Snowed in at work - UPDATED

[Crankyshank]

No I don't get paid, but my bosses are good and will give me comp time no problem for it.

 

[Makdyn]

I left work at 12:30 from cranston. I had to get my kids in Pawtucket. I got there at 1:30. I took 95n which was not bad. It needed plowing but still drivable. At that time 95s was already back up to I think Pawtucket. After I got my kids I decided to take the side streets instead of the 95s. It took me two hours to get from down town pawtucket to pawtucket/North providence line were we live. I was stuck on Mineral spring ave for two hours. Then at 4:45 I had to go back out to go to my other job. Again took 95n not so bad needed plowing. 95s was back up even more now it was in MA.


It was a crazy storm. I really dont think it was anyone fault. Nobody excepted the snow to fall so fast and everyone left at basically the same time. I do feel really bad for those kids though. I am lucky my girls were not on one of those buses. I dont know what I would do if they were.

 

[paras4ri]

I can't imagine how scary it must have been for the poor Providence school children on the busses having to use a wastebasket for a toliet. Too make matters worse, I found this quote in the paper :"Providence Emergency Management Agency Director Leo Messier said that the school bus situation is inconvenient, but that children have cell phones to call their parents and they will get home eventually"

I loved that quote too. On the 11 p.m. news they were saying that if parents weren't at the bus stops to meet their kids they were taking them to the bus company office to be picked up. Did they actually expect the parents to stand outside for hours waiting for the bus to come???

 

[Heidict]

Yesterday, when I was getting ready for work, I noticed that on the TV that almost every school in CT was closed down in preperation of the storm. I thought it was funny and that they were jumping the gun like normal.

Now in hindsight, after seeing what happened in Providence, I'm glad they did. So, are the people in Providence yelling about this or are people acting like that guy and saying it was just an "inconvience"? As a parent, I think I would have been screaming about it!! And then to top it off they expected people to wait out in the snow and wind for hours on end waiting for them? Any word on how many children had to be picked up at the bos office by the parents?

 

[Crankyshank]

Omg people here are flipping out. I'm listening to Buddy's radio show and laughing at the absurdity of caller's stories because you have to. One guy called in with a similar commute to me and said the only plows he saw on the way home at 4pm were 2 in the cemetary.

Of course reps from DOT, the Mayor, the Lt Governor, and Governor's chief of staff are throwing each other under the bus and giving the public pretty bad attempts at spin.

The Mayor said that heads would roll and he's opening an investigation of what happened. He's got an eye on the Governor's mansion. However, it's not really effective when the office is investigating itself

I'm not sure about the bus issue. I don't know anyone that had to go to the depot to pick their kid up, thank goodness. I do know the Superintendent was at home when this happened, and there are some really irate parents over that.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

I know that in our town, they won't drop children of a certain age off without a parent or someone there to pick them up; it might be all elementary school kids (don't remember...my youngest is in high school now). I would imagine it gets even more complicated by the fact that you'd be dropping them off in bad weather without anyone there. If anyone was dropped off and a car skidded into them while they were walking home, everyone would be saying they never should've been dropped off. It's a tough call, and if nothing else, they need to look at everything that happened and determine how it could be better handled "next time".

I haven't listened to or seen much about the whole thing since last night, so I'm not sure of the horror stories being told today. If my kids had experienced what those Providence kids did, I'd be pretty vocal myself.

Looking at the gridlock on Rte 95, I don't know how plows would have gotten through. Maybe I'm missing something. You can't just plow once...it was coming down continuously, and quickly, for hours. And you can't plow before it starts snowing (they claim roads were "pre-treated" in Providence? ); once it started snowing...and it was heavy from the get go (one newsperson described it as being like a light switch being turned on)...everyone started leaving work, and it started snowing in our area about 15 minutes before the kids were scheduled for early dismissal anyway. It was like EVERYONE was going out on the roads at the same time. Look how awful 95 can get on a NORMAL day, when a much smaller number of people are out on the roads at the same time.

Was the rate of snowfall predicted beforehand? Either way, you can't really tell what's going to actually happen. I know my kids had a day off last year because of some predictions, and it turned out to be nothing but a day off from school. But, maybe that's the chance they have to take.

 

[CapeCodTenor]

Here in Massachusetts things weren't any better. A transportation guru/guy/dude (whatever you want to call him) came on the Michael Graham show and said that the reason the roads were so bad is the plows couldn't through. That it was due to the fact that businesses were letting employees go home early. Well, no duh, both city and state officials told everyone to go home early. What did they expect? It was cluster of major proportions.

 

[Monte Cristo]

What a disaster that was. Luckily you got home ok. I work in Groton, CT and live in Westerly, RI. I left work around 2 and got home around 2:45. Not bad at all compared to you!

 

[Keli]

There's a phrase I hope to never say...

You and me both! What a nightmare, my boss would probably expect me to work the whole time.

 

[RIDISNEYLOVERS]

I personally don't think any fingers should be pointed at anyone. It is what it is.

Schools let out early and the parents of those children had to leave work early to get their kids.

The 60 Providence busses that had children on them until 11:00 pm didn't know they would be stuck in all that traffic until that time. If the parents of those children were stuck somewhere then they are not allowed to drop off a child at the bus stop.

There were so many people complaining that there were NO plows out, they couldn't be out on the main roads because there were too many cars in the way for them to plow.

The snow came a little bit before it was expected and everyone was on the road at the same time. The snow came down fast about and inch and hour and people were getting stuck, running out of gas, etc... - who can you blame?

My 20 minute commute took me 2 hours from Exeter to West Warwick. I got stuck 2 times because I couldn't get enough momentum going up a hill because of a light at the intersection. I had to stop on the hill and forget about moving forward after I was stopped. I was glad to be home at 3:00 pm!!

I know it was very frustrating for many, many people but what do you expect? What should have been done differently that would have changed the outcome of last night???

Also, I want to add that it seems like whenever RI has a "crisis" our Governor is always somewhere else - this time in Iraq, another time he was in Florida, etc...

 

[daughter_of_amid_chaos]

Jenn,
I was lucky to leave for the Cape from Providence on Wednesday so I was away from the city for the storm but I got a phone call from Providence College School of Continuing Education saying my class for the night was cancelled...I was like well considering we didn't have class thanks for the heads up lol

My brother and sister got out of school at 12:15 and we stayed clear of the roads for the rest of the day.

 

[Crankyshank]

Considering my co-worker saw 2 trucks plowing the cemetary at 5pm, I'm pretty sure they could have gotten plows to some of the side streets to at least begin the process. Hell Smith St by the capital building was shut down until they could get the plows out- they could have trekked down to there when N Main St was all but cleared out at 6pm. Mayve the Parks Dept plow at University Plaza eating lunch at Boston market could have ventured over there.

There's also no excuse for the disaster that is Providence roads today. 1am before my st in Centerdale was plowed and there's still 5 inches of slush and snow on the street. I don't care how clogged the roads were yesterday with the idiots that decide to leave all at once because God forbid they have to spend extra time at work waiting for the plows to do their job - that was yesterday. Still waiting for Ship St to be done.

Mare, they predicted a hard and fast snowstorm starting at noon with an inch an hour falling between 2-5pm. snow started downtown at 11:30am so it didn't start all that much earlier than predicted.

There was no one person to blame for this, but that doesn't mean it was an entirely blameless situation. It's an embarrassment for the state as a whole - both its leaders and its citizens.

 

[disney fan 2013]

I live in Providence and yesterday WAS horrible. I was on the roads when it started snowing, and about an hour into it, I was on Route 6 in Johnston, heading to Providence. Where Route 6 starts is where they keep many plows, sand, and tractors to fill the trucks with the sand. There was hardly anyone on the road at this time, and there was only ONE driveable lane on Route 6 - not from being plowed, but from people using it. The other lanes had about an inch of snow in them and were untouched.

The plows were just sitting there at the end of the highway, about 10 of them, not moving. People were skidding all over the place. This would seem, to me, the prime time to start plowing! Once everybody DID start filling the highways, there were already 1-2 inches of snow that was starting to freeze, no salt or sand anywhere, and of course, nobody was able to see the lines, and there were no breakdown lanes available.

I can see how they could say it was too difficult to plow with all of the traffic on the roads, but if they had been plowing from the start, it wouldn't have been such a problem. I can see Route 6 from my house, and it quickly started backing up after I got home. If any of the lanes had been plowed and all the lanes were driveable, it could have gone a lot more smoothly.

OH, and my street never got plowed. My neighbors and roommates shoveled it out ourselves at about 10:00 last night and did a little bit more this morning. Since there are no houses at the end of our street, it never got done. That was fun to drive through this morning.... I wonder if anyone is going to finish cleaning up this city before it starts again tomorrow.

 

[Crankyshank]

I agree. Snow was falling fast from the very beginning. There was ample time to get the plows going on the hwy before the traffic snarls. Sure it would have initially caused more traffic problems because of the plows, but it would have been a lot faster clean up.

I walked over to South St Cafe with co-workers to eat dinner around 8:00 last night. There were several plows on the road with their blades up. I know others have reported the same across the Providence area.