for work this week, so despite the fact that every hotel within a 30  mile radius was completely booked, Justin was able to crash on someone's floor for the night.  In the morning, the hotel lobby was filled with people who had slept on the lobby floor or chairs.  He finally made it home by 11 am the next morning.  The highways were filled with abandoned cars.  People either ran out of gas or decided to walk home.  My neighbor left work at 12:15 pm and got home at 3:30 am.  She had to drive a total of 20 miles.  It took her 15 hours.  Kids and teachers were forced to spend the night at school.  Many children were stranded on buses the entire night.  It was unreal.

Despite the chaos, the kids were thrilled!  My neighbor had the girls over all afternoon and they had a ball in the snow.  Claire claims it was the best day of her life!

It was unreal to watch the news and see all the accidents, abandoned cars, overturned trucks, etc..  all from two inches.  Schools were cancelled for the rest of the week (despite the fact that it's fifty degrees and almost all of the snow has melted)!  We gots to recover, peeps.  This was cray cray.  

Here is a video from the road Justin took to get home.  Notice the exit ramp at the end that at was completely blocked by abandoned cars...

When Justin finally made it home the next day, there were some VERY happy girls to greet him!

What a crazy day!  So thankful Justin made it home safely.  There were tons of stories of people helping, opening their homes, rescuing stranded drivers, passing out food and water, etc..  It's so cool to see people come together in the midst of a crazy situation like this.  

There ya have it... another adventure in the books!