Mellie's Books

I know everyone is having fun watching Atlanta deal with a little snow. Because really, it was just a little snow. Here where we live, about an hour and a half outside of Atlanta, we had maybe two inches. And that might be stretching it a little.

Now I grew up in snow country. We had snow from before Thanksgiving until sometime in late March. So I know about snow. I learned how to drive in it. As a matter of fact, I took my driver’s test a few days after a big snowstorm.

But I won’t drive in Georgia if there has been any snow. If you live where there’s snow every year, your state has the equipment and the trained personnel to deal with it. You have a budget for salt and sand or cinders, for snow plows and salt trucks and drivers for them.

Here in Georgia, we have snow every couple of years, maybe. So while there are some snow plows and road crews, it isn’t practical to keep a full snow crew on standby for a maybe-once-every-two-years occurrence. If you only use these trucks once every year or so, you have to have garage space and maintenance for them which could be used for something else. And if you haven’t changed the fuel in them for two years, they might not start when you need them.

If you live where there’s snow every winter, you’ve learned how to drive in it. We used to go to an empty parking lot and just practice braking, skidding, recovering from a skid and stopping on the packed snow. It was sort of fun and we learned skills that would help us out on the road.

But if you seldom get the opportunity to practice, how can you learn these skills? Because driving on snowy roads takes a completely different skill set than you’re used to.

Another problem is ice. If it’s cold when it snows, and stays cold, all you have to contend with is snow. But down here we’ll get snow, and then the temperature will rise just enough to melt part of the snow on the road. Later in the evening, this will all freeze into patches of black ice. And black ice is no joking matter.

So go back and look at the picture comparison between New York and Atlanta. Notice that the roads in New York are plowed and that the ones in Atlanta are not.  And understand that the only roads which will be plowed are the major arteries around Atlanta. Those of us out here in the country will have to wait for the sun to do the road clearing for us.

Have fun and laugh at us if you’d like. We’re laughing at ourselves and congratulating each other for making it home alive. But remember, what’s normal and expected where you’re from is completely foreign to those here in the sunny Southeast.

Stay warm and dry friends.

Ciao

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