Raleigh News-Observer

Yesterday, we had an unexpected nightmare here. We got an inch of snow that quickly turned to ice because of freezing temperatures.

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Raleigh Police spokesman Jim Sughrue said Raleigh police investigated around 500 accidents Wednesday. He said the majority of those accidents occurred between 11 a.m. and 4 or 5 p.m. Raleigh police investigated 67 accidents on Tuesday.

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For me personally, I live 5 minutes away from where I work. We closed at 3pm, cleaned up and got out by 4, and it took me an hour to get home (I walked in the door at 5:17). There is one hill on the way home where it was a solid sheet of ice. Cars were just sliding down one at a time and piling up in a ditch at the bottom. Several major roads were shut down completely and traffic was being diverted, which just made the gridlock even worse.

I was watching the news, and there was a story about a school bus driver who had her kids in the bus for about 6 hours before she turned into a hospital so they could get warm, use the restrooms, and call their parents so they wouldn't worry. They spent the night at the hospital rather than get back on the road.

Almost all the schools had kids that stayed overnight because their buses never made it to pick them up, or their parents couldn't get there. Some parents made it by 11pm after taking 8 hours to get to their kids. One thing that scared me is one of the schools saying they ordered pizza for the kids to eat - How was it delivered?? Of course, the driver could have walked the pizza to them, and it would have gotten there faster than being driven.

The snowfall lasted only 3 hours, and accumulated about one inch, which normally would not have caused such problems. However, because the temperature never got above freezing, all the snow that was turned to slush under tires immediately froze into ice.


Now for a heartwarming story about the day...

A man's wife and two daughters were stranded at a Food Lion.

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His wife, Amber, had picked up the two East Millbrook Middle School seventh-graders at 2 p.m. and ended up stranded at a gas station because, after being stuck in traffic for five hours, she was running out of gasoline. Trying to get out of the gas station lot proved to be the end of the journey.

The three had plenty of company. A school bus from East Millbrook also was stranded at the Food Lion, as were 200 schoolchildren from North Raleigh Christian Academy.

His wife told him that the Wendy's at that intersection had reopened to try to feed the children and that Food Lion was cooking pizzas and giving them away.

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And one guy is a real jerk...

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"I've been standing down here for two hours waiting on the bus," said Parker, 23, who is studying real estate at Wake Technical Community College.

"They need to get buses here on time," he said as he waited in the cold evening air. "I got gloves and everything, and I'm freezing."

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