Its too bad about the colossal traffic jam precipitated by the snow storm in Atlanta. Apparently it was aggravated by the attempt to send everyone home from work, school, etc early, which clogged the roads, precipitated accidents, and prevented emergency vehicles from getting around. Everybody was on the highway at once. There also seems to be some question about how much warning the local authorities had, and how timely the forecasts were. At any rate, it looks like the Mayor and the Governor are taking a lot of heat about this now; the press smells blood in the water, and are trying to turn a tragedy into a scandal.

I don’t really know all the facts, and I have no idea how blame should or shouldn’t be handed out here. But I did use to work in Emergency Management in a Hurricane Zone and I am inclined to be charitable to the authorities in this case. When a normal emergency like this spirals out of control it is because it is an unexpected event. Local people have no experience with it and simply don’t know how to handle it, and aren’t ready for it. Sure, it is the job of EM to be ready for this sort of thing, but if it has never happened before, they have no experience to draw on. It snows a lot in Buffalo, too, and the town handles it just fine.

Another problem is the pressure Emergency Agencies are under to not cry wolf, and adversely affect commerce by declaring unnecessary or premature evacuations and closures. If you try to finesse that too much its going to eventually bite you in the ass. If you want to make sure there are no weather-related disasters, you’re just going to have to put up with overly cautious warnings. And the opposite case holds true. Trying to have it both ways leads to problems. It is my understanding Atlanta didn’t get all that much snow, and if everyone hadn’t been on the road at once trying to get home to avoid it there would have been no gridlock. This storm came out of nowhere and people weren’t ready for it. No one will benefit from I-told-you-sos by Monday morning quarterbacks. The critics will, from the comfort of their parlors and offices, carefully cherry pick the facts to support their smear job. This was more like Benghazi than it was like Katrina.

I tuned in and watched a local official being interviewed and I understood exactly what he was saying and where he was coming from. I felt really sorry for him, I knew how dedicated these folks are to doing a good job, and my heart went out to him. This guy was really trying to do his best and just guessed wrong, or was a victim of unanticipated and unforeseeable circumstances. But I could tell from the questions he was getting that he was in a lot of trouble, and it will only get worse as people build their careers by destroying his.

Florida has a very good Storm Emergency management system, both at the state and local level. But it is that way because we get a lot of practice down here, we spend a lot of money on it, and all our screw-ups are safely in the past.