I used to think it was laughable how two inches of snow could paralyze the cities of the South. That was before I moved here in 2007. The Northerner in me just thought people here weren’t tough enough to deal with icy weather. Toughness has little to do with it, as I have learned from a number of blogs by observers in Atlanta and Birmingham who are providing the view from Ground Zero of the Snowpocalypse.*
Preparedness is the key. The lay of the land and a relatively warm climate make ice and snow so rare that the infrastructure for clearing the roads, such as ice and sand trucks, county snowplows and abundant independent contractors with snowblades mounted on the fronts of their pickups, simply does not exist. As a result, we’re about to have our third snow day at Auburn University, where students flocked to campus for snowball fights and the novelty of tossing flying discs in snow. The cancellations are wise. They demonstrate an abundance of caution that was absent in Atlanta, where ice-induced paralysis has become a national news story. Among the stories in the blogosphere about the Deep South’s slow-motion transportation disaster:
- Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution summed up ATL’s perfect storm of too many cars, not enough roads, meteorological bad luck, and lack of winter driving skill.
- Jaime Sarrio, also of the AJC, revealed her frustration and the kindness and generosity of strangers during her 18-hour, 18-mile journey home from work Tuesday night.
- ASFSCME’s official blog told how unionized Atlanta bus drivers went the extra mile to make sure schoolchildren reached safety.
- Making sense of it all from the meteorological perspective was Weather Underground.s Bryan Norcross, who spelled out the secret formula behind all Atlanta’s problems: “Warm ground + very cold air + snow + workday = chaos.”
Meanwhile in Alabama, which the national news media have overlooked, bloggers told our stories:
- AL.com’s Mike Oliver and other bloggers showed the extreme lengths people in Alabama were taking to survive, including a doctor who walked six miles to perform life-saving brain surgery.
- Also at AL.com, Julie McKinney posted ways people can help Birmingham, Ala., pull through, including links to Google docs listing how to help and how to get help. Among the offerings: where to stay if you’re stranded, how to offer shelter to the stranded, and how to offer bedding for emergency shelters.
- And freelance writer C.S. Sloan found a meditation on Christ’s teachings as he braved backroads trying to get home, stopping to help strangers along the way and himself being helped by a stranger.
These writers are helping us make sense of our current paralysis and revealing the stories of everyday heroes. They are connecting us to one another, and they are explaining us to the outside world. Things will thaw in a few days, and we’ll be back to normal again. When disaster strikes, we pull together and help each other out, and we give each other consolation and comfort.
Folks in the Kansas countryside where I grew up did (and do) the same. Our geography is different, but maybe deep down we’re not all so different after all. Here’s hoping the spirit of connection this storm has sparked in us continues past the thaw.
* Question: Should it be the Snowpocalypse, Snowmageddon, or some other label? I’m going with Snowpocalypse since its namesake, the Apocalypse, is foretold to bring natural disasters as well as the Four Horsemen of conquest, war, famine and death. That contrasts with Armageddon, the site of the gathering of armies for the final battle during the End Times in which Christ triumphs over Satan and his followers. But I digress.
Temps right around freezing left a bit less than a quarter-inch of ice on cars Tuesday morning in Auburn. Come afternoon, the snow started to fall, hiding the danger from drivers.
Michael Fuhlhage, Ph.D. 
Your comments on the snow crisis are interesting and informative. Thanks.
Sandra
Thanks, Sandra. I have to imagine that the same “pitch in and help during a crisis” ethic was in effect where you grew up in western Kansa. Would I be right to assume that?
Hmm, the trouble with Snowpocalypse is that I remember it from the big D.C. storm a few years back. It seems to get trotted out every time a big snowstorm disrupts a city.
Since this one was Southern based, and Atlanta is the most famous victim of the storm, might I suggest something General Sherman related?
Perhaps, the William Tecumseh Snowfall?
But Scott, this storm actually hit southern Alabama and Florida. Other than a few minor harassing raids, the Union didn’t do much down here, so the Sherman reference only tells part of the story. I am, however, surprised that as an Anglophile you aren’t more sympathetic with the South, given relatively warm relations between the Southern Colonies and the crown.
Somewhat warm, depending on what part of the war your talking about. Don’t forget- it was British anti-slavery sentiment that kept both the UK and France out of the civil war. You had flair ups like the Trent affair, and the time where UK shipbuilders built an ironclad for the Confederate navy, but for the most part, relations were friendlier between the North and the UK than they were between the so-called Confederate States and Her Majesty’s Government.
It got so bad in fact that the Confederate “diplomats” eventually gave up over after receiving cut after cut from the Court of St. James.
Most of this spread from an rightful distaste of the United Kingdom of slavery, and rightfully so. The British Empire had made one of their few right moral choices in 1808 when the banned slavery in the empire, and they sent the Royal Navy out to destroy the slave forts of Africa. It was seen by most Britons are partially negating that morale good by propping up the Slavocracy of the South.
(It should be noted, of course, that the second phase of the British Empire, after the loot the Spanish booty phase, was done to profit off the slave trade. I’m not suggesting that Britain’s hands are clean in regards to slavery, just that they got slightly cleaner after they outlawed it in 1808.)
The high and low of it is this- I despise the Confederacy, and all that she stood for. And I am proud that Britain was wise enough to ignore the financial concerns needing cotton (which was never as dire as the South had hoped) to enter into what would have been a world war against the United States. It would have been tantamount to accepting a bribe to perpetuate slavery, something no decent Englishman would ever dare to do.
The UK did have its options for acquiring cotton. One might say that the first place to feel the brunt of globalization was the Cotton South, given all the competition from Indian and Egyptian cotton.
That is absolutely true. Also, the South had a bumper crump in 1860, and the pressure just never mounted on Britain the way Jeff Davis wanted it to. I’ve been reading the book, “Empire”, which is a concise history of the British Empire, and it goes into the boom of Egyptian and Indian cotton really hurting the rebs.
But more important than my love for Britain- I hate the Confederacy. If you’re ever in Chicago, go to the Cultural Center, and go to the Great Hall of the Army of the Republic. Actually, if you’re in Chicago, look me up, and I’ll take you around a little driving historical tour. Detroit’s not that far away…
So many good stories from bloggers following the storm. I’ve been using Snowmageddon, but that’s just what I picked from the beginning.
[…] MICHAEL FUHLHAGE, Ph.D. Researcher and teacher of multimedia journalism and media history, assistant professor at Auburn University « News blogs’ value in a crisis: Meditations in a Southern snow emergency […]
Good info. Lucky me I came across your site by accident (stumbleupon). I’ve bookmarked it for later!