Snow Storm of 2014

There was much anticipation of it snowing in Atlanta on Tuesday, January 28th. However, As a teacher you walk into school knowing that your students are going to be crazy and wanting school to close for the day; however, the local meteorologists predicated just a light dusting of snow for northern counties of Atlanta. Today was supposed to be a normal/ fun day because Richard and I were supposed to be hosting my mom's 55th birthday dinner at our house, which obviously didn't happen.

The snow started to fall around 11:00 a.m., but I never thought it was going to stick until the snow fall got worse and the temperatures quickly dropped below freezing.

{View from my classroom around 11:00 a.m.}

As schools started closing early and parents attempted to pick up their children, the entire city of Atlanta left work, school, and every other place someone could leave to try to get home. However, for millions of people that did not happen. Roads quickly iced over and there were car accidents every couple of feet as they were sliding down hills. For many of us, our normal 30 minutes- 1 hour drive home turned into 5-6 hours sitting still in a panic not knowing if you were in traffic or stuck behind someone who was in an accident. As the storm and roads got worse, parents were unable to get their children from school. My mom, like many other teachers and staff workers, stayed behind with the children keeping them warm and feeding them dinner as they had to stay the night. Then you had people like my brother-in-law who was stuck in traffic and unable to get home because of the iced roads, but  he was eventually able to stay at a friend or a friends house on the other side of town after sitting in the car for over 10 hours.

{Google Maps just informing all of us there is no where to go}

{Road outside our neighborhood- complete ice}

My heart breaks for all the people who were stuck and currently are stuck in their cars after sitting on the road for 20+ hours with no gas, food, or a place to relax. As I woke up this morning, 1/29/14, I thought I would wake up to the news reporting on how the roads are clear and everyone got home, but that is far from the truth.

Many newspaper articles are calling what happened in Atlanta "SNOWMAGEDDON" and
"FROZEN IN PLACE", as people have left their cars on all major hwys not allowing emergency vehicles get to the people in need.

Nevertheless, this a time where our eyes are opened a little wider today as you hear and see all the stories of people getting on four wheelers to push people up hills, opening their homes to complete strangers, and teachers staying the night at school until the children are home safe. Hopefully today temperatures will rise enough to warm the roads so the stranded people can get home and off the roads before they freeze over again.

{Just a few pictures that Richard and I were able to get once we got home safely}