A surprise freezing-rain storm caught East Tennessee off guard yesterday, causing hundreds of fender-benders and some serious accidents, two of them deadly. It was so bad in the early morning hours that police cars and firetrucks were themselves getting into accidents while trying to drive to the scene of other accidents. (Clearly, these Southerners don’t know how to handle winter weather. :) At one point, I heard a report on the radio that an ambulance had flipped over on its roof with a passenger inside — but not to worry, more ambulances were on their way!
Before long, TV and radio anchors were busily putting out the first responders’ urgent pleas to "stay off the roads if you can." As for those who had to drive, police asked them to please refrain from calling 9-1-1 about any accidents that didn’t involve injuries. If they got into a fender-bender that caused damage to property only, motorists were told to just take down each other’s insurance information and go on their way. Even so, the Knoxville Police and Knox County Sheriff’s office responded to a combined 362 car crashes yesterday, most of them between 6:00 and 9:00 AM or thereabouts. Here’s some video of the chaos:
Many schools and businesses announced delays and closures at the last minute; in some cases, school buses had already started their rounds when school was cancelled. This led to a classic case of "fighting the last war" this morning, as nearly every school district in the area had already announced a two-hour delay by the 6:00 PM news last night — delays which proved utterly unnecessary in most of the Knoxville area, as the roads this morning were perfectly safe.
Myself, I ventured out into yesterday’s icy mess with no concept of how bad it was, as it wasn’t very icy at all in my apartment complex. I didn’t even slip once while walking the dog! I noticed a wee bit of ice on the Camry, and I overheard somebody talking on his cell phone about "UT being closed," but I didn’t think much of it. I made it to the dentist’s office for my 8:30 AM appointment withuot incident — only to discover that the office was closed because of the weather. (If I’d called ahead, I would have known that from their voicemail. D’oh!)
I then got a call from a co-worker relating our boss’s directive that we should feel free to stay home until the roads improve. My dentist’s office is about halfway between home and work, so I sat indecisively in the parking lot for a while — but then I gathered from the radio that things were still quite bad downtown (where I work), so I decided to turn tail and head home. Long story short, the icy weather meant I got to spend a good chunk of the morning with my baby instead of at work. So I have no complaints. :)
UPDATE: Here’s a photo of some icy branches with the Sunsphere in the background:
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Categories: Weather, Tennessee & environs
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