Call it the great “do-over.”
Just two weeks ago, Georgia was roundly ridiculed for allowing 2.6 inches of snow to throw the Atlanta metro area into gridlocked chaos. Leaders this past week were granted a rare second chance to do it right, the political equivalent of a mulligan.
In the end, what may have mattered most in the way this storm played out was beyond anyone’s control: It struck overnight when most Georgians were home asleep, a far cry from January’s mid-afternoon snowfall that transformed clogged interstates into slick parking lots.
Then there was the fear factor. Residents, spooked by apocalyptic images from that earlier snowjam, simply weren’t taking chances. They hunkered down to ride out this round of winter fury. The interstates littered with abandoned cars last time were eerily empty.
It was a different storm and, at least for the Atlanta area, one that didn’t live up to its ominous billing as “catastrophic.” But it was also a different preparation and response.
A review by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of emergency efforts this time around found a more vigorous and better coordinated effort. Gov. Nathan Deal seized the helm early and stayed visible throughout. Transportation and emergency management officials made better use of technology. Schools shut their doors before a drop of precipitation had fallen.
Yet the effort wasn’t problem free. Heading into the weekend, tens of thousands of Georgians remained in the dark without power as utility companies scrambled to repair power lines and transformers damaged by ice or brought down by ice-slicked trees and branches. The outages were particularly severe in Augusta, which was encrusted with an inch of ice.
MARTA struggled to ramp back up to a regular schedule even as bright sunshine melted lingering ice and snow Friday. The train cars and buses that were running were packed.
LEADERSHIP
An AJC examination of the storm response in January uncovered a series of cascading failures that left motorists and school children stranded, cold and hungry.
The critical problem was a lack of early and forceful leadership. As that storm bore down, Deal was largely invisible, popping up — awkwardly enough — at a “Gone With the Wind” themed tourism event and an awards banquet at the Ritz-Carlton with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. It would be five hours after the snow began before the governor would declare a state of emergency; another six hours until he would summon the National Guard. The first time Georgians saw their governor was at an 11 p.m. news conference.
Fast forward two weeks: Deal responded as if his political life depended on it. The Gainesville Republican is facing re-election this fall, and nervous aides knew they couldn’t blow another one.
Sunday evening Deal pushed the Georgia Department of Transportation and other state agencies to move equipment to the northern half of the state to brace for the brunt of the weather. He also told the National Guard to be on standby.
The governor declared a state of emergency in 14 counties Monday morning, nearly 48 hours before the storm actually hit in earnest. He’d expanded that to another 31 counties Monday afternoon. Another 43 counties were added into the mix Tuesday morning, and President Barack Obama declared a swath of Georgia in a federal state of emergency, freeing up resources and clearing the way for the state to receive more backup generators from government stockpiles.
Reminded the hard way that optics are powerful political currency, anxious Deal aides took pains to present the image of their boss as a leader in command in the storm run-up. They summoned the news media to photograph Deal presiding at the head of a long table filled with top state officials. Deal met with reporters repeatedly talking about the coming storm. He urged residents to stay put and read a book if the power went out.
FORECASTERS
Even the staid National Weather Service seemed to ratchet up its game. In the previous storm, weather officials shifted their forecast in the early morning hours on the day the snow began. Deal initially complained that early forecasts were contradictory but later backed away from that assertion as the storm response came under additional scrutiny.
This time around forecasters left no room for confusion, issuing an unusually dire warning.
“This winter storm may be of historic proportion,” the weather service said, warning of “crippling” ice conditions.
TRANSPORTATION
January’s snowjam was as much a transportation debacle as it was a winter storm.
This time officials got a big boost when the storm hit as drivers were sleeping, giving road crews room to treat and clear the roadways.
A few key preparedness measures seemed to help. State officials began warning truckers on Monday to stay away, which prevented 18 wheelers from jackknifing and blocking lanes of traffic. Outdoor advertising companies cleared the way for state officials to use their digital billboards to run live messages about weather and traffic alerts.
At the height of the January storm, the Georgia Department of Transportation dispatched 70 sand and gravel spreaders fitted with snow plows on the front. That rose to 75 at the height of last week’s storm as GDOT pulled in more resources from other parts of the state. Officials did have to scramble to get equipment to Augusta and other points east of Atlanta.
While GDOT was widely lambasted for the traffic nightmare last month, some Georgians actually expressed their appreciation.
MARTA didn’t fare as well . Rail service shut down early Wednesday night and continued Thursday and Friday on a reduced schedule, meaning longer waits for passengers. MARTA officials said they suffered mechanical problems because their rail cars aren’t equipped to handle long-term exposure to cold weather, lacking features such as heated doors and windows. On Friday, the mass transit agency said it ran into scheduling problems, with some workers reaching the limit on how long they may work continuously.
GEMA
If there was a scapegoat in the last storm it was Georgia Emergency Management Agency Director Charley English, who acknowledged he misjudged the severity of the snowfall. E-mails obtained by the AJC showed English was seemingly nonchalant about the approaching storm, and many thought his days in the Deal administration were numbered.
But English and GEMA were granted a coveted make-up test, which they seemed to pass.
The agency used an emergency alert system to push notifications to cellular phones, a tool they didn’t take advantage of in January.
The emergency operations center was up and running on Monday. At the storm’s height, roughly 100 officials hunkered down in the bunker-like emergency operations center, equipped with high-tech screens showing real-time traffic and weather.
Dispatchers handled calls ranging from helping 87 Georgia Power trucks to make their way to Augusta to helping a woman locate her elderly mother at a nursing home which had lost power.
GEMA also marshaled the power of social media early, tweeting Sunday night about the storm and linking to preparation tips. The messaging picked up as the storm arrived. GEMA posted a map of shelters on Facebook and tweeted a list of counties with heavy snow and ice accumulation.
By contrast, during the first snowjam, GEMA didn’t tweet specifics on the state’s response until the morning after the storm hit. Stranded motorists pelted them with insulting tweets featuring hashtags such as #balldropper and #insanity.
If anything, officials may have been over prepared. On Thursday, GEMA had 11 shelters open serving just 116 people. Another 25 shelters were on standby.
LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
The city of Atlanta was largely lumped in with the state’s failures last time as residents decried clogged and impassable streets. Reed didn’t risk the same mistake. Atlanta opened up its emergency response headquarters more than a day in advance, tapped private contractors to boost their fleet of vehicles from 70 to more than 130 spreaders and plows, and amassed one of the region’s largest stockpiles of salt and sand.
Last time, the city had 700 tons of sand and gravel mix available, but by week’s end, had laid down nearly 10,000 tons to treat icy roads.
Reed also got city workers off the streets earlier, telling non-essential employees Monday to stay home as Atlanta braced for a wintry blast. Municipal courts closed, and city government was officially shuttered Wednesday and Thursday.
Last month Fulton County crews couldn’t stay ahead of icy conditions on more than 600 miles of roads they maintain in unincorporated South Fulton. Traffic jams prevented workers from treating slick roads, and they spent a lot of time responding to motorists in distress, according to Facilities and Transportation Director David Ricks.
This time, Ricks said the county was aided by better planning and a little good luck.
He cited the coordinated efforts of government officials to keep people off the road this week. Schools and government agencies closed Tuesday, and many remained closed through the end of the week.
With no traffic jams or distressed motorists to contend with, crews were able to begin treating roads without delay. In fact, Fulton was done applying sand and salt to roads early Thursday. And the county was able to better monitor spots that were troublesome last month, including Cascade Road, New Hope Road and Fulton Industrial Boulevard.
SCHOOLS
Stung by images of school children sleeping overnight in school gymnasiums and stranded on school buses, school district officials quickly decided to shut down well before the storm arrived. Most districts shut down on Tuesday and stayed closed the remainder of the week.
Reed used his bully pulpit to urge Atlanta schools to close. Most needed very little persuading. Although some were facing a backlash for shutting down again on Friday when conditions had improved.
UTILITIES
The biggest problem in the latest storm was power outages. As of late Friday, more than 100,000 customers remained without power. The vast majority of those were in Augusta, which seems to have borne the brunt of the storm.
Thousands of power crews were working nonstop to get service restored. But ice is notoriously bad for power lines. And the Atlanta area’s vast canopy of trees complicates efforts to keep lines safe from falling limbs.
Georgia Power, which provides power to about half the the state, pledged that by Sunday 99 percent of their customers would have their power restored.
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