Now that you know the story of what happened to most Alabamians (and Georgians), let me tell you what happened to me.

Like I had mentioned, my place of work did not let us leave when most places did.  If you’ve ever worked in transportation, you know that it stops for no one.  Or no weather.

It was around three in the afternoon when everyone decided that, well, maybe we should let these people leave.  By now, the roads were completely iced; people had started leaving their vehicles on the side of the road, and in some cases in the middle of the road. 

I convinced Britney to come to my house that night, as she lives farther away than me, and to be honest, I did not want to do this alone.

We get about two miles down I65 and come to a sudden dead stop.  And there we sat for three hours!  We sat on a highway for three hours and went no more than two miles.  I am not joking about this.  By some grace of God (and trucker Heaven), there was an eighteen-wheeler letting people in front of him to get off the interstate.

Britney and I had conceded that we were not sleeping in a warm bed that night; instead, we would be sharing the lovely, hard, cold floor of our work building.  It took us a bit to get through downtown, as it was also completely covered in ice.  I did get to run red lights, because, well why not?

Luckily for us, there is a huge truck stop right down from where we work.  We were able to pick up some essentials (i.e., Blue Moon and toothbrush), and head back to the office, where we proceeded to watch non-stop coverage of Winter Storm Leon.

Needless to say, we slept like hell that night.  We woke up around three in the morning, and went back out to watch some more coverage.  That day, we were the only people in the office.  Well, the downstairs portion of it. 

One of our safety guys braved the elements and headed to Wal-Mart, where he got some supplies to feed us breakfast and lunch.

It became apparent to Britney and I around noon, that we were also not going to be able to make it home a second night.  The secondary roads were still treacherous, and the traffic was still horrible.  I was determined to not become one of these people that sat in their car for nine hours.

I also hate getting gas, and I would have had to do so if I was planning on being in my car for that long.  The temperature did not get above freezing on Wednesday, so we spent another night at work.

Luckily for us, our orientation guy jimmied the lock to the shop and found us two brand new sleeper mattresses, and we got those for the night.  We also discovered that the room we had frozen in the night before, did in fact, have its own thermometer.  We cranked it up, got under a big furry blanket and slept till about seven the next morning.

By then, most people had been able to make it into work, and Britney and I got to leave around ten.

On the way home, I did snap a few pictures of the carnage still left on I65 South.

Yes, those are cars that had been abandoned by their owners.

It was definitely a crazy two days.  But hey, at least I’ve got some stories and a myriad of inside jokes, right?

Everybody heard about the two days when the South went absolutely ape shit right?

Yeah, that one day where two inches of snow and ice pretty much shut everything down.

I will not make light of it, because it was really bad.  So bad in fact, that I need to break it down into two posts.

What happened to most people, and then what happened to me.

Around 9am last Tuesday (2/28/2014 — a day that will live in Southern infamy), the snow began to fall.  The weather forecasters had called for a dusting, so all schools and all businesses were open and running.  So when it still hadn’t stopped snowing by, oh 1030, everybody decided to let the children out and for job-holding folks to go home.  Not my work though.  

It was also cold.  Cold enough that when the snow hit the ground, it immediately turned to ice.  People got stuck on highways.  People slid into rivers.  People slept in their cars, and they walked miles and miles just to get to their house.  

Was just not a good situation.  I live on a hill.  A big one.  Want to see what happened on this hill?  Sure you do.

And this was just the hill on our street.  

Yes, that is a log behind that car’s tire, just so it doesn’t slide back down the hill.  And yes, that entire road?  It’s one big sheet of ice.  So imagine this being every road in Birmingham, and you can get the gist of what happened that day.

Also here are some obligatory house in snow and Stella in snow pictures.  

Yes, that little bit of snow wreaked havoc on all of us down here.  I also saw a bunch of stuff going around about the Northerners making fun of us for all of this happening, and a bunch of people trying to justify what happened.

It all boils down to not being prepared.  FYI to most people; Birmingham is in Jefferson County.  They were also the biggest municipality to declare bankruptcy before Detroit stole that crown.  I’m sure the people were much more concerned with keeping the lights on, instead of stockpiling snow or sand or whatever it is that is stockpiled for the melting and treating of snow-covered roads.

It was just a bad situation all around.  Most people that night were stranded and had to make do with what they had in their cars.  I hope that at least most people can understand that these two days pretty were much hell down here, and not try to make light of us crazy Southerners.