Atlanta Snowstorm

January 12-15, 1982

On January 12 the boys were out of school, and Rod left GSU at 3pm when the University closed for impending snow. Rod made it to the Thomas's about 3:25 to pick up the boys. Brenda left GBMC at about this time and spent two hours driving to Courtland St. and then back to GBMC. Traffic was totally paralyzed for about 3-5 hours by the sudden snowfall. Rod and Jeff left about 7pm with chains on the orange VW to go get Brenda. The roads were slick and covered with a sheet of ice, but the VW traveled without a slip. We were bogged down about an hour by a long jam of trucks and cars near Ashby Street on I-20. We finally left the expressway up an entrance ramp at Lucille Ave and went around the jam, re-entering I-20 at Sears West End. Then we went smoothly on the eerie deserted expressway to the downtown connector where we encountered another solid block of stopped cars. We backed up an entrance ramp to Houston St, went to Hill St, across to Decatur St to Boulevard, reaching the hospital close to 9pm. We decided to return by Bankhead and threaded out way through cars spinning their wheels to make it to the Varsity where we stopped for some fried pies, etc. The Varsity was completely packed with folks who hadn't been able to get home.

The trip by Tech was managed on solid ice. Dozens of Tech students were helping to push cars up the inclines and directing traffic. Bankhead was ice-covered and had relatively few cars on it. The VW putted right along with no difficulty. On Carroll Road we began to encounter abandoned vehicles. From the Chattahoochie River up to the top of the hill on Gordon Road there must have been 200-300 abandoned cars, almost blocking the 3-4 lane roadway in places. We finally made it home about 10:45 PM.

We stayed home with GSU and all schools closed through Friday, January 15. Rod made two trips with chains to the grocery store, and went to get Bonnie to spend the night on Thursday night. On Friday the 15th, Rod and Brenda went to GBMC for about three hours and brought home the station wagon which had been left in the parking deck.

Saturday still didn't bring temperatures up to above freezing for long. Rod and Brenda went to Cumberland Mall to get a battery for the station wagon and then to Oakhurst Baptist Church for a memorial service for Edie Deluga Woolf.

This was an extraordinary and moving memorial service. A harpsichord and string quartet, organ, and an a cappella choral group performed classical pieces - professionally! A 6yr old girl, Courtney Lollar, played the violin. There were congregational hymns and readings of scripture by several persons. There was a section "How I remember Edie" by the congregation - some prearranged and some spontaneous. A covered dish meal was provided by members of the church afterward, but with icy conditions closing in again, we made our way home.

A late afternoon view of our house on January 20. I had set up a tripod and took this as a 15sec time exposure to get the lighted windows to stand out.

Mark had made up a homemade sled and was having fun with it in our frozen back yard.

One visual treat of this snow time was this bluejay on the snowy deck.

This was taken as a slide and converted by Gifford Color Labs, which I was using for all photo processing at the time.

Mark with his science fair project. He had compared different kinds of rotors on a wind generator.

He used a hotwheels car motor as his generator and an old galvanometer that I had found for him to measure the output. He could then compare the output voltage with the different kind of rotors when the same fan was used to blow on them. He did all the fabricating himself, with my guidance of course, but he did a nice job on it.