ATLANTA - The city dodged the first punch of a dangerous winter storm Tuesday, but forecasters warned that next up was a potentially “catastrophic” blow for Atlanta delivering a thick layer of ice that threatened to cause hundreds of thousands of power failures and leave people in their cold, dark homes for days.
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The streets and highways in metropolitan Atlanta, the economic engine of the South with the headquarters of Fortune 500 companies including Home Depot, UPS, Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, were largely deserted as people hunkered down at home.
The state’s Department of Transportation urged drivers in Atlanta and northern Georgia “to refrain from all but absolutely necessary driving” until at least midday Thursday. Two weeks ago, thousands of people were stranded on icy, gridlocked roads for hours when 2 inches of snow fell.
The forecast drew comparisons to an ice storm in the Atlanta area in 2000 that left more than 500,000 homes and businesses without power and a storm in 1973 that caused an estimated 200,000 power failures for several days. In 2000, damage estimates topped $35 million.
Eli Jacks, a meteorologist with National Weather Service, said forecasters use words like “catastrophic” sparingly.
“Sometimes we want to tell them, ‘Hey, listen, this warning is different. This is really extremely dangerous and it doesn’t happen very often,’” Jacks said.
This kind of language was first used in May 1999 for a tornado in Moore, Okla. Forecasters called it a “tornado emergency” to make sure the public knew it was not a typical tornado.
“Do not wait to begin making plans for this significant weather event!!” the National Weather Service said in an online alert, which warned of more than 7 inches of snow in northeast Georgia and more than half an inch of ice in the eastern part of the state.
The Atlanta area and other parts of the South are particularly vulnerable to ice because there are so many trees and limbs hanging over power lines. When the ice builds up on them, limbs snap and fall, knocking out power.
“There is no doubt that this is one of Mother Nature’s worst kinds of storms that can be inflicted on the South, and that is ice. It is our biggest enemy,” Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said.
While only light rain fell in Atlanta on Tuesday, cities 40 miles northwest saw 2 to 3 inches of snow. The rain was expected to turn into sleet and freezing rain overnight.
More than 200 utility vehicles from Florida, North Carolina and other Southern states gathered in a parking lot near one of the grandstands at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The state had more than 22,000 tons of salt, 70,000 gallons of brine, 45,000 tons of gravel and 180 tons of additional salt and sand. The goal was to make sure at least two interstate lanes were available in each direction. Then material would be put on the most heavily used roads off the highways. Officials also were considering re-routing traffic in extreme circumstances.
“It’s certainly going to be a challenge for us. Ice is definitely different than snow,” said state Transportation Commissioner Keith Golden. “It is very difficult for us to plow ice.”
Hundreds of Georgia National Guard troops were on standby in case evacuations were needed at hospitals or nursing homes, and more than 70 shelters were set to open. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Georgia, ordering federal agencies to help the state and local response during the storm. Deal said a priority for that request was generators.
State and local officials, chastened by tough criticism for their slow response to the Jan. 28 storm, were eager to prove they could handle winter storms.
On Monday, before a drop of freezing rain or snow fell, Deal declared a state of emergency for nearly a third of the state, and state employees were told they could stay home. He expanded the declaration Tuesday to more than half the state’s counties.
Leaders of Atlanta’s public transportation system said bus service would be canceled and rail service would run on a weekend schedule as the storm moved into the region.
Officials said the agency’s decision to cut bus service is in line with Deal’s request for drivers to stay off the roads so Department of Transportation crews and others could spread road-treatment materials. But officials said some buses would be deployed as warming stations for drivers, truckers and others.
State Forestry Commission and Defense Department officials had four-wheel-drive vehicles ready for emergency transport of medical personnel and patients in trouble. The Departments of Natural Resources and Corrections had “strike teams” of people with chain saws to clear debris.
Virtually all Atlanta-area schools were closed. The state School Board will consider a resolution next week giving school districts the flexibility to not make up as many as four of the school days already lost because to winter weather. State law requires districts to have at least 180 instructional days, but many have already used waivers to chop that calendar down to save money.
In preparation for the storm on Monday, grocery stores in the Atlanta area were slammed with residents eager to stock up on supplies.
Fruit and breakfast foods were popular. So were wines. One young man at a Sam’s Club filled a shopping cart with at least eight cases of Bud Light and Corona beer.
“The water was basically all gone,” Amana Abdul-Jabbaar, 30, said after visiting a Kroger store in Sandy Springs, where lines were so long that it took 25 minutes to check out in the express lane. “There were a lot of people in the store like it was Armageddon. They were stocking up on absolutely everything.”
Kenisha Robertson, 36, of Sandy Springs was planning to keep her children home even before Atlanta-area schools announced closures for Tuesday and today. At her local Publix grocery store, Robertson fought the crowds to buy 4 gallons of water.
“The eggs were gone, bread, milk,” said Robertson, ticking off a list of what people were hunting for, which included vegetables and dog food. “The frozen pizza was gone!”
Karen Louis, 42, of Roswell, who was struck in traffic for 14 hours in the last storm, said, “A lot of people have changed their approach this time. No one wants to get caught out in it.”
She added, “Of course, Murphy’s Law, nothing will happen, and all of us will be sitting at home and we’ll be mad at ourselves when nothing happens, and we’ll be a laughingstock again.”
Dustin Wilkes, 36, of Atlanta was one of the few people who headed to the office Tuesday. His parking lot was mostly deserted.
“I think they probably overreacted,” Wilkes said. “It’s to be expected.”
Atlanta has a painful past of being ill-equipped to deal with snowy weather. Despite officials’ promises after a crippling ice storm in 2011, the Jan. 28 storm proved they still had many kinks to work out.
Around the Deep South, slick roads were causing problems. In North Texas, at least four people died in traffic accidents on icy roads, including a Dallas firefighter who was knocked from an Interstate 20 ramp and fell 50 feet, according to a police report.
In North Carolina, a woman was killed Tuesday when the car she was riding in went off a snow-covered road and struck a tree, the Highway Patrol said.
Mississippi officials said at least two people were killed in weather-related traffic wrecks.
Michelle Owen of Mount Pleasant, Tenn., was driving north on Interstate 65 when she hit an icy patch on a bridge. Her sport-utility vehicle and a trailer it was pulling fishtailed, sending her 18-yearold son Tyler through the rear window and onto the car the trailer was hauling. He suffered only minor injuries.
In northeastern Alabama, two National Guard wreckers were dispatched to help clear jackknifed 18-wheelers on I-65. Gov. Robert Bentley said one lesson learned from the storm two weeks ago was to get those wreckers organized earlier.
Alabama, parts of which were hit with 6 inches of snow Tuesday, also was preparing for more snow and ice today. Schools were closed, and Bentley urged people to be cautious.
Nationwide, Delta Air Lines canceled nearly 2,200 flights Tuesday and today, most of them in Atlanta.
Southwest Airlines spokesman Brad Hawkins said Tuesday evening that Southwest and AirTran canceled all flights scheduled to depart from Atlanta today. Hawkins said the exact number of flights that were canceled is unclear, but the airlines operate about 160 departures from Atlanta daily.
Information for this article was contributed by Christina A. Cassidy, Kate Brumback, Ray Henry, Jeff Martin, Jay Reeves, Russ Bynum, Kim Chandler and staff members of The Associated Press; by Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times; and by Bill Torpy and Rhonda Cookof The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/12/2014