If there was one good thing to come out of the snowstorm that paralyzed Atlanta in the winter of 2014, it was an abiding fear of what can happen to the roads in a crisis.
Kristin Boyer was in charge of the school carpool on that fateful Tuesday during what came to be known as “snowpocalypse,” entrusted by other parents to collect their children from school. Yet she was stuck for seven hours on Ashford-Dunwoody Road, until her car ran out of gas.
So she reacted immediately Friday upon hearing about the 10 a.m. airplane crash that shut down I-285. She said to herself: “I’m not going to do that again.” As luck would have it, it was again her day for carpool duty, so she sent text messages to the parents — I’m getting your kids early — and picked them up around 11 a.m. The drive took two hours — twice as long as normal, but at least Boyer got them home, and on the same day.
School districts remembered the lesson, too.
In DeKalb County, which is bisected by I-285, there were 19 schools whose buses had to run through the affected traffic zones. Superintendent Michael Thurmond said 16,000 students were in those schools.
“As soon as the crash happened, we alerted our buses to go to the schools. So the good news is we had the buses in place,” he said. Buses were rerouted off the interstate, and parents were contacted by email or social media. Any child in second grade or younger whose parent couldn’t get home from work and to the bus stop in time would be returned to the school, where there would be food, games and teachers planning on a long night.
“Kids may be there until 8 or 9 tonight,” Thurmond said in mid-afternoon. “We don’t know.”
He did know that his district was better prepared because of the crucible of snowpocalypse. Parents who contacted the school and said they couldn’t get home were told that their children would be kept on the premises, fed and entertained.
“One of the things we learned was sheltering in place was not a bad thing,” Thurmond said. “The primary message we shared with parents was the children are safe.”
I-285 also slices through north Fulton County, and the school system there reacted similarly to DeKalb, scrambling buses early from their bases to the south. “So far so good,” said spokeswoman Susan Hale around 3:30 p.m., when the buses appeared to be on schedule after leaving elementary schools with their passengers.
It was unclear how the evening would unfold as rush hour approached, though traffic seemed to be flowing after I-285 re-opened. School districts release on a staggered schedule with middle and high schools letting out later in the day. The older students ride the same buses as the elementary school students, and don’t see their buses until the drivers have deposited all the small ones at their own destinations.
Hale said it helped that the crash occurred at 10 a.m. rather than in the afternoon, like the paralyzing snowstorm. That gave school officials more time to react.
Parents had more time, too, though some, such as Meredyth Gaynes of Brookhaven, didn’t need it.
“We bike to school so it’s not a big deal for us,” said Gaynes, who sounded chirpy despite the number of children taking refuge in her home. Like Boyer, she contacted parents who had long drives ahead of them and offered to take their children home. How many?
“One, two, three … ” She stopped counting at six. That, plus four of her own kids and the fifth, a middle schooler, who was walking home with friends. The kids were upstairs dancing, coloring and eating Popsicles.
“I think everybody learned their lesson from the storm,” Gaynes said. “OK, what’s my backup plan and how can I make sure this works out?”
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