I have taken the weekend off from blogging because last week was a total chaotic nightmare here in my great state of Alabama. I don't know if you have heard but we had a little snow and a lot of ice. We have spent the latter part of the week being made fun of about our driving skills, our ability to freak out over what most Northerners consider 'nothing' and then my favorite part, the aftermath. The aftermath? You may say. Yes, the ever loving aftermath. How can 2" of snow and ice wreak any aftermath??? Well, here in the South (I'm sure all over the entire globe) we like to do a little something called 'pointing fingers'. Heard of it? So I'm sure you have read 39 blogs already about the why and why nots of how ill equipped our great state was during this so called snow storm but I'd like to discuss it a little further, bare with me, I need to get this off of my chest.
As you all well know, we went from zero to chaos in about 10 minutes flat. Literally. It happened that fast. We didn't expect it, the meteorologist god of ALL times didn't expect it, the schools, business - no one knew what was about to happen. Often the schools down here close for what most parents consider 'no reason'. Some parents think that they do it specifically just to piss them off. Well, that wasn't the case on Tuesday to say the least. Somewhere around 10:00 AM we had the initial phone call of schools closing at 11:30. It was cutting it close no doubt but it was doable for most folks. No all, but most. Mom and I share a car most days so she left home headed to her bus route, got about 2 miles down 31 and within a matter of 10 minutes, could go no further. Cars were going left and right, stalling out, parking on the side of the road. Now I get the phone call that no parent wants to receive: ALL SCHOOL BUSES HAVE BEEN TOLD TO RETURN TO THE SCHOOL, ROADS ARE BECOMING TO DANGEROUS. WHAT?! I go into immediate panic mode. IMMEDIATE. Mom has my car, she is stuck 5 miles away from the school in traffic and I cannot get to MY children. Long story short....a sweet friend walked over to the school from a neighboring neighborhood and got all three kids. My kids school were allowing over the phone check-out and release which is unheard of, especially this day and age. I was SO thankful. But I want to clarify, the teachers, the school - everyone was ALWAYS informed. I talked to the kids teacher and they assured me not to rush, they'd be there until all their kids were gone, they were a calming force in my day. My mom, who turned around at 11:00 AM finally made it to my kids at 3:42 PM, five miles away. Retrieved the kids and headed home. In the midst of all this chaos my cousin (also next door neighbor) was stuck downtown Birmingham at her workplace. She made it a couple of blocks away and had to turn back. Her husband, a local Police Officer was working hard and non-stop in the chaos. So we gratefully kept their daughter throughout the night because Lisa did make it home until the following afternoon. Thank GOD she had the sense to turn back.
Have you seen the pictures of I-65 compared to the scenes from Walking Dead. Wow! Cars everywhere, people everywhere, chaos everywhere. How can 2" of snow cause so much drama?? We weren't prepared. No snow plows, no salt, nothing. The models forecasted incorrectly and that was that. Our local meteorologist, James Spann...let me correct myself 'The Man' James Spann issued an apology which I believe was beyond uncalled for. It was an unforeseen event, act of God, it happened! All of you people that wrote to him and called him out, shame.on.you! Shame ON YOU! This man is right 99/100 times. He relayed information based on what he was given. What else is there to be said about it?
Our school system, wow - way to hang in there guys.and dolls. Thank you for staying with the babies who parents didn't make it to the following day. Thank you for making the call to turn the buses back for their safety! Thank you for putting your own safety at risk to keep our kids warm, fed and happy! These people stayed away from their own family in order to stay with yours. Thank you teachers and faculty, thank you.
I actually went on our local facebook page last night and posed the question, what could we do to honor the school staff that stayed behind. To thank them. Wow. The response was overwhelming, but sadly both good and bad. One woman actually stated that (paraphrase) it was their jobs to stay, they get paid for it and they had to do it. Others said 'what about me, I did something too, what about me'? What! Really? First off, my intentions were solely geared towards our teachers. But people sucked the life out of it. Quickly.
Immediately we went from thankful to pointing blame. Teachers wouldn't have to stay if the school system would have called school off or called for pick-up earlier, if they wouldn't have turned the buses around..if..if...if. Really y'all? Let's break this down really quickly. Did you want the bus to lose control on an iced over road, did you want the bus to not make it up the 1 of 932 hills in your community, did you want the bus to be stranded with children on it or did you want your Kindergartner dropped off to an empty home? You decide because I can nearly guarantee that one of those things would have happened. Should they have called school off for the day? Sure. Then if nothing would have happened, 40 percent of you would be bitching about that too.
Overall, as a community I personally believed we worked together and got it done. Several people had to step out of their comfort zone in order to help their friend, neighbor or even a total stranger. So while you are sitting back and poking fun of the situation, feel free. but remember that lives were lost, kids were separated from their parents, people were stranded in freezing temperatures. THAT is what YOU are making fun about, not our driving skills or our chaos but a mother being separated from her daughter, a husband not being able to find his wife and sick children without their medications. Just to name a few. But while you are sitting back laughing we were all coming together, it took ALL KINDS of people working above and beyond their pay grade to help each other out but WE stuck together and made it happen. So if you were one of these people then thank you! No matter what you did, no matter how small or how big, THANK YOU! Even in the chaos, the craziness of two little inches of snow and ice that crippled the South, thank you for holding it together, even when possibly your neighbor didn't. It takes an army y'all and I am so proud and grateful to be one of the soldiers in this army, and you should be too!
Thank a teacher, a policeman, a nurse, a doctor today for everything they did but also thank your grocery store workers, your delivery pizza people, your neighbors, your family and friends because it took the entire community to keep everyone safe.
Peace Out Girl Scouts,
Traci
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
AMEN!!!! Well said Traci!!!
ReplyDelete