"They let you go right into the mess,"

Yep, it's someone else's fault you drove into a winter storm.

Yes, these morons blame anyone but themselves for getting themselves stranded on i95.
I-95 winter storm traffic disaster: Drivers are fuming and demanding answers from Virginia officials

 

Thanks for posting Turbo

Wow!!! traveling only 31 miles in 12 hours on Interstate 95

 

pfffttt!

 

That's nothing new. In years past trains would get stuck in snow for days up to werks sometimes. Local towns would send rescue teams to bring women and children into town.

Apparently Amtrak got stuck in that storm too.

10 years ago I took an Amtrak to Chicago because it was apparent no flights were going to land due to winter weather. I was the only person on the whole train with any winter gear. I had long johns, insulated bibs, heavy hooded coat, gloves, and face mask. Most packed in a backpack I used as a pillow for the ride.

I didn't know it at the time but the outer Metra stations close and lock up to keep the homeless out. I arrived at a northern station in blowing snow near the lake in 0 degree weather. I put my gear on and waited outside for 15 minutes for my hotel shuttle to show up. Darn happy I brought the cold weather gear.

 

As a retired State Trooper, I guarantee you 90 percent of them were driving 70-80 mph on the ice. It is amazing the percentage of the motoring public that don't understand that during most weather conditions, you may not want to travel at the posted speed limit. Common sense is in short supply nowadays.

 

In the Northeast we have a shortage of snowplow drivers, this could be just the beginning of a bad winter!

 

Your east coast snow made the news over here too:

Snowbound highway: 'I woke up in the same spot'

Warning: The interviewee says a rude word - and the BBC even subtitled it.

 

Oh, thats idle speed in atlanta!
Atlanta is one of the worst places I've seen for speeding (like 80-90 mph in a terential downpour)

 

I95 is on the east coast and runs between the major cities...where the citiots live...
Major snowstorms hit the east coast every winter. It wouldn't usually shut down i95 in Virginia but it happens.
We've been getting less snow than normal for a few years and people forgot it's winter...
Seriously! You check the weather before you head out on a 8 or 10 hour drive! This is nobody's fault but their own!
It is just unbelievable to me that these idiots (or citiots) would drive into a winter storm so unprepared. (Then blame somebody else for letting them do it!)

We've driven all over the northeast and Upper midwest and Ontario to go snowmobiling, so i know how fast things can change. I've never left myself get 'stranded'.
I once drove from central pa to maine in four wheel drive for 500 miles in a snow storm. Next morning we checked the weather and headed out again as the snow started, and got ahead of the storm and finished our trip to northern maine.
Being prepared isn't just a state of mind, you need to have everything to keep youself alive in an emergency.

 

Saw on the news this morning an elected official was in that mess and he said for the 20 some hours he had an orange and a Dr. Pepper. He wasn't all angry in the interview. He said it was something like a 2 hour commute turned into 20+. I personally wouldn't pack an overnight bag for that.

I was near stranded last year once. It was concerning. Commuting home from Gaithersburg on 270 traffic just came to a stop and stayed that way for about 45 minutes. It was snowing HEAVY! And I wasn't "prepared" as the weather hacks weren't calling for much. But multiple wrecks on the other side of a split highway caused a small fender bender on our side, and that took over an hour to get us moving again.

Sh1t can happen quick so I'll not judge anyone in that case. It can happen to any one. Maybe I'm more compassionate than average?


Another interview had a lady begging an ambulance crew to just take her kids and not her so they didn't freeze. If she hopped on 95 for 1/2 hour of her daily drive and didn't have enough gas to idle for 20 hours, is she an idiot? I don't think so.

 

Winter always catches people off guard, everywhere. Doesn't matter if it's Vermont or eastern Tennessee. The average person doesn't leave the house thinking of what could happen out on the road. I remember years ago coming up I-95 through Virginia during an ice storm. I was driving a Mitsubishi Eclipse and putting along at about 30-35mph. All the locals were screaming by me in the fast lane. I distinctly remember telling my wife "someone's going to die on this highway tonight" Not 2 minutes later, I drive around a long sweeping bend to see a car that had just slammed into a guard rail on a bridge, windows broken, the entire vehicle engulfed in flames.

 

Being in the Northeast, we keep the following in our vehicles all winter long:

Ice scraper and snow brush
A half-gallon cleaned milk jug, filled with calcium chloride
(Small beads of ice melt)
Insulated work gloves
Small shovel
Blanket

We keep all the time in our vehicles-
Jumper cables
Small toolbag with adjustable wrenches, screwdriver, hammer, hand warmers. etc..
12v air compressor for tires.

If traveling more than an hour away, regardless of weather forecast, then water and granola bars are taken.

When snow is in the forecast (yes, you need to check the forecast) we are fortunate to not have to travel.

 

When I started driving school bus about 18 years ago, I would make students go back in and get a coat on cold or bad weather days. Now not allowed to. Kids come out in shorts, tee shirt and flip flops in zero degree weather.

 

Yes, there were more than likely some people driving like idiots. Lots of folks do that on 95, plus you get all the 95 traffic, other states..lots of them drive faster than the VA plates, especially Georgia plates, they almost 100% of the time are going way over the limit.

Anywho....the 95 debacle was about 75-100 miles north of me, plenty of room for conditions to have been different. But at least here, we went from torrential rain, to a bit of sleet, to accumulating snow in a VERY short time. It was a bit surprising how fast it changed. To the weather forecasters credit, they said it would accumulate quickly. Still it was hard to imagine it doing so, since it had been so warm (in the 60s and 70s over the weekend)and rained so much. If it had been cold when the system came in, we'd have snow up to our azzes.

And in terms of people having any supplies in their vehicles, yeah good luck. When I have to come to work in this kind of weather, I at least have a bag with cold weather gear and a few supplies. My battery crapping out on a cold morning's drive a few years ago helped reiterate the need for having a few extra items....

 

When we saw this on the news, I told my wife that's why I like to keep a blanket, some snacks, and a full tank of gas, at a minimum. In winter I also always carry, a tow strap and jumper cables in my truck.