The Dudley Four: Snowpocalypse 2014

What happened in the greater Birmingham area this past Tuesday is unlike anything else I've ever experienced. In a bad way. A very, very bad way. Over the weekend, we kept a close eye on the weather forecast, hoping that we might get a little bit of snow. By Monday night, it looked like we were in the outer fringes of the snow band, so we told Big Sister that it might snow on Tuesday afternoon, putting extra emphasis on the word "might". Because about 7 out of 10 times snow is predicted in our area, the most we end up with is a few flurries. All of the weather models showed that the snow would move in during the late morning or early afternoon, and the Birmingham area (north of us) wasn't supposed to get much of anything, so we packed up for Classical Conversations like we do every Tuesday, and dropped Little Bud off to Grammie on our way to Riverchase (about a 40 minute drive from our house). After morning assembly, once we divided into our classes, our director came in and casually mentioned that it was snowing, and that when we got to a stopping point, we might want to let the kids look out the window. Of course, the kids, including Big Sister, were super excited! A while later, we noticed that it was snowing even harder, and I also saw that some of the snow was actually sticking to the road, which hardly ever happens where we live.

At that point, I started to worry a bit, and thought about leaving, but the weather folks were saying that it was going to stop within the hour (Birmingham proper was only supposed to get a light dusting, the real snow/winter storm was supposed to take place south of Birmingham). I talked to John, who had recently been out of the roads, and he didn't notice any problems, and they also weren't releasing schools, so I decided to stay, at least until we were done with Science and Art (Big Sister's favorite part of CC - they do a fun science and art project each week). Before we finished Science, Jamie texted to say that Hoover City Schools were releasing students, and not long after I received her text, Grammie told me that Shelby County Schools had decided to release as well. I felt increasingly uneasy, but felt like the situation must not be that bad, or they would have released the schools earlier. The buses had to run to return the kids home before the roads got too bad, right?

If only I had listened to my mommy instinct that told me to leave, but I waited around, until about 10:50, and I even let Big Sister make a snow angel with her friend before hurriedly loading her up in the van. By the time I got on the road, the traffic was unlike anything I have ever experienced. It took us about 3 hours to go 3 miles. About 30 minutes in, I started to panic. I wondered if we would ever make it home. I wasn't able to call out (the cell phone lines were overcrowded and didn't work for hours and hours), but thankfully I was able send text messages to John. I wasn't texting and driving, we were seriously is stand still traffic; as in, it took us an hour to go a few hundred yards. At one point, I felt like it might be best to park the car and walk to the main road so that John could meet us and pick us up. Thankfully at that point, the traffic started inching forward, and John encouraged me to stay in the car, since it was so cold (I later realized that he never would have been able to meet us, since Highway 31 North was completely gridlocked). We inched along for hours, barely making any progress, and my stress and panic levels started to rise with every passing minute. Big Sister was not happy about being trapped in the car (she wanted to be home to play in the snow!), she was hungry (thankfully I had her lunch with us), thirsty, had to go to the bathroom, and was of all things HOT (she complained about being hot even after I turned off her heat and she took off her jacket, shoes and socks - silly girl!)!

As we were driving, I began to piece together how bad the situation really was. I was watching ice form on the roads as we painfully inched along, and saw multiple cars slipping and sliding. Grammie let us know that the buses never ran in Shelby County (where we live); they actually loaded the kids up on the buses and then had to unload them once they made the call that the roads were unsafe. Jamie kept us posted on what was going on at her school, and soon it became apparent that she might be spending the night with her students, since the roads were impassible (not only because of snow, but also because of abandoned cars that were stuck in the ice). One of John's sisters was stuck in Birmingham, after realizing that she would never make it home with the road conditions/traffic (I-65 was gridlocked for 2 days). Several friends were texting me, keeping me updated on their own treacherous journeys, and soon I realized we were lucky. We left just in time to actually be able to get out. A friend left our CC campus about 10 minutes after us, and didn't make it to her parents house (she was unable to make it home because of the road conditions), until after 9 o'clock that night (she was by herself with her 3 sweet kids)! And, she actually traveled less miles than we did.

John and my dad met us in front of a bank near their office (3 hour later!), and John got in the car with us, and we followed my dad who was thankfully in his 4 wheel drive truck. We decided to stay in the van, hoping to make it on our own, but trailed my dad, just in case the van got stuck somewhere (there were accidents, abandoned cars and stuck vehicles everywhere!). After about another hour (during this part of the journey Big Sister and I actually used the bathroom in a bucket that my dad gave us - we had to go to the bathroom for hours, but were afraid if we got off the road, we would never be able to get back on again, because of the traffic) were able to make it to the interstate, which was blessedly not crowded, and we followed my dad down to the Calera exit (we decided it would be best to drive way around to avoid trouble spots and to be able to follow my dad and his 4 wheel drive truck for as long as possible, just in case we ran into trouble).

We tried to go home via Highway 25 from Calera to Columbiana, but there are several bridges that were icy, and the traffic was backed up, so we decided to drive to my parents and pick up the Jeep, which is 4 wheel drive and then drove home via Highway 47. We finally made it to John's parents' house to pick up sweet Little Bud around 4:30. I know that he was safe, warm and happy there, but I just had to get home to him!

After we got home, I spent a little bit of time on Facebook and realized again that what we endured wasn't all that bad, compared to the stories I was reading from friends and relatives. Some people were stuck in traffic for 11+ hours. Some didn't make it home at all, and had to spend the night in their cars, or shelters, or stores, or other peoples homes. Even worse, lots of families were separated from each other, and thousands of kids were stuck at area schools! There were about 1200 kids stranded at the high school where Jamie works, and she was there with them until about 5:00 pm on Wednesday night; at one point she thought that they were going to have to spend another sleepless night together (thankfully the fire and police departments worked to get everyone home). There were also little ones stranded at their day cares and preschools. My heart goes out to the parents who were unable to get to their precious kids. John's sister spent 2 nights at a hotel in Birmingham, where miraculously she met up with a distant cousin on John's brother's fiancee who offered to share their room with her, since there were no hotel rooms left, and she had previously thought she would be sleeping in the lobby of the hotel. There were actually no rooms left in any hotel in the whole greater Birmingham area.

The pictures and video that I've seen are almost surreal. They looks like something out of a movie. Cars abandoned, people walking for miles to get somewhere safe and warm. To me the silver lining is that we were once again reminded that so many good hearted people live in our area. So many people (and businesses) reached out and helped in any way possible.

I hope to never again experience anything like what happened last Tuesday. I've always made fun of how people act in Alabama when it snows (even though I've lived her my entire life), but now I'll be one of them. I realize that what happened was unpredictable and unexpected, since the roadways just happened to be the perfect temperature for creating a thick layer of dangerous ice out of the snow that fell, and that what happened probably won't happen again to our generation, but the next time snow is predicted, I'm staying home.