Freezageddon

[Bogtrotter07]

My response to this: I live on the Gulf Coast where hurricanes are a yearly occurrence. Cat 1 hurricane means I will be traveling through puddles to get to work.
Ask NJ about the weather I am having today and they would laugh at the amount of things closed. Now remember what Hurricane Sandy did to them. She was a cat 1.

Reps for the clear point, logic, and lack of angst!

Post more!

 

[NDohio]

This year seriously has me wondering how southerners have got the reputation of being "tough". Not trying to dig on my southern friends here (shoot, my own dad lives in SC), but this is silly.

I understand not having the infrastructure to deal with the snow and thus having to deal with traffic, shutdowns, etc. But for crying out loud... we are talking about a couple inches of snow and temperatures that are really not that bad.

Spend a winter in WNY, Michigan or Wisconson. Every single year they put up with conditions significantly worse for MUCH longer than whats going on now. What is different other than the "we're not used to it" argument?

- Road closures: Check, happens several times a year in the north. Some major highways are shut down for days at a time every year.

- Power failure: Check. Every year thousands of people have to heat their homes without power. Often for many days and at far more dangerous temps.

- Traffic: Check... big time check...

Northerners go though significantly worse conditions and rarely even mention it. The south has to deal with a snow dusting and temps slightly under 32 and everyone is acting like the world is ending. So next time southerners want to act like yankees are sissies... remember this year's winter.

The difference is that people in the north know how to deal with winter. It is a part of the lifestyle and it happens every single year. You learn how to adjust and persevere through it. Southerners do not have the equipment, the know how, or the experience to just go through it without it causing some pain.

An example: My wife posted a note on her FB to have people raise their windshield wipers so they don't freeze to the windshield. Common practice when we lived up north. Her wall blew up with people thanking her for that idea. They had never thought of it.

When I shoveled my driveway this AM, I had neighbors coming and asking me to borrow my snow shovel. They don't even own one!

I am having a blast with it, it's like a late spring snow when temps aren't too bad and you can really get out and enjoy it. Now, if we had only kept our sleds .......

Just as an FYI...in places up north here, they have been putting down salt, only sand...the reason being, below a certain temp, the salt apprently doesn't activate effectively and is just wasted...hold it off until temp rise just a smidge

Thanks - temps are high enough here the salt would work. Problem is, there is none!

Maybe they could drive over to the coast and steal some sand from the beach and put it on the roads.

 

[woolybug25]

My response to this: I live on the Gulf Coast where hurricanes are a yearly occurrence. Cat 1 hurricane means I will be traveling through puddles to get to work.
Ask NJ about the weather I am having today and they would laugh at the amount of things closed. Now remember what Hurricane Sandy did to them. She was a cat 1.

It was a Cat 1, but also the second most powerful hurricane in modern history when you consider it's size. It was far from the annual Cat 1 hurricanes the coast deals with.

Hurricane Sandy: Storm WAS more powerful than Hurricane Katrina | Mail Online

If Sandy would have sat on southern coast in the same scenario it did in NJ, there would have been the normal storm. It would have caused major damage in the south too.

 

[Cackalacky]

It was a Cat 1, but also the second most powerful hurricane in modern history when you consider it's size. It was far from the annual Cat 1 hurricanes the coast deals with.

Hurricane Sandy: Storm WAS more powerful than Hurricane Katrina | Mail Online

If Sandy would have sat on southern coast in the same scenario it did in NJ, there would have been the normal storm. It would have caused major damage in the south too.

The IKE is definitely a different way to look at hurricanes and its models are still being tested and corrected. It is pretty cool to look at it like that, but the storm surge is by far the most damaging aspect of a hurricane. Our building codes here require specific designs in areas prone to constant hurricanes (500 year storms, very conservative). I am not sure about NJ codes. I think they have to design for 100 year storms. I read where New York and New Jersey hospitals are now being updated to withstand a 500-year storm which means they can handle another 2-4 feet off water depth.

One thing to consider is the storm surge in Katrina covered a massive area and the energy was dissipated relatively quickly over that large area (lots of low lying areas extending well into the mainland) leading to a lower energy released over the area. Sandy hit NJ and it basically hit a geographical funnel forcing the storm surge into concentrated area. That would result in higher energy levels "released."if a storm the size if Sandy hit the SE coast the energy it had would have dissipated quickly with little storm surge and probably would not have done nearly the damage or it would have been more localized.

Its kind of like a flow of water being forced into a 2" pipe (NJ) versus a 8" pipe (New Orleans).

 

[#1rish]

To sum it all up

Honestly though, it comes down to what everyone in the region is used to. The Carolinas and South hardly ever get this cold, extreme weather, and when they do, they don't know what to do other than cancel school, work, etc.

 

[CTHindman]

It was a Cat 1, but also the second most powerful hurricane in modern history when you consider it's size. It was far from the annual Cat 1 hurricanes the coast deals with.



Hurricane Sandy: Storm WAS more powerful than Hurricane Katrina | Mail Online



If Sandy would have sat on southern coast in the same scenario it did in NJ, there would have been the normal storm. It would have caused major damage in the south too.

Didn't mean to say there wouldn't be damage from Sandy in the south. Just like I am sure you didn't mean to sound like car accidents wouldn't happen in the north with the amount of ice we have right now. I was just trying to parallel our preparedness.
Also experience blows away all the hypothetical preparedness one can do.
Let's all agree that the weather has been crazy lately (possibly caused by liberals in DC) and prey that we can close out this recruiting cycle with out losing anyone else and adding another top notch DL and maybe a return man with sub 4.5 40 speed.
P.S. I know it's not liberals' fault, it's God punishing us for women in the military. 😬😈

 

[woolybug25]

Didn't mean to say there wouldn't be damage from Sandy in the south. Just like I am sure you didn't mean to sound like car accidents wouldn't happen in the north with the amount of ice we have right now. I was just trying to parallel our preparedness.
Also experience blows away all the hypothetical preparedness one can do.
Let's all agree that the weather has been crazy lately (possibly caused by liberals in DC) and prey that we can close out this recruiting cycle with out losing anyone else and adding another top notch DL and maybe a return man with sub 4.5 40 speed.
P.S. I know it's not liberals' fault, it's God punishing us for women in the military. ����

I'm just saying that the South should probably think twice next time they accuse the north of being soft, considering we routinely put up with far worse conditions and never bitch about it. The south gets a dusting and it becomes "The Storm of The Century". lol

 

[Cackalacky]

I'm just saying that the South should probably think twice next time they accuse the north of being soft, considering we routinely put up with far worse conditions and never bitch about it. The south gets a dusting and it becomes "The Storm of The Century". lol

For the record you will never hear me complain about not being able to take the cold weather. It flat out makes me angry. And as others have said above, the fact of the matter is our infrastructure on up to our personal mental make up are just not equipped to handle cold weather.

This is the reason why I never make fun a northerner for becoming debilitated during our stifling summers here. Heat stroke is a constant risk, particularly for those not used to it. I have physically had to make people stop working during the day from 1-3 because of over exposure to the heat from 8am -1pm. We have to prepare for the heat index just as much as northerners have to prepare for windchill and snow drifts. ANd you can only take off so many clothes during the summer

 

[dshans]

Its warming up!

PS: WHO is most likely to bump this thread in the summer at 100+ temps and high humidity?

Me, ME, ME!!!

 

[Irish#1]

To sum it all up

Honestly though, it comes down to what everyone in the region is used to. The Carolinas and South hardly ever get this cold, extreme weather, and when they do, they don't know what to do other than cancel school, work, etc.

LMAO

 

[woolybug25]

For the record you will never hear me complain about not being able to take the cold weather. It flat out makes me angry. And as others have said above, the fact of the matter is our infrastructure on up to our personal mental make up are just not equipped to handle cold weather.
This is the reason why I never make fun a northerner for becoming debilitated during our stifling summers here. Heat stroke is a constant risk, particularly for those not used to it. I have physically had to make people stop working during the day from 1-3 because of over exposure to the heat from 8am -1pm. We have to prepare for the heat index just as much as northerners have to prepare for windchill and snow drifts. ANd you can only take off so many clothes during the summer

The bolded above is what I addressed earlier though. What exactly is the South's lack of infrastructure causing that the north doesn't deal with on a yearly basis?

- Traffic: Check
- Getting stuck on the highway: Check
- Power Outages: Check
- Lack of heat: Check
- Shut down business: Check

All of the things that the south is crying about right now are all things the rest of the country deals with annually. In the storm of 2006 in CO, my wife was stranded on Hwy36 for 8 hours, the National Guard picked her up. Two years later, we slept in our car in the middle of a snow storm until the police could show up hours later. Growing up in Michigan, we learned to get used to losing power in winter every.single.year. There is literally no hardship the south is dealing with that the north doesn't consistently deal with year in and year out.

The only difference is that in the South its called, "The Storm of The Century" and in the North... its called "winter".

No offense to any of you though. It just cracks me up as my southern part of my family have always thought of yankees as soft, meanwhile... seems like old man winter is showing everyone's true colors.

 

[connor_in]

To sum it all up

Honestly though, it comes down to what everyone in the region is used to. The Carolinas and South hardly ever get this cold, extreme weather, and when they do, they don't know what to do other than cancel school, work, etc.

Comedian Bill Engvall did a bit on this when he was in our town some years back during winter. He goes, you guys just got like 4 inches of snow right? Back home if we got half this it would be the newsman coming on and saying raid the stores, begin hoarding food, start breaking up the furniture for kindling...forget about the elderly they won't make it through this...and then it would all melt away in about a week. Up north here, you guys are like...hell, I can still find my golf ball, might as well keep playing!

 

[Cackalacky]

The bolded above is what I addressed earlier though. What exactly is the South's lack of infrastructure causing that the north doesn't deal with on a yearly basis?

- Traffic: Check
- Getting stuck on the highway: Check
- Power Outages: Check
- Lack of heat: Check
- Shut down business: Check

All of the things that the south is crying about right now are all things the rest of the country deals with annually. In the storm of 2006 in CO, my wife was stranded on Hwy36 for 8 hours, the National Guard picked her up. Two years later, we slept in our car in the middle of a snow storm until the police could show up hours later. Growing up in Michigan, we learned to get used to losing power in winter every.single.year. There is literally no hardship the south is dealing with that the north doesn't consistently deal with year in and year out.

The only difference is that in the South its called, "The Storm of The Century" and in the North... its called "winter".

No offense to any of you though. It just cracks me up as my southern part of my family have always thought of yankees as soft, meanwhile... seems like old man winter is showing everyone's true colors.

I don't know how to answer you other than this type of weather rarely happens. Rarely. Like once every 10 years. We have no snow plows. No tire chains, no salt, poor emergency planning. BGiF has two very good posts above describing the problems. Does that make us pussies? IDK.

 

[woolybug25]

I don't know how to answer you other than this type of weather rarely happens. Rarely. Like once every 10 years. We have no snow plows. No tire chains, no salt, poor emergency planning. BGiF has two very good posts above describing the problems. Does that make us pussies? IDK.

I read his posts. That's what I am talking about. There is the excuse of, "no snow plows. No tire chains, no salt, poor emergency planning", which I totally get. That being said, what does the lack of those things cause that's any different than what northerners go through on a yearly basis?

While we have the plows, tire chains, salt and emergency planning for 3 inches of snow. There is no level of planning you can do for 3 FEET of snow that has sub zero (before windchill) temperatures for days/weeks on end. So when it's all said and done... the same hardships (road closures, stranded people, power outages, etc) occur here under even worse conditions... and they happen every year.

There is no hardship that the south is going through that we don't deal with every year. That's my point.

 

[Cackalacky]

I read his posts. That's what I am talking about. There is the excuse of, "no snow plows. No tire chains, no salt, poor emergency planning", which I totally get. That being said, what does the lack of those things cause that's any different than what northerners go through on a yearly basis?

While we have the plows, tire chains, salt and emergency planning for 3 inches of snow. There is no level of planning you can do for 3 FEET of snow that has sub zero (before windchill) temperatures for days/weeks on end. So when it's all said and done... the same hardships (road closures, stranded people, power outages, etc) occur here under even worse conditions... and they happen every year.

There is no hardship that the south is going through that we don't deal with every year. That's my point.

And my point is that we never have to deal it.

 

[NDohio]

I read his posts. That's what I am talking about. There is the excuse of, "no snow plows. No tire chains, no salt, poor emergency planning", which I totally get. That being said, what does the lack of those things cause that's any different than what northerners go through on a yearly basis?

While we have the plows, tire chains, salt and emergency planning for 3 inches of snow. There is no level of planning you can do for 3 FEET of snow that has sub zero (before windchill) temperatures for days/weeks on end. So when it's all said and done... the same hardships (road closures, stranded people, power outages, etc) occur here under even worse conditions... and they happen every year.

There is no hardship that the south is going through that we don't deal with every year. That's my point.

But when other parts of the country do go through extreme weather situations that are outside of their normal weather patterns the reaction is the same as what is going on with this storm currently. In fact this entire thread was started because of the extreme cold that parts of the Midwest were going through that is outside of their normal cold temperatures.

I remember a few years ago while still in Ohio, we had a hot summer where the extreme heat and humidity started in June as opposed to August. It was national news. No different than this.

 

[woolybug25]

And my point is that we never have to deal it.

haha... i'm glad we're friends, because I have no idea how to get my point across to you right now. lol.

ok... I get that southerners never have to deal with it. That is part of my point. Which is the level of hardship is no different, but the response is. Those two (innexperience and response) points are tied together.

Now... there is a general assumption in the south (in my experience) that northerners are "soft". But here we are... both north and south in this uncomfortable situation. Regardless of whether we are used to terrible weather, the result is the same. Which is, "Us Yankees aren't as soft as the south thought we were, eh?"

 

[Irish YJ]

Just declared another work from home day for tomorrow here in GA. 4 of my employees were stuck and could not get home. 2 had to abandon their cars. Total of 3 still in hotels. One ended up walking 4.6 miles after abandoning his car. He never wears a coat (as I do not either), thank god he wore one yesterday.

Me, I'm fixin' to get in my wrangler and make the grueling 2.5 mile drive into work... LOL.

 

[Cackalacky]

haha... i'm glad we're friends, because I have no idea how to get my point across to you right now. lol.

ok... I get that southerners never have to deal with it. That is part of my point. Which is the level of hardship is no different, but the response is. Those two (innexperience and response) points are tied together.

Now... there is a general assumption in the south (in my experience) that northerners are "soft". But here we are... both north and south in this uncomfortable situation. Regardless of whether we are used to terrible weather, the result is the same. Which is, "Us Yankees aren't as soft as the south thought we were, eh?"

Lol. FWIW I don't think that about northerners. I will never live where it snows again. Part of my family lives in western Michigan. I have experienced a Michigan winter. OTOH those same people melt when they visit me here during the summer and they swear they will never live here. So.....I guess it's what you are used to. I am about to make myself a drink and celebrate not having work today and tomorrow.

 

[woolybug25]

Lol. FWIW I don't think that about northerners. I will never live where it snows again. Part of my family lives in western Michigan. I have experienced a Michigan winter. OTOH those same people melt when they visit me here during the summer and they swear they will never live here. So.....I guess it's what you are used to. I am about to make myself a drink and celebrate not having work today and tomorrow.

Do tell... I grew up just north of South Bend and lived in Kalamazoo for a spell.

 

[#1rish]

Just declared another work from home day for tomorrow here in GA. 4 of my employees were stuck and could not get home. 2 had to abandon their cars. Total of 3 still in hotels. One ended up walking 4.6 miles after abandoning his car. He never wears a coat (as I do not either), thank god he wore one yesterday.

Me, I'm fixin' to get in my wrangler and make the grueling 2.5 mile drive into work... LOL.

Stuck because of snow? Or traffic because of accidents?

 

[Cackalacky]

Do tell... I grew up just north of South Bend and lived in Kalamazoo for a spell.

Muskegon, Grand Rapids and Holland. Spent many Christmas' there as a child.

 

[woolybug25]

Muskegon, Grand Rapids and Holland. Spent many Christmas' there as a child.

Nice area. Do you ever go back anymore?

 

[Cackalacky]

Nice area. Do you ever go back anymore?

Not for a while. Probably going on 10 years now. My grandfather and his siblings have passed on recently. An occasional family reunion is planned for next year.

 

[woolybug25]

Not for a while. Probably going on 10 years now. My grandfather and his siblings have passed on recently.

Sorry to hear that. If you're ever in the area, let me know. I spend a lot of time in Michigan. Western Michigan is a wonderful place when it's not winter!

 

[Irish YJ]

Stuck because of snow? Or traffic because of accidents?

All the above. What typically happens in ATL when the temps are below freezing is snow turns to black ice almost immediately on the roads. Snow hit around 11am yesterday. Everyone let their people go at noon or a bit after, and a huge traffic jam was created. Between accidents, long waits, people running out of gas, people unable to make it up the slightest of grades, just turned into one large parking lot. Roads are still littered with abandoned cars. Kids were stuck at school all night in several areas because the busses could not even get out of the parking lot. Those that made it out of the parking lot, greater than half were stuck on the busses for upwards of 5 hours, some overnight. State troopers were called into to rescue stuck kids.....

I think we got 2-3 inches in my area. I always laugh at southerners, but it just comes down to the fact that the state is not prepared. So looks like 2-3 inches is enough to close on of the largest cities in the US down for 2.5 days minimum at this point. It's going to break over the 32 degree point tomorrow at 1pm, and get up to 41. It will melt and evaporate quickly. Friday will be BAU if the forecast holds.

 

[Cackalacky]

Sorry to hear that. If you're ever in the area, let me know. I spend a lot of time in Michigan. Western Michigan is a wonderful place when it's not winter!

Will do. I plan on taking my wife and son up there soon. Probably for a ND home game then swing by and catch up with my cousins.

 

[ACamp1900]

In my neck of the woods, if the snow is sticking at all... everything shuts down... mind you though that schools are open campuses (meaning no central building, but rather a bunch of portables surrounded by a fence) and our roads and public systems aren't really equipped for high levels of winter drainage and such.

 

[woolybug25]

Will do. I plan on taking my wife and son up there soon. Probably for a ND home game then swing by and catch up with my cousins.

Definitely let me know when you do that. I go to at least one game a year now that I live out of state. But we can definitely hook up for a tailgate. Maybe do a float on the St Joe for some fishing/boozing/etc.

 

[ACamp1900]

Wooly thinks Cacky would be willing to meet him.......