City Officials Again Defend Snowstorm Response

“During the day we have 1 to 1.2 million people in the city, and all of those people were out in very bad weather, so it hampered our ability to get our equipment on the ground and to prepare the roads for that,” Reed said.

The state had been warned since last week the storm was coming, bringing potentially dangerous conditions. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch for Atlanta Monday, upgrading it to a winter storm warning early Tuesday morning.  

Hitting around noon Tuesday, the storm blanketed the metro-area with around 2 inches of snow, icing roads, clogging the interstates and leaving some drivers stranded in their cars overnight.

The weather-related problems lead Gov. Nathan Deal to call a state of emergency for all 159 counties.

Reed said the city’s response was a big improvement over the response to the 2011 storm that essentially shut the city down for three days, though that storm hit on a Sunday night.

“In 2011 the first day was like a play day, the second day was, ‘What’s going on,’ and the third day, you know, members of the community were rightfully frustrated, and we mobilized,” Reed said. “We were mobilizing from the first minute here.”

Reed said the city is coordinating on the state level with the Georgia Department of Transportation, the state national guard and the state patrol to help stranded drivers in the area and clear roads.

He assured that city roads had been treated prior to the storm, and that plows were out shoveling snow-covered streets.

  Police Chief George Turner said around 900 accidents were called in due to the storm, and an untold number of people were still stranded on area roads.

Turner also said a total of eight schools kept some students overnight, adding that was the right decision on the part of Atlanta Public Schools.

“We believe the shelter in place was the best result for our situation overnight,” Turner said.

APS Board Chair Courtney English tweeted Wednesday afternoon that “All students who had been sheltering in place at our schools are on their way home.” Turner said it was unclear how many students had spent the night at school.

As for a solution to the iced roads and traffic snarls, Fire Department Chief Kelvin Cochran said, “None of these issues will begin to diminish until our city experiences a significant thaw.”

The city could be in luck, though. The national weather service says temperatures are supposed to tick back up above freezing Thursday.

**The audio of the press conference came courtesy of WSB-TV