Quote:
Originally Posted by BeckyMax
Several years ago this happened in Missouri. They had pre-treated the roads, however rain came first and washed everything away. Then the temperature dropped so quickly that the rain on the roads froze an additional freezing rain accumulated on top of that. Then followed by a couple inches of snow. Road crews were fully staffed but yet there was just so much of it and things had to be prioritized. For instance the school bus full of children that slid off into the ditch when school was canceled early. Some people abandon their cars and walked. These cars were then in the way and no one else could get through. It’s easy to say why not just tell them but imagine the length of time for each hook up and tow. The tow trucks couldn’t even get through the volume of traffic. Every person who had AAA was calling, that led to more traffic on the roads. It was just the perfect storm for a complete mess. People sat on the highway all night long. It wasn’t just the one highway that was the issue every road in the county was froze over with cars in various locations in and out of ditches. Road crew couldn’t even drive their personal vehicles in to get to the locations that they needed to to pick up there wow equipment etc. so yes on the face of it it seems easy just clear the highway but getting to the highway is the problem.
Becky
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For every backup or traffic jam there is a beginning and end to it … you start at one end with a vehicle/machine that can push the stranded vehicles in whatever lane left or right ( pick one side to clear) to one side of the road ( about 6 ft) …it’s icy conditions so they would move / slide relatively easy with little damage …no I don’t want my vehicle damaged and yes the insurance nightmare would be great
But I’m talking national emergency…make everyone’s car in the uncleared lanes stay put and have a line of busses behind the plows and push vehicles…take the people to local schools to shelter till emergency is over.
It takes leadership and maybe a dozen plows and either a front end loader or piece of heavy equipment to push the vehicles out of the emergency lane.
When I broke down on the Francis Scott key bridge in Baltimore the mta police raced up and his car had rubber bumpers to push me to the other side of the bridge to a shoulder so I wouldn’t tie up the bridge.
No it’s not easy and I’m not saying it would EVER happen this way but if this were a real national emergency then I would hope that leaders somewhere would do whatever is necessary
Leaders that would get on the phone and make decisions without worrying how they will harm their re-election
The Elon Musks and Jeff Bezos of the world can solve problems better then career politicians
And I and a coworker once turned a 1970s fully loaded pickup with a cap on it 360 deg in a icy driveway with are bare hands and little effort …and this was a icy highway in VA
Yes this is all fantasy and will never happen BUT doing NOTHING is just unacceptable for a leader in my opinion …I hate to see people standing around …I used to tell my workers “ do something even if it’s wrong”
And yes the people driving are also responsible but let’s face it …their is a lot of stupid people in the world and someone needs to step in a take charge
It also could have been that VA didn’t want to allocate resources to people that were clearly leaving the state and traveling north…they wanted DC to use up their snow budget ..since it was so close to the VA border…and the outgoing governor was giving a big flip of the finger to his newly elected replacement