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When Sarah Palin booked a flight to Europe, the French immediately surrendered.

calendar   Thursday - January 30, 2014

Ice Capades, Southern Style

Ice Storm Shuts Down The South

Poor Readiness Leaves Roads Icy And Slick

Thousands Of Accidents, Strandings, Traffic Jams

“gay hater” Chik-Fil-A Saves The Day For Hundreds




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thousands of abandoned cars on Atlanta highways

Rescue efforts are under way Wednesday after thousands of schoolchildren and hundreds of drivers in the Deep South spent the night stranded at schools and along ice-covered highways following a rare winter storm that brought freezing rain, snow and bitter cold to the region.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed says “a lot of people” are still stranded in their cars on the highways nearly 24 hours the storm slammed the city, but he is not sure of exactly how many people.
...
In Hoover, Ala., school superintendent Andy Craig said 4,500 students spent the night in facilities there, MyFoxAL.com reports. In nearby Birmingham, Mayor William Bell said Tuesday around 1,200 students would be staying overnight in area schools, with access to food and water.
...
Overnight, the South saw fatal crashes and hundreds of fender-benders. Jackknifed 18-wheelers littered Interstate 65 in central Alabama. Ice shut down bridges on Florida’s panhandle and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, one of the world’s longest spans, in Louisiana. Some commuters pleaded for help via cellphones while still holed up in their cars, while others trudged miles home, abandoning their vehicles outright.
...
As of Wednesday, Georgia State Patrol responded to 1,254 accidents, according to Commissioner Mark W. McDonough. He said 130 injuries were reported along with one weather-related death.

Alabama State troopers have also identified three people killed in traffic accidents that they say may have been weather-related. And in Mississippi, four people were killed in a mobile home fire blamed on a space heater.

Deep South in chaos: Vicious winter storm leaves hundreds of cars abandoned on icy roads littered with pile-ups - as thousands are stranded and forced to sleep in schools, offices and grocery stores
More than 9,000 students camped out with teachers in school gyms or on buses and commuters abandoned cars along the highway to seek shelter in churches, fire stations - even Home Depot - after a rare snowstorm left thousands of unaccustomed people in Georgia and Alabama frozen in their tracks.

Tuesday’s storm deposited mere inches of snow, barely enough to qualify as a storm up North. And yet it was more than enough to paralyze Deep South cities such as Atlanta and Birmingham, and strand thousands of workers who tried to rush home early only to never make it home at all.

Doctor Robert Avossa, the superintendent for Fulton County Schools in suburban Atlanta, says his district had 90 buses full of schoolchildren stuck overnight and a handful still stuck at 7.30am on Wednesday.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal responded to criticism over the handling of the crisis at a press conference on Wednesday, blaming inaccurate weather forecasts for the chaos.

Kind of makes me wonder how closely related GA Gov. Deal is to former NOLA Mayor Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin. Inaccurate my buttocks, Forest. Everybody knew at least 48 hours ahead of time that a snow and ice storm was coming, and pretty much exactly where the lay down was going to be. And when.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,” Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew. “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

Local Chik-Fil-A feeds and shelters the masses during storm

... when the first snowflakes began to fall, no one paid all that much attention. But then, the flakes kept falling. Before too long folks in places like Hoover and Inverness realized it was much more than a dusting. By that point, it was too late for anyone to do anything.

Icy interstates and highways soon became clogged with cars and trucks. Thousands of motorists soon found themselves stranded with nowhere to go – including many stuck on Highway 280.

But a good number of those stranded motorists were able to find shelter in the storm thanks to the kindness and generosity of Chick-fil-A restaurant employees and the restaurant’s owner, Mark Meadows.
...
Some of the drivers had been stuck in their cars for nearly seven hours without any food or water. So the staff of the Chick-fil-A decided to lend a helping hand.

“We cooked several hundred sandwiches and stood out on both sides of 280 and handed out the sandwiches to anyone we could get to – as long as we had food to give out.”

The staffers braved the falling snow and ice, slipping and sliding, as they offered hot juicy chicken breasts tucked between two buttered buns. And Chick-fil-A refused to take a single penny for their sandwiches.

The meal was a gift – no strings attached.

For the frozen drivers, it was manna from heaven.
...
It’s no secret that Chick-fil-A was founded by a Christian family. And it’s no secret that they run their business on biblical values. What happened in Birmingham is an example of how those biblical values are played out.

“We just wanted to be able to help,” Audrey said. “Yesterday was such a hopeless situation. We wanted to do something to make people feel a little bit better. We were here. We had food and there were people outside who needed food. So it just made sense to do something for them.”

But Chick-fil-A’s generosity didn’t stop there.

“We opened up our dining room to anyone who wanted to sleep on a bench or a booth,” Audrey told me. And this morning, the weary staff members fired up their ovens and began preparing chicken biscuits.

The only thing that is closed – is Chick-fil-A’s cash register.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 01/30/2014 at 12:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
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