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Photo by Dan Starnes
Winter Storm 2014 I-65
Following the storm, traffic across the Oxmoor Road exit slowed to a trickle.
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Photo by Keith McCoy.
280 Abandoned Cars
Drivers abandoned their cars in the ice on U.S. 280 on Tuesday.
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Photo by Dan Starnes
Winter Storm Leon 1-65
I-65 Southbound.
I had a 10 a.m. interview Tuesday. About 20 minutes into it, I noticed the interviewee gazing out the window behind me. I turned and saw the snow was coming down hard.
"We'd better get you out of here," I said.
She went on her way, and I made a quick assessment with my staff. I quickly dismissed them for the day. I wished I'd paid a little more attention before I began that interview. I could have given everyone a head start.
I felt my car slide as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot. “Should I just stop here?” I thought. “Can I even make it down the hill in Office Park? There are plenty cars on Cahaba Road. Surely there is strength in numbers.”
A long hour and 15 minutes later, I passed under U.S. 280 traveling a speed that makes snails seem aggressive.
I spied a parking space near the Luckie building and wondered if Five Guys was open. I parked the car and gladly walked down the middle of Lakeshore. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and going nowhere. I casually walked across the road and strode triumphantly into Brio.
I had a tremendous meal topped off by a chocolate lava cake and bragged via Facebook. Other patrons who walked through the door seemed as elated as I to be there. I texted with my staff and still felt the whole thing to be mostly an interesting snow day.
My wife finished a speaking engagement in Tuscaloosa. She was on her way home, taking a secret back way.
Our sales manager, Matthew Allen, had his 7 month old and 3 year old in the car from day care. They were downtown, en route to Hoover. Two staff members were still at the office. I sure wish I'd sent everyone earlier.
I exited Brio and took a nice three-plus-mile stroll home. Walking down the Lakeshore trail in the snow was lovely, reminiscent of a scene from a Robert Frost poem.
Some loony passed me running, in shorts.
Once at home, the situations of my sales manager and my wife seemed to be a little more serious.
Alison, my wife, was moving slow and not handling it well. I implored her to be strong because crying wouldn't help anyone. If she could possibly see a hotel, go to it.
She was able to make it to the interstate near Bessemer. We hatched a plan for her to get through Bessemer, then to Lakeshore mostly avoiding the interstate the whole way.
Matthew, on the other hand, now had about five and a half hours in the car with his children. He was not yet to the Greensprings Highway exit. I told him that I knew that he could make it to the Oxmoor Road exit and our house. He commented that he could not night spend the night in the car with the kids.
"Certainly not" I thought.
I decided to walk up to I-65 and assess the situation. As I stood in the interstate and looked north, I saw about three cars coming. I knew that many more must be stuck on the other side of the hill. I texted a photo to my sales manager.
"Well, that's encouraging" was the reply.
Fortunately, he was able to turn back and find someone with a four-wheel drive to carry him and his children home.
My wife made it within a mile or so of the house before she had to park her car. As she walked home, someone she went to Homewood High with picked her up in a Jeep and drove her the rest of the way.
Later that night, we walked up to the interstate again to see how we could help. By this time, there were many, many cars and trucks stacked bumper-to-bumper, and we couldn't fathom how we could possibly help them.
We walked home, stopping along the way to check on someone who appeared to be asleep in his car at Waffle House. There was a parking permit from a high school hanging on the mirror. My wife, a high school teacher, wanted to make sure it wasn't a child. It turned out to be a father whose family was inside the restaurant. He assured us that they had a hotel room nearby and were fine.
When we walked into our home, safe and warm that night, we spoke of how we are infinitely blessed in many ways, not the least of which was to be together at home on this night. I commented that I felt guilty and wished that I could do more to help those who needed it.
The next morning we had breakfast at The Homewood Diner. A couple walked in and sat down at the table next to us. They looked at the television that was on in front of them.
"I don't want to watch the news of that," the husband said in disgust.
"You've been in your car all night, haven't you," I asked them.
They told me of how they had gotten in the car at Valleydale Road at 11 a.m. the previous day. They had yet to eat anything since they had planned to eat lunch later in the day. Twenty two hours later, they exited at Oxmoor Road.
They went on to recount their experience with the kind of fervor that only comes from living through the most trying situations.
We bid them farewell and once again counted our blessings.
