Community Chat

[sapphire moon]

Hope everyone stays safe.

[Nonametoday]

At midnight last night, I had 6 family members displaced in Birmingham. All are accounted for except my DIL who left her premature baby at a hotel with her mother.

She, her mother and the baby had left home yesterday to pick up the other children at school when her van stranded. Police took them to a hotel nearby. She breast-feeds so baby has had milk, but she has gone to a nearby drugstore with a man on a 4-wheeler to get diapers and medicine that her doctor called in for the baby's respiratory problems. They are unable to reach her by cell phone. Police told my son to stay put. Their other children are still at their school. They think probably there was a problem with the prescription not being called in or to another drugstore in error and that her cell phone is jammed due to all the traffic.

One DIL was on her way from the dentist when she picked up an old couple to take home and she broke down with them. Another elderly man tried to help her and in doing so, lost control of his vehicle. She got hers straightened up and took the 3 ederly people as far as she could when she broke down and they were walking when a lady invited them into her home where they remained until 10 a.m. today when her company sent buses out to get her.

When she arrived home, her husband was putting 11 stranded high school students on buses. He had invited them in to stay after he saw them all walking alongside the road from their high school. He put all of them in his 7-seater van, took them to their house which was about 4 blocks away, made sure their parents knew where they were. He is a school administrator so the parents were happy to hear from them but now they have the chore of getting vehicles which are abandoned and/or stranded everywhere.

We have a child in Atlanta and I am not sure which is worse, Birmingham or Atlanta, but I know for sure some weather people need to lose their jobs over this. Their predictions were so far off, it makes you wonder if they were even in the right country making these insane, way-off-course predictions.

[Shorty2U]

I am wondering is this a case of the southern people aren't used to driving in this or were the roads that horrible?

(I was looking at the pictures online. What a mess. I feel so bad for all those stranded drivers!)

The reason I ask if this is a case of terrible weather or not being used to it is we live with this weather all the time up here. However, I have NO room to talk. lol. I live in PA and I could never drive in the snow and ice. Believe me I tried it years ago and I was better off staying off the roads because I panicked and hit the breaks. So when it snowed and or was icy I took public transit back then (I used to live in the city).

So this is why I ask.

My prayers are with everyone.

[Qwackertoo]

Oh my, and with a premature baby. I hope she gets the prescriptions and y'all hear from her SOON.

[LilacTree]

We northerners would think this was really comical, if it wasn't so dangerous. What idiots!!

CNN is really taking off on this because they are located in Atlanta and a lot of them got stuck in this mess!!

They are so lucky that only one person died. Of course that's one person too many! And it's still not over.

[Topaz Gem]

In NH, the snow removal crews are so awesome, that even when we get a foot of snow, I still have to go to work, because nothing is ever cancelled. The plows are working through the night and when I get up, there's snow on the streets in my development, but generally the main roads are completely clear down to the pavement.

A co-worker recently got transferred to the Dallas area and said that a mere dusting of snow completely shuts the city down. I can't imagine that, but when people aren't used to it, and the cities and towns have no equipment, then it can be a disaster on the roads in bad weather.

Stay safe!

[Nonametoday]

On 1/29/2014 Ford1224 said:

We northerners would think this was really comical, if it wasn't so dangerous. What idiots!!

CNN is really taking off on this because they are located in Atlanta and a lot of them got stuck in this mess!!

They are so lucky that only one person died. Of course that's one person too much! And it's still not over.

We know of 4 people who died in our area. So CNN is not telling all the news because it was their own weather people at weather channel who made these insane predictions that the storm would be in the gulf coast, not north alabama and atlanta. Bham is probably worse than Atlanta but they don't want to talk about that because they were so wrong.

[Hoovermom]

Five people have died in Alabama and 23+ hurt which is not a laughing matter at all. One local coach is missing. I could not believe there was no one handing out blankets, water, crackers to those stranded. DH said he never saw anybody until Hoover Police came walking by and he asked for help.

[LilacTree]

On 1/29/2014 namealreadytaken said:

On 1/29/2014 Ford1224 said:

We northerners would think this was really comical, if it wasn't so dangerous. What idiots!!

CNN is really taking off on this because they are located in Atlanta and a lot of them got stuck in this mess!!

They are so lucky that only one person died. Of course that's one person too much! And it's still not over.

We know of 4 people who died in our area. So CNN is not telling all the news because it was their own weather people at weather channel who made these insane predictions that the storm would be in the gulf coast, not north alabama and atlanta. Bham is probably worse than Atlanta but they don't want to talk about that because they were so wrong.

Interesting. Where is "your area?"

[kittykatkay]

I don't understand why the schools weren't closed in Atlanta either. Here locally, near the Augusta, Georgia area...their schools and ours were closed yesterday and today. Our weathermen and local leaders got it right....basically - rather be safe than sorry.