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What have we learned in Atlanta since 'Snowmageddon' 2014?

11Alive's Crash Clark checks in with the Georgia Department of Transportation.

ATLANTA — In February, Atlanta will mark 10 years since one of the city's most notorious transit meltdowns - "Snowmageddon."

On Jan. 28, 2014, two inches and change of snow brought the city to its knees, the images of cars trapped on the interstate indelibly fixed in Atlanta's collective memory.

Although the city only received 2.6 inches of snow, cars were stranded on all three highways for up to a day. Over a million people were jammed on the major highways in Atlanta primarily because everyone in the city was attempting to head home out of the snow at the exact same time. 

The mess became something of a national joke in northern cities accustomed to dealing with quite a bit more snow, and was even immortalized with a mocking skit on "Saturday Night Live."

With the 10-year anniversary approaching, 11Alive Traffic Tracker Crash Clark checked in with the Georgia Department of Transportation about what's changed since then.

"It's certainly hard to forget about Snowmageddon 2014," said GDOT's Natalie Dale. "And we don't want to forget it, because that's how we learned lessons."

She acknowledged that before Snowmageddon, the state kept hardly much more than a milk jug of the brine that's used to pretreat roads and highways ahead of winter storms. Now, she says the state keeps almost 2 million gallons of brine - and each GDOT district has the capability of making their own if necessary.

"A lot of came from when Gov. Deal was in office - that Winter Weather Task Force, following Snowmageddon," Dale said. "And a lot of that allowed us to go and work with other states to see materials they use, how they use people. We have a very robust emergency response program now."

And as we all know, practice makes perfect - only Atlanta doesn't get much chance to practice handling severe winter weather conditions. So how does GDOT get their preparations in?

"Our crews have done dry runs throughout the year. We spend all year preparing. I guess you could say we never stop preparing for winter weather," Dale said. "Making sure that our salt, that our calcium chloride, that our brine - everyone's favorite product - that those supplies are at 100% as we move into the winter weather season."

As painful as Snowmageddon was, let's hope that we never have to go through it again - and if we do, hopefully the changes GDOT has made will make it a lot easier to get through.

   

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