All state routes and interstate highways are open for travel in Northeast Georgia, reports Teri Pope, communications officer for the Georgia Department of Transportation’s first district.
“The issues are in the turn lanes and on the ramps, and of course we have black ice scattered all over the world,” Pope said Thursday morning. We’re in much better shape than Metro Atlanta.”
That’s an understatement.
In addition to the snow, Atlanta got two inches of ice, virtually shutting down major thoroughfares. Four days after the storm began, some sections of interstates have but one lane open for traffic.
“Really and truly, there’s not a whole lot that can be done,” Pope said. “It’s hard to break through two inches of ice without help from warmer weather.” She noted that temperatures are expected to rise into the 40s Friday and Saturday.
Contributing to the problem is the number of vehicles just abandoned on the interstates, some of them in travel lanes. The DOT is still trying to get owners to get their vehicles off the roads.
For most of the district — which stretches north and east to the state line from Gwinnett County — the biggest issues are turn lanes, ramps and black ice.
“A lot of the slush when roads are bladed off goes into turn lanes or, on interstates, the ramps,” Pope explained. “Those turn lanes and ramps are the most hazardous places we have in North Georgia right now. And, of course, bridges with black ice.”
Throughout the district, Pope said 275 DOT employees have been working 12-hour shifts to get roads open and safe, but the DOT was simply out-gunned by Mother Nature.
“We had our resources ready and our people staged and ready — materials and equipment,” Pope said. “But we did not expect two-plus inches of ice in Metro Atlanta.”
Asked if the DOT could adequately prepare for a storm of that magnitude, Pope laughed.
“Not for a four-day ice storm,” she said. “I don’t think any southern DOT is.”
And that has resulted in a lot of angry calls to the district office.
“People expect to be able to move normally on a day when we have ice,” she said. “And we can’t be everywhere all the time. Folks look for the mobility they’re used to getting.”
