Jess 1110 Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 They're using the hashtag quite a bit tonight on The Weather Channel. Can't say I blame them. Whenever you hear people overdramatize a storm, think of nights like this. Coming in to see the Weather Channel broadcasting a traffic map that was full of red spots - at midnight! - was quite a shock. These storms can and do cause severe problems, and just because we are kind of ahead of them 80% of the time doesn't mean that we get the forecast right all the time. Kids stranded on school buses. Home Depots opening up as shelters for people who are stranded. Bumper to bumper traffic. Abandoned cars like you'd see on zombie movies. And, 24 hours after this storm hit, people are still stuck. In fact, they just said that the National Guard was delivering MREs to these people. This is amazing - and not in a good way. Since the Talk Video Channels - I refuse to call them cable news channels - are drooling all over the State of the Union address, The Weather Channel has been pretty much the only national outlet adequately covering this crisis - and it is a crisis - in one of our nation's biggest cities. Obviously the fact that TWC is headquartered there does help, but CNN is as well and they haven't been doing nearly as much. (Granted, State of the Union is a big deal.) I've never seen anything like it. Local stations, as always in times like this, have more value over a national outlet. But when there is something big like this TWC is in a unique position to cover it. I just wish they'd do more of it on a regular basis, but there's no question they have stepped it up. WeatherNation's content really can't compare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skbl17 188 Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 The snow itself wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, the ingredients came together in a way to create the ultimate traffic nightmare... Welcome to traffic hell. Or, as some have started deeming it, Snowjam 2014. Driving was a big pain last night; you couldn't go ANYWHERE. It didn't help that everyone decided to release their employees/students/staff at the same time onto Atlanta's cruddy highway network. Combine that with snow, ice, and inexperienced drivers, and Atlanta became a traffic hell Tuesday afternoon. It took me almost 45 minutes just to go two miles on the side streets; the interstates were even worse. The blame game (Atlanta's mayor Kasim Reed, Governor Deal, GDOT, school districts, the NWS, businesses, and other local governments are all involved,) is already at full force. There are still stranded cars littering the interstate just one mile from where I'm sitting right now. The local stations have done as good a job as they could, including WGCL (yes, I decided to watch them a bit just to see how they're handling this). WXIA's had the most extensive coverage; the duopoly with WATL certainly helped during the SOTU. Some reporters, like WGCL's Stephany Fisher, were caught up in the traffic hell last night and took upwards of ten hours just to get to their stations. In the NO EMOTION BOX I linked to an image of WSB's ticker during last night's chaos. The message from the traffic center was simple: "DON'T GET ON JOHNSON FERRY. SERIOUSLY. DON'T."* The last time we saw a system like this was January 9, 2011. Of course, that system had ice and snow, and traffic was bad, but this system had all the ingredients to create traffic hell: snow during the lunch rush at midday, simultaneous early dismissals from schools, businesses, and government offices, little planning, and inexperience. TWC had a map showing the progression of traffic hell; it is something to witness: By 1:30 pm, it was impossible to drive anywhere. It was through sheer luck that I made it home instead of sitting in traffic for 20 hours, as some commuters have done. * A suburban divided road in Cobb County, Georgia. There is another one in suburban Brookhaven, Georgia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderJay27 27 Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Heard what the Gov & Mayor had to say today. They totally messed this one up. According to TWC when they gave the timeline of when the Winter Storm Warning was issued for the ENTIRE ATL metro by the NWS, it was way early enough to close down the city and the schools from what I can tell. They want to blame the meteorologists, but I don't see it that way. Something should tell you that if a snowstorm is going to start late morning-early afternoon, to avoid any type of scenarios like what happened, just to be safe, shut it down. If the storm was to start late afternoon, I can see the "half-day" scenario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnya2k6 171 Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Having suffered through various winters in Fairbanks (below-zero temperatures doesn't mean schools and businesses are closed), this was my first real taste of winter here in Atlanta. But cars in Alaska have something Atlanta's doesn't: Studded tires! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
News 9 Viewer 100 Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Seeing a few inches of snow cause an apocalyptic situation in Atlanta, I've never been more proud of the fact that I live in New England, The Land of Salted Roads and the Home of Snow Plows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skbl17 188 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Man, it's like the national news media and the entire internet has jumped on the "LOL ATLANTA CAN'T HANDLE A PIDDLY AMOUNT OF SNOW LOLOLOL" bandwagon. Oh wait, they have and I'm getting quite frustrated with it. The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, despite the incompetence shown by government, school, and business leaders on Tuesday, one fact remains quite clear: ATLANTA, GEORGIA IS IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES. LIKE MOST OF THE SOUTH, ATLANTA IS IN A HUMID SUBTROPICAL CLIMATE WITH MILD-ISH WINTERS AND HOT, HUMID SUMMERS. SNOW IS RELATIVELY UNCOMMON HERE IN WINTER. Basic cost-benefit analysis shows that because of our climate, to go all out like northerners would in this situation would not be an efficient investment. It's been three years since the last major snow event on January 9, 2011. Snow/ice events do not typically occur more than once or maybe twice a year; in late 2011, 2012 and late 2013 I didn't see any accumulating snow or ice. I can't recall any decent snow or ice events in Atlanta prior to 2008, either. Between 2009 and 2011 we averaged one snow or ice event a year. Of course drivers don't have much common sense in winter weather, this is a problem EVERYWHERE, especially when dealing with black ice, but it is only magnified here because of the rare nature of winter weather. The media coverage against the general incompetence, from both local and national sources, is fine; local governments, businesses, and schools made a poor decision by letting everyone out from their workplaces into the snow at once. In addition, GDOT did not pre-treat most area roads, and some local governments, businesses, and even some top state officials did not pay attention to the fact that the NWS extended their winter storm warning to cover the rest of Atlanta at exactly 3:38 AM on Tuesday morning, which is a sign that yes, there would be accumulating snow and a little ice. They finally noticed...at noon. By then, the snow was already falling; in the pseudo-panic, decision makers decided to let their employees/students go home simultaneously, leading to the hell on the roads. What makes this even more disappointing is the fact that it has been three years and twenty-one days since the events of January 2011 made it clear to everyone (GDOT, the State of Georgia, metro Atlanta officials, school officials, and business owners) that something had to change before the next "big one". Well, Tuesday proved that nothing had changed. Finally, there was something the national, NYC-centric media missed completely: the acts of hospitality and generosity that were displayed! As drivers were stuck on the roads, some of us passed out food and water to help. Some stores across the area remained open to act as shelters for those who could not make it home. Teachers stayed with students who were stranded at schools overnight. Heck, I even saw images detailing that some residents even offered free coffee and snacks for stranded motorists. The acts of kindness shown on Tuesday were amazing; it's too bad that the media was too busy shaking their heads and laughing. Of course, even if everything had gone relatively smoothly (schools closed, businesses closed, state offices closed, local governments closed, roads pre-treated) we'd still have some roadway problems, but nowhere near what the world unfortunately saw on Tuesday. Plus, the elitist chest-pumping would still continue, but this time it would be the "overreaction" aspect: why would a metropolis like Atlanta completely shut down over a paltry amount of snow? You're damned if you do, damned if you don't! :rant: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanewsguy 509 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 ^^^^ I'm with him. Yes I'm still glad I live in a city that has had no measurable snowfall since 1985. But if there's ice on the roads the whole city shutsdown, like last Friday. Yes I don't think some of the northerners understand southern climate but that's to be expected (I'm talking to you national media). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 Which is why I thought The Weather Channel's coverage was, more or less, quite good. They were clear from the beginning that 1-3 inches is enough to shut down Atlanta, and I never got the sense that they were "laughing" at the situation. Nor did I get that feeling from NBC Nightly News. Granted, TWC had Atlanta's mayor on and was a bit too softball when he was giving obviously wrong answers. I steer clear of the Talk Video Channels. I don't consider them news channels. I certainly don't get my information from them. I think The Weather Channel (when it's doing weather), BBC World, CNNi, and Al-Jazeera America (which I truly wish was watchable on FiOS) are news channels. When there's breaking news stateside, the first thought in my mind is "see what local station has iPad-compatible streaming and beam it to the Apple TV". When it's a global event, instinctually I go to BBC World. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCAUTVNBC10 408 Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 I think The Weather Channel (when it's doing weather), BBC World, CNNi, and Al-Jazeera America (which I truly wish was watchable on FiOS) The one drawback of FiOS is that they're so damned slow in pick up HD feeds to their lineups Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted February 2, 2014 Author Share Posted February 2, 2014 I'm not even asking for an HD feed - I'm asking for just proper presentation for Al-Jazeera America, which is widescreen but center cut. They can do anamorphic - they were doing that with Nonstop. I'd like that and/or an HD Intellistar 2. Which I heard may be in place by March. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToriElectra 291 Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 And we now have Winter Storm Maximus on the way. It's not going to interfere with the Super Bowl, but it's hitting the Northeast on Monday. (No hashtag this time.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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