Thursday, January 07, 2010, 4:39 PM
Atlanta, In the News, Stop the Presses
By Kevin Moreau
The snow flurry of the century
If you’re reading this, I can only assume that we made it through the Great Arctic Storm of 2010.
You know the one I’m talking about. The storm that was expected to dump a ton of snow—as much as one inch!—on metro Atlanta, and bury the surrounding area in as many as
two inches.
As I write this, it’s Thursday afternoon, Jan. 7, and Atlanta’s expected snowfall has so far amounted to a few intermittent flakes. The Sunday Paper is a buzz of activity, as usual, as we engage in the usual Thursday rush to send the paper off to the printer. Normally, my biggest concerns would be a blown deadline, a power outage, taking a minute to eat something and trying to get home at a decent hour.
But today, I’m also a little concerned about icy roads making my drive home trickier than it should be. And I’m a
lot concerned about my fellow Atlantans overreacting—and driving accordingly.
Overreact—
us? You tell me. Many schools were closed today, which seems overly cautious, but understandable. Less understandable is Delta’s announcement that it canceled close to 200 flights out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (AirTran canceled 19 flights). For a projected inch of snow.
Makes you wonder what they do at O’Hare when it snows in Chicago—which it does, on average, 64 days a year. Juneau, Alaska receives an average 93 inches of snowfall. If Sarah Palin can handle that much snow, surely we can handle a single inch.
For all I know, you’ll never get to read this week's issue of The Sunday Paper, because by the time it’s supposed to hit the streets, Atlanta will be buried under mountains of the white stuff. Roving hordes left homeless by the storm will take refuge in a palace of icicles created by the frozen fountains at Centennial Olympic Park. The Thrashers will be playing home games on the streets outside Philips Arena. Neal Boortz will be reduced to hectoring an assemblage of snowmen, brandishing pitchforks made of tree branches. It’ll be like something out of “The Day After Tomorrow”—although hopefully with better acting.
But I doubt it. More likely—and more worrisome—is that a larger-than-usual number of preventable accidents will take place.
I hope I’m wrong. And I hope you
are reading this, having safely survived the Snow Flurry of the Century.