What would you do?

[madmax-im]

I know people who live in Rochester NY...that city never shuts down no matter how many feet are on the ground or how bad it is snowing.Its all relative I suppose..I can hear them laughing at the rest of the country.They are so accustomed to it and they have the equipment and experience to deal with it....and they do.

[Larrym]

"It was a Disaster." That's the key word here. It qualifies as a type 2 "incident" as far as the ICS (Incident Command System) goes.

I was a firefighter and an officer and this type of situation comes straight out of the textbook. The concept here is that the road closure/blizzard was a situation where there needed to be a coordinated response. Not just a road closure but also the resources needed to evacuate the people already on the highway. Multiple agencies had to cooperate together in both command and resources. Different agencies and different "turfs" and different "leaders". The Incident Command system is relatively new and meant to sort out a lot of these problems.

Also key to the ICS is that the organizations/departments get together and "tabletop" these types of scenarios and come up with an "Incident Action Plan" that they later can practice in simulations/drills.

You can bet that at the next "Emergency Management" Meeting that they will review what the "Incident Commander" did right/wrong and how come people had to wait 16 hours.

[oseaghdha]

Call Jimmy Johns and bust into the medicinal booze!

That happened in Wisconsin last year, they closed the hiway, but left the onramps open!
Took 30 hours to clear it out.

Some industrial strength stupid right there.

[Incubus]

I was raised in Wisconsin. I still remember a weatherman in Milwaukee predicting "snow flurries, possibly accumulating as much as eight inches."

One thing I did learn, and which I taught my sons, is if you must drive in inclement weather (which, in Wisconsin, was ALL weather between November and May), dress as if you are walking - because you very well might be. Alternately, keep warm clothes and blankets in your car. Many a fool has died of hypothermia because they trusted that their car heater would be available to keep them warm.

We don't get a lot of that weather here in Austin. The last measurable snowfall here was in January 1985. But if you look in the backseat of my truck in the winter you are going to find a coat and a blanket. Old habits die hard.

Patrick

[fredintoon]

Hi Planedick,
Yorba Linda ain't used to snow, right? I can see where conditions a prairie driver accepts as normal winter driving would bring anywhere not used to it into total chaos so perhaps it would have been worse if the roads were left open?
Tell you a story that should be in the JOTD string except it's absolutely true.
Back where I was raised in Bristol England if it snows at all it's only every third year and it melts two days later. Thus the 1947 blizzard paralysed the City for weeks on end. The City Council bought a number of snow removal machines after that and had operators trained to use them. Of course, the next serious traffic stopping snowfall was in 1953 by which time the trained operators had moved on or forgotten what they'd learned. So the scrapers were sent out manned by whoever they could find to clear the streets. Each driver with his designated route. All came back with their routes cleared bar one of the first-time operators so the foreman set out to find him. He'd only cleared one half of his first street. He said his grader was a piece of underpowered junk that'd only plow at all if it was in bull low, otherwise it just stalled out.
The foreman looked at the curl of snow coming up from the scraper blade.
6" of snow plus a ½" of blacktop. Nobody had shown the operator that the blade had a depth control.

[ccogswel]

I've had a simalar situation like DSXS11 had happen. I lived in Colorado for almost 20 years. Drove in all sorts of weather conditions. Growing up I drove my 71 RoadRunner all over the place there. In anything I could get thru. But it was funny when I was moving down here to Kentucky back in late 95 I was driving my RoadRunner back and forth between Co-Ky. Well in Jan 96 here in Bowling Green they had a bad snow storm come thru dropping a whopping 8 inchs of snow. I was outside cleaning off my car and letting it idle. I didn't have anything else to do so I thought I would go mess around to see what things was like here with that much snow. Well after about 3 hours of driving around and not seeing that first cop anywhere. I started doing donuts in a parking lot at the old Walmart that had moved. This officer came out of no where. Walked up to my car and asked for my drivers licence. When he noticed it said Colorado he handed it back to me and asked me not to do the donuts anymore. Asked me what I was doing here and I told him I was moving here and was just out messing around as I wanted to see what all closed down because of the snow. Then he asked me if this snow was nothing. I said yep. Told him I had seen snow drifts as high 20 feet. Drove thru snow up to 4 sometimes 5 feet deep. (not with my car) I also told him that I hate snow. Was just tired of all that shoveling long driveways. It wasn't till I was 15 when they got a tractor to do all that.

But if I were on a interstate and I was almost out of gas and didn't have any warm clothes with me and they closed it down. I'd move over in the emergency lane and drive to the nearest off ramp. If they pulled me over I'd just explain my situation. What are they going to do. Arrest me. I bet a judge would like that one. Or the other worst thing that could happen. I get stuck. So what.

There in Colorado there for awhile we lived in Elbert. It would snow really bad there. One time we drove if I remember 12 miles to get to Elizabeth just to have the state close the gates cause the road was closed down. We were glad to see the they didn't have the gates locked. But from that point on tho we did start carrying bolt cutters. Just in case.

[planedick]

Sand & salt

I remember every winter I would place a washtub full of sand and salt in the trunk of the car with a small shovel. I could go places others could not. I wonder why Cal Trans don't know about sand and salt. I see them plowing and sanding, but no salt so they can't keep up with the snowfall.

[oseaghdha]

I was in Denver one Thanksgiving when it snowed a ton.
I left, heading to Albuquerque, around 10AM or so.
By the time I hit Raton Pass, I-25 was empty, except for me. Think I saw one cop car parked in a rest stop. Found out later they had closed it all from Pueblo to ABQ.

I was piloting a 400ci 1970 Lemans with F60 front and L60 rear tires. Ran about 70 the whole way with maybe 4 inches on the road. Just aimed for the middle and let 'er run. Never did see a plow truck.

When I arrived, my car had picked up about 600lbs of ice and wouldn't turn very much. Natural ground effects.

It were fun!

[trbig]

I don't know about Cali... but there's a lot of states that don't allow salt to be put on the roads. It causes major corrosion problems with roads and bridges.. not to mention the vehicles driving on it.


Tod

[Ivan]

I don't know about Cali... but there's a lot of states that don't allow salt to be put on the roads. It causes major corrosion problems with roads and bridges.. not to mention the vehicles driving on it.


Tod

That and salt, which comes from the ground, will somehow mysteriously ruin the water that is in the ground, well according to the environMENTALists.

[DJinNH]

We just got about 7 inches of snow yesterday here in New Hampshire. It's snowing right now (Sat 12:45 p.m.).

More snow, and I mean ALOT more snow coming tomorrow.

Since I have waited so freakin long...I have to go out anyways today to get some Christmas shopping done.

I do drive a Dodge Ram 1500 but unfortunately, when I bought it back in 2003, I got it in St. Pete, FL and opted to go with the 2 wheel drive. Big mistake! I didn't know at the time that I'd end up back here in NH any time soon.

FYI, injured on the job in FL, had to retire, moved back here to be near my sons.

Don

[DGXSER]

DJ,

you may have already learned this trick, but I always shovel the snow from my driveway into the bed of my truck (before it gets any salt mixed in preferably). It weighs the back end down over the tires for traction and then melts out when the weather turns. No moving sand bags or concrete blocks that might fly thorugh the back window and kill you. Of course if your truck sits out and you dont have a cap or tonoue (never know how to spell that), that may happen naturally for you.

Don

[MaximPhil]

Hi Don,
Tonneau. What you describe is a Tonneau Cover which is the soft cover over the unoccupied seats in an open motor car. I think it is an allowable stretch to include pick up trucks
Phil

[latexeses]

Salt on the road out here usually winds up in a small stream or other freshwater watershead. Not on a direct route to the ocean. It raises all sort of hell before it clears out of there.

[planedick]

Here

It's a short trip to the ocean and since it's so rare we need to do such a thing it certainly wouldn't have been such a trajedy as sitting on the road so long while caltrans sat on their butts.