This is why I love Georgia

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 6:55 am

We got like half an inch of snow last night and school is cancelled. Isn't that wild?

Not that I'm complaining...

vomitbunny · Post by **vomitbunny** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:37 am

Same way here in Alabama. Of course, half the interstate is raised to a degree, and ice forms just by looking at it. We have salt trucks, but no salt. We use sand. The mayor's brother is in the sand business, not the salt business. It's a good thing he isn't in the banana peel business, or we'de be covering the roads with them every time it spit a little snow.

OutOfBreath · Post by **OutOfBreath** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:18 am

Having lived all over the country and overseas, trust me, I'd much rather have them sanding the roads then salting them. Have you ever seen a three-year old daily-driven car from NY or PA? More rust than car, usually.

I grew up in Colorado and they never used salt and rarely used sand. You were expected to be smart enough to have chains and/or studded tires as needed to handle the weather.

Once in up state NY a friend of mine had to take off work to go pick up his wife because her six-year-old econobox broke in half when she hit a dip on the freeway!

vomitbunny · Post by **vomitbunny** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:25 am

I don't think they use actual salt any more. Some type of chemical that is supposed to be safer for cars and roads and the environment.
In tennessee, they put salt (sic) down everytime much snow fell at all. The roads never closed. Bridges usually wouldn't ice up either.
Just a little tad of snow or ice shuts Birmingham down. That's fine if you have "snow days". Most of us don't. And it's not just the school that closes. The day care does too. Because of the job I have, they really put pressure on us to *find some way* to get into work, even if the interstates are closed.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:47 am

vomitbunny wrote:I don't think they use actual salt any more. Some type of chemical that is supposed to be safer for cars and roads and the environment.

Well, it's plain ol' regular salt up here. It's a whole lot cheaper, and considering how many thousands of tons they go through in a year, that starts to really mean something.

When I was growing up in Atlanta, they never used to treat the roads at all when it snowed. I don't know if they had salt or sand, but it didn't matter because the trucks couldn't get out on the roads to distribute it. Up here they start salting before it starts snowing, and they also have plows. My mother always freaks out when I tell her we got X inches of snow the previous night, but I went in to work anyway. She just can't grasp that the roads are not much worse by morning than they were before the snow started. (I must admit, though, when we got 10+ inches back in December, I took a snow day and worked from home....)

Steven

vomitbunny · Post by **vomitbunny** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 9:39 am

Yeah, some of those other chemicals are pretty expensive. I remember seeing something about that in usatoday last year. Lot o places still using plain salt.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:22 am

TelegramSam wrote:We got like half an inch of snow last night and school is cancelled. Isn't that wild?

Not that I'm complaining...

Lucky you, Sam! Why don't you come on down to Atlanta and get a new car?

I've gotta work all day.

burnsbyrne · Post by **burnsbyrne** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:24 am

Yep, salt it is here on the North Coast. They dig it up out of the ground under Lake Erie. They stockpile gigantic mountains of the stuff and cover it up with tarps during the summer so they'll have enough come winter.
Mike

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 11:50 am

Sam are saying a 1/2" like 0.05 inches AND THEY CLOSED THE SCHOOL....Gee must be all wimps down there.

MarkB

vomitbunny · Post by **vomitbunny** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 11:55 am

Fully half of our interstate is raised, like a bridge. We have no salt. Not enough trucks to get a jump on the game. For that matter, you can't get a jump on the game with sand. No one has chains. I've gotten on the interstate not believing it to be bad, and gotten to a raised section, to be on a 1/4 thick pane of perfectly smooth ice.
And people don't know how to drive in it either. Not like we get a lot of practice.
Snow is a breeze to drive it. It almost always winds up being icy here.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 12:22 pm

vomitbunny wrote:And people don't know how to drive in it either. Not like we get a lot of practice.

What's practice got to do with it? People up here see it, and drive in it, all the time. But every time it snows, you'd swear they've never seen the stuff before!

Then again, I remember when we switched off of daylight savings time last October. It was a rainy day, and it was the first time these people had driven home from work in the dark for a few months. Worst traffic I've seen in I don't know how long! Everyone was just terrified!

:roll:
Steven

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 12:43 pm

MarkB wrote:Sam are saying a 1/2" like 0.05 inches AND THEY CLOSED THE SCHOOL....Gee must be all wimps down there.

MarkB

We're not wimps, we just happen to live in a warm climate where it almost never ices over. The problem is the fact that people DON'T know how to deal with it. Nobody even owns tire chains, nobody knows how to drive on it, nobody knows how to <i>walk</i> on it (last time it iced up the school didn't close right off and many students fell on the sidewalks and steps outdoors before they finally gave up and cancelled classes). It's not being wimpy, it's avoiding a lawsuit.

And hey, if you think we're such wimps, come down here in the summer and play with the heat, humidity, and the mosquitoes and see how tough you are.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 1:42 pm

Never seen snow in Wollongong.

Now when I lived in Oxford, the thing that bothered us on the roads was stuff called black ice. I forget how it forms; something like snow melting and then refreezing if I remember rightly. The problem is that you can't see it. The first sign you get that you've hit a spot is when you fall off your motor bike and slide down the road. Now, as far as I remember, this was mainly a problem after very light falls .. of snow that is.

vomitbunny · Post by **vomitbunny** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 1:47 pm

TelegramSam wrote:
MarkB wrote:Sam are saying a 1/2" like 0.05 inches AND THEY CLOSED THE SCHOOL....Gee must be all wimps down there.

MarkB
We're not wimps, we just happen to live in a warm climate where it almost never ices over. The problem is the fact that people DON'T know how to deal with it. Nobody even owns tire chains, nobody knows how to drive on it, nobody knows how to <i>walk</i> on it (last time it iced up the school didn't close right off and many students fell on the sidewalks and steps outdoors before they finally gave up and cancelled classes). It's not being wimpy, it's avoiding a lawsuit.

And hey, if you think we're such wimps, come down here in the summer and play with the heat, humidity, and the mosquitoes and see how tough you are.

It almost always ices over, too. Less than 2 inches of snow, usually wet, halfway melts, and them ices over. I can drive in snow now problem. We just don't usually see it here. Almost always winds up being ice.

OnTheMoor · Post by **OnTheMoor** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 1:52 pm

We get the best of both worlds here. Appendage numbing winters and brain numbing humidity in the summer, with the 'squiters to boot. My ancestors apparently had some kinda defect. My gf once told me about how when they were in England (armed forces) they wouldn't allow her dad to use a snow blower after a couple inches because he didn't have the license.

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This is why I love Georgia

This is why I love Georgia

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