"An unusual weather pattern driving bitterly cold air from the Arctic Circle south across a huge swath of the Midwest is expected to send temperatures plummeting Monday from Minneapolis to Louisville, Ky., the latest punch from a winter that is in some areas shaping up as one of the coldest on record, a historic deep freeze....
Maybe this will warm you up!
The latest round of subzero highs in many parts of the Midwest had many people wondering when it would end. ‘‘I’m moving to Alaska where it’s warmer,’’ Kathy Berg said in jest — though it is in fact true of current weather conditions."
Related:
"ALASKA AVALANCHES -- Debris from avalanches blocked the lone highway connecting Valdez, Alaska, to the rest of the state over the weekend. The avalanches, including one that dammed a river and created a lake up to a half-mile long across Richardson Highway, closed 30 miles of road, but air and water access remain open to Valdez (Boston Globe January 28 2014)."
It was the photograph in my printed paper just above that linked article.
I feel bad for my Southern friends because I'm used to this stuff; they are not, and lives get "lost" (for lack of a better word; you never find them again).
"Rare blast of winter cripples Atlanta; Roads gridlocked with hundreds of accidents reported" by Ray Henry and Russ Bynum | Associated Press, January 29, 2014
ATLANTA — A winter storm that would probably be no big deal in the North all but paralyzed the Deep South on Tuesday, bringing snow, ice, and teeth-chattering cold, with temperatures in the teens in some places.
I agree, although I believe it was last Thursday that even I found the 4-degree temperature a bit much and did not want to go out. And I'm up here and used to it. I can't imagine how those from more southerly climes are dealing.
Many people across the region don’t know how to drive in snow, and many cities don’t have big fleets of salt trucks or snowplows, and it showed. Hundreds of wrecks happened from Georgia to Texas. Two people died in an accident in Alabama....
As many as 50 million people across the region could be affected by the time the snow stops on Wednesday. Up to 4 inches of snow fell in central Louisiana, and about 3 inches was forecast for parts of Georgia. Up to 10 inches was expected in the Greenville, N.C., area and along the state’s Outer Banks.
Inches of snow down there, huh?
On the Gulf Shores beaches in Alabama, icicles hung from palm trees. Hundreds of students in the northeastern part of the state faced spending the night in gyms or classrooms because the roads were too icy. Four people were killed in a Mississippi mobile home fire blamed on a space heater.
The governors of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi declared states of emergency.
New Orleans’ merry Bourbon Street in the French Quarter was oddly quiet as brass bands and other street performers stayed indoors....
Charleston, S.C.; Savannah, Ga.; Pensacola, Fla.; Virginia Beach, Va.; and New Orleans — popular warm-weather tourist destinations where visitors can usually golf and play tennis in shirt sleeves or light jackets this time of year — were expecting ice and snow on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Snow in Florida?
In Savannah, residents braced for a winter whiplash, barely 24 hours after the coastal city hit a T-shirt-friendly 73 degrees. Less than a quarter-inch of ice and up to an inch of snow were possible in a city that has seen very little snow on its manicured squares in the past 25 years.
Savannah had 3.6 inches of snow in December 1989, a dusting of 0.2 inches in February 1996 and 0.9 inches in February 2010....
In Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, the alligators burrowed into the mud to keep warm.
‘‘Their metabolism slows down so they’re able to not breathe as often, so they don’t have to come to the surface as often,’’ said Susan Heisey, a supervisory ranger at the national wildlife refuge. ‘‘These alligators have been on this earth a long time and they’ve made it through.’’
Through all kinds of weather, huh?
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Kids had to burrow down in the bus:
"Snow, ice send Atlanta reeling" by David Crary and Ray Henry | Associated Press, January 30, 2014
ATLANTA — Thousands of Atlanta students stranded all night long in their schools were reunited with their parents Wednesday, while rescuers rushed to deliver blankets, food, gas, and rides home to countless shivering motorists stopped cold by a storm that paralyzed the business capital of the South with less than 3 inches of snow.
As National Guardsmen and state troopers fanned out, Mayor Kasim Reed and Georgia Governor Nathan Deal found themselves on the defensive, acknowledging the storm preparations could have been better. But Deal also blamed forecasters, saying he was led to believe it wouldn’t be so bad.
I blame the fart-misters!
The icy weather wreaked similar havoc across much of the South, closing schools and highways, grounding flights, and contributing to at least a dozen deaths from traffic accidents and a mobile home fire.
Yet it was Atlanta, home to major corporations and the world’s busiest airport, that was Exhibit A for how a Southern city could be sent reeling by winter weather that, in the North, might be no more than an inconvenience....
And for some other pffffts!
239 children spent Tuesday night aboard school buses....
One woman’s 12-mile commute home took 16 hours. Another woman gave birth while stuck in traffic; police arrived just in time to help. Drivers gave up trying to get home....
I want to know more about that!
Atlanta was crippled by an ice storm in 2011, and officials had vowed not to be caught unprepared again. But Deal, who is up for reelection in November, told reporters, ‘‘I would have acted sooner, and I think we learn from that and then we will act sooner the next time.’’
So it's a one strike, two strike situation? And here comes the election?
‘‘But we don’t want to be accused of crying wolf. Because if we had been wrong, y’all would have all been in here saying, ‘Do you know how many millions of dollars you cost the economies of the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia by shutting down businesses all over this city and this state?’ ’’
Deal faulted government forecasters, saying they warned that the storm would strike south of Atlanta and that the city would get no more than a dusting of snow.
Seems like I've seen that thing somewhere before, yeah.
However, the National Weather Service explicitly cautioned on Monday that snow-covered roads ‘‘will make travel difficult or impossible.’’ And around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, the agency issued a winter storm warning for metro Atlanta and cautioned people not to travel except in an emergency.
Around the time the traffic jam started, Deal and Reed were at a ceremony recognizing the mayor as the ‘‘2014 Georgian of the Year.’’
How icily ironic, as if great God Karma was at work!!
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"Winter storm spurs delicate blame game in Georgia" by Jay Reeves | Associated Press, January 31, 2014
Blame them all, game over.
When the snow started falling Tuesday and cars lined up on the highways, Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia and Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta were at an awards luncheon, smiling and back-slapping each other.
Just 40 minutes earlier, the mayor declared via Twitter: ‘‘Atlanta, we are ready for the snow.’’ Within hours, the metropolitan area was in gridlock with tens of thousands of people stranded on icy, wreck-strewn roads.
Since the storm, Deal and Reed have mostly alternated between qualified apologies and defensive explanations about what they do and do not control, each of them carefully avoiding explicitly pointing the finger at the other. The governor offered perhaps the most bald-faced excuse, referring to ‘‘an unexpected winter storm’’ and saying that national forecasters were wrong.
Yes, how DARE Deal question this LYING but INFALLIBLE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!
The mayor has said it was a mistake for schools, business, and government to close around the same time Tuesday, forcing several million people into a frenzied commute before salt-and-sand crews had treated roadways.
Deal said the preparations were based on earlier National Weather Service forecasts that predicted the worst of the storm passing between the metro area and Macon, in the center of the state. Yet a review of the National Weather Service advisories showed the agency published a storm watch for part of Georgia on Sunday. By daybreak Monday, the watch extended into metro Atlanta.
Weather disasters in particular become a crucible moment for politicians, said Bob Mann, a Louisiana State University professor. That differs from a scandal like what Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey faces for his administration forcing a bridge closure as political retribution.
Related: Opening the Gates of the 2016 Presidential Campaign
It's Giuliani vs. Wildstein in a pre-primary preliminary.
‘‘Not everyone in New Jersey experienced that,’’ Mann said. ‘‘But something like a hurricane or a snow storm, everybody is impacted, and they take it more personally.’’
Just something about arrogant officials partying it up while citizens suffer I guess. Sorry.
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Someone who will probably get a good deal unless they want to make an example of a small-fry:
"Marshal: Fugitive banker homeless before arrest" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 03, 2014
Brunswick, Ga. — Bank director Aubrey Lee Price, accused of losing millions of investor dollars before vanishing, was homeless and worked odd jobs before his arrest this week, a US marshal told a federal judge, James Graham.
Price, 47, disappeared in June 2012 after sending a rambling letter to his family. It said he had lost millions and planned to kill himself by jumping from a ferry. A Florida judge declared him dead a year ago, but the FBI continued to search for him.
An FBI spokesman said Price told authorities his family didn’t know he was still alive and that he had returned to Georgia to renew the tag on his truck. He was arrested during a traffic stop.
Price was indicted in 2012 on charges of taking $21 million from a small bank where he was director and millions more from investors in his money management business.
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Also see: Every Crime Has Its Price
