When the Erie Buffalo I-90 corridor got smacked with this no one paid any more attention than the radio and weather channels that signed off for that weekend. After a nighttime of hundreds of trucks and cars turning their cars off and on for the heat(no you don't run out the gas, nothing happens till Monday morning) gradually it broke up(from sunlight!). Zero warning from the "emergency" weather broadcast all the signs on the expressway. I followed the truckers(I will never trust assumptions about their own communications) onto the ramp and into the last circle of Hell.
Gradually worked off perhaps the last ramp, drove twenty miles and promptly re-entered another pile-up- for good. The back roads even in an ice storm would have been the way out. Police drove by on the other side- probably to check for expired registrations?. A couple changed their baby's diapers.
Couldn't find anywhere to communicate this mess to the state. Result: A snowstorm stranding on I-79 that killed motorists and treated like a one-off shocker.
I guess frustration is a kind of trauma. Personally the kicker was that the local radio guy finally brought his station live and showed his wonder about the rare ice storm closing schools and businesses. Some rather bitter strandees phoned in about us hundreds of overnight travelers still frozen in place.
So now that I've gotten this tale of woe and the usual human calamity off my chest let me get to the point.
If during climate change "rare storms" you find yourself deciding that the expressway might be better than alternate routes or holing up somewhere warm remember it is a long way between exits, usually sided with barriers and beyond the local buildings and streets. Protect yourself because many areas, even ones that must know better are not prepared in the slightest to alleviate the crisis or reach out to people stuck and out of gas. And people get into crises and don't receive notice much less help all the time. Since the post is dealing with a stupid reaction maybe we should think a lot more than we do before, during, and after the trouble.
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