The big BIG story is that we are going to get snow today. Doom. Armageddon. 1-2 inches. Now, snow here is not unheard of. An elderly friend of mine says that back in the day they used to get a couple of good storms each winter, bringing two to three inches. However there have not been any storms, not even any snow making it to the ground, for the last few years.
This is the third winter I've been in North Georgia and once, in the first winter in 2007, I had to scrape ice off my windshield, using only my credit card to do it. That's about it for wintry precipitation.
So this winter weather system that is already dumping snow in ARK, TN and Miss now heading our way is freaking out the Georgians. The 11 o'clock news led with the ubiquitous news story about the weather, first showing the heavy machinery at the Atlanta airport. "Look!", the news guy said, pointing excitedly through the chain link fence, "these trucks that can be outfitted with sand and salt!" Next, showing radar maps with ominous looking swirls of fast moving clouds traveling over boxed off counties in the path of this coming destruction, the weather forecaster breathlessly described what happens when snow comes down; "Bridges freeze first, so watch out!" Then the news crew went to the grocery store, where people usually go to buy bread and milk and water, the news guy explained. Yes, he actually explained why so many people were at the store putting bread and milk into their carts. "Buggies", sorry, that is the correct terminology down here. And then he repeated the bread-milk-water survival list.
Incredibly he chose the one person in the store to interview who was doubting if not skeptical that anything would even make it to the ground. Rather than interview another person, they just put up a ticker at the bottom of the screen with her name, "Jane Smith" and below that, "Not preparing for storm."
I laughed so hard I almost dumped my laptop of my stomach. It just looked so funny ... "Not preparing for storm." LOL. She said she will believe it when she sees it.
I wonder if she was from Maine.
Today was 67 degrees and by the weekend it will be 70 so the likelihood of any white stuff hanging around is less than zero, but I know the locals get excited at the prospect, they love snow because it's so rare and always sort of a festive event.
Left, my previous domicile in Maine home of car-burying snow. Today, I'm not scared of driving in the wind-driven icy snow. I'm more scared of everybody else who will be out there, newbies to the asphalt realities of black ice.
