Southern snow causes traffic gridlock

A snow storm that struck the southeast U.S. caused massive gridlock on Atlanta highways, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Georgia transportation officials are blaming the delays on black ice and are discouraging truck drivers from entering the state until roads are cleared, according to the report.

“If there isn’t already a tractor-trailer in Georgia, please stay out,” Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Karlene Barron told the paper. “We cannot deal with any more.”

{mosads}Elected officials in Georgia blamed the deteriorating road conditions on the snow storm being “unexpected.”

“There are certain things we don’t have control over and one of those is the weather,” Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) said in a press conference, according to the paper.

“This came rather unexpectedly,” Deal continued. “The time frame in which it hit was a very short time frame. And I think we’re better prepared now than we were in 2011.”
 
The AJC reported that many motorists, including school buses carrying children, were stuck on Atlanta highways overnight. The paper also reported that some students were forced to stay in their schools for the night because buses could never reach them.

“It’s a horrible, horrible, horrible situation for people who are stuck out there,” Barron told the paper. “I sit there and think about the mothers whose children are stuck in school buses. … But people need to understand our folks are working as tedious as they can. This is a really hard situation for everybody.”