US Southeast braces for second wintry blast. Are they ready this time?

It's only been two weeks since a winter storm spread chaos across the US Southeast and paralyzed the city of Atlanta for more than 20 hours, but a now second major storm is plowing through over the next few days. Snow, sleet and freezing rain are in the forecast, but is the area ready for another round?

The news coming out of 'Winter Storm Leon' (as The Weather Channel named it), at the end of January, was truly apocalyptic. Pictures of the epic traffic jams on Atlanta interstates were eerily similar to posters and footage from the zombie-overrun Atlanta in The Walking Dead. As a Canadian who lived in Atlanta for nearly seven years, I saw how 'Leon' was going to be a problem for the area. Although there's plenty of residents there from states that see snow and ice every year, Atlanta just doesn't get that kind of weather very often. Things like snow tires or even having a snow brush/scraper for your car are mostly foreign concepts (I only had a snowbrush in the car out of simple habit). That, along with the apparent reluctance of the city or counties to lay down road salt until ice has actually formed on the roads (rather than pre-treating), can lead to some pretty bad conditions even for a brief cold spell or snowstorm.

When the sleet, freezing rain and snow from Leon dropped on the area, it was a disaster, but not just because of the road conditions. Since the government held off so long before closing schools and businesses just opened as usual that morning and then closed around midday, it put nearly the entire population out onto Atlanta's roads and interstates all at once. The city is notorious for bad traffic even in perfect weather, though, when people are able to pick and choose when they commute to and from work. For some sections of the interstates that run through and around the city, you can be absolutely guaranteed that there will be a traffic jam during rush hour. It's not always due to accidents, though; it's just the incredible number of vehicles being packed into a road system that really can't handle the volume.

So, when everyone started making their way home at the same time around midday on January 28th, those exact same traffic jams that always form filled in again. This time, though, they were compounded by vehicles slipping and sliding, getting stuck or banging into one another, slowing things down even more. With the limitations of the highway system giving people pretty much nowhere to go but forward once they've made the decision to turn onto an on-ramp, the congestion grew and grew and spread to through the entire city.

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What about now, though?

With Winter Storm Pax starting it's push across the area, forecasters are warning that this could last through Thursday morning and be "an event of historical proportions," according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Darbe told the paper that this storm could be even worse than the one that swept through in 2000, which left thousands without power for days afterward.

There's already been a bit of sleet and snow through north Georgia today, but the major hit is expected tonight and into Wednesday. Up to four inches of snow are expected through the by Wednesday morning, but just like with Leon, it's the sleet and freezing rain that are causing the biggest worries.

The difference between now and then, though, is that everyone seems to be on board for the storm. The weather warnings are being heeded. Governor Nathan Deal has already declared a state of emergency for 45 counties across Georgia, in anticipation of what's to come. Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed has told the city's residents to stay home and telecommute. The roads haven't been treated yet, but that will apparently start this afternoon, after most of the rain that's preceding the wintry mix already passes through. The only thing left is for the storm to actually play out as it should, so that this doesn't just end up being a colossal overreaction, and for things not to get too bad, so that this doesn't end up being the worst storm to hit the region in years.

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