I sat yesterday watching CNN's blizzard coverage. They were interviewing this family stuck on the interstate in Kentucky...had been there twelve hours in a drift on the road, and no idea when help would come to pull them out. Trucks all around them.....same position. They got to some point in the telephone interview where the host of CNN asked the lady (she was with the husband and kids) if they knew about this approaching blizzard. The lady stated....well....yeah, but they were intending to make it to the very next exit and get off there. I just sat there....shaking my head.
Over the past decade or two.....I've come to note that weather folks now give an enormous amount of warning....sometimes now two days ahead of a blizzard. They put a red screen.....winter weather warning.....telling folks that at 6PM on Tuesday.....it'll hit. Naturally, this being Sunday evening....you've got time to plan and get your act straight.
Then.....folks start to get stupid. Well....let's just see how bad this will go. Then they proceed to continue driving past 2PM when they should have gotten off the interstate and found a hotel....had supper at some greasy spoon operation, and just accepted what was going to come.
But folks just aren't willing to accept that. So they push on....to 6PM when the flurries start coming down, and there around 7PM....when there's an inch on the ground....they start thinking in about an hour....they will stop. At that point, it's too late.
I don't have much sympathy for folks anymore.....when you get 36 to 48 hours warning and start start to challenge common sense.....it's plain stupid.
My guess is that the lady, husband and kids were still in the car....at the 24-hour point, and might even be still there now at the 48-hour point. Maybe cops did eventually come by and offer up some bottles of water....but you kinda have to just sit there and worry about bathroom business and how you'd do it in a blizzard.
Maybe after an episode like this.....people will learn.
