Bermudian laments Atlanta snowstorm

A Bermudian living in a US city that was almost paralysed by this week’s winter storm says the city should shoulder much of the blame for widespread disruption.

Toshi Bulford, an IT support specialist is safe but is stuck in his home in Atlanta thanks to treacherous residential roads.

Thousands of drivers were stuck on Atlanta highways on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning because icy roads that hadn’t been treated.

Many students slept at their schools and many drivers abandoned their cars to walk home.

Mr Bulford drove to his job in downtown Atlanta on Tuesday morning on what he described as a “pretty normal day”.

He said he left the office at 10:30am and that’s when the snow started: “Traffic became a huge problem due to some counties not cancelling school for the day.

“Most areas to the south and east of Atlanta either cancelled school or had a half day. The more populous counties were going on a normal school schedule until they decided to end the day around 11 am. This caused parents to leave work, which in turn caused employers to let all employees leave. This made for a larger than normal amount of people on the roads.”

Mr Bulford said the snow increased in the downtown area at 1pm, causing slush to form on the untreated roads and freeze into ice: “School buses full of children became stuck along with the cars and tractor trailer trucks. Some were able to reach their destination that night while others were stranded until late Wednesday morning.”

Cars left abandoned

“Many people had to abandon their cars either because they ran out of gas, or they because they wanted to get home and would get there faster by walking.

“Many others were able to take shelter in grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants, Home Depot, fire stations and some in homes of strangers.”

Mr Bulford said it took him two hours to get home, usually a 20 minute drive without traffic and 35 to 45 minutes with traffic.

Asked about the situation now, Mr Bulford said the major highways and roads are clear, but the small residential roads are not the responsibility of the state, so they haven’t been cleared.

Asked what he would say to people who brushed this off as just a bit of snow, Mr Bulford said: “This is what it’s like when it snows in the south. We may have only gotten between two point five and three inches of snow, but that’s a lot for a place where it may only snow once every one to two years.

“If the government, at all levels, had been more proactive it may not have been as bad. The blame falls at a city, county and state government level.

“Schools in the most populous counties should not have gone to school. The roads and highways should have been prepped better.

“Children should not have been put on buses at 6 pm, at that point the roads had already been jammed for a few hours. If it wasn’t for the kindness of many people the situation could have been a lot worse.”