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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>My Sister Is Still In Her Car! (Not DC)
Play Care 03:25 AM 01-29-2014
My sister lives in Marietta GA. They are in the area hit with the storm yesterday. She teaches and her district closed an hour early - by that point it was too late. She left school at 2:45 yesterday and is still in her car as of 6:20 this morning. Thankfully her husband and the kids made it home and are safe. She is 3 miles from her home and traffic is at a standstill. She is thinking of pulling over and walking once the sun comes up.
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KidGrind 03:39 AM 01-29-2014
I am praying she makes it safely home.
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Scout 04:22 AM 01-29-2014
OM! How awful! I hope she ends up home warm and safe.
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Laurel 04:26 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Play Care:
My sister lives in Marietta GA. They are in the area hit with the storm yesterday. She teaches and her district closed an hour early - by that point it was too late. She left school at 2:45 yesterday and is still in her car as of 6:20 this morning. Thankfully her husband and the kids made it home and are safe. She is 3 miles from her home and traffic is at a standstill. She is thinking of pulling over and walking once the sun comes up.
Wow, I'm sure she will get home okay. They are probably working arond the clock to get those people out. When we had hurricanes here there were workers from other states even.

Laurel
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Mister Sir Husband 04:35 AM 01-29-2014
Watching the news this morning... Traffic in the Atlanta area is still in gridlock from yesterday. Even some of school busses full of kids
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Play Care 05:18 AM 01-29-2014
To be honest I am furious on her behalf. The state of Georgia was well aware this storm was coming and left shutting down schools and business until the last minute. In 2011 the same thing happened and the state swore they would be better prepared the next time. I understand they don't get snow/ ice and therefore do not have plows but then you shut things down before it gets to that point. They should be embarrassed by their bungling of this. If it were my child stuck on a bus overnight I'd be on the horn to my elected officials and raising HELL.

16 hours after she left work my sister finally made it home.
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Blackcat31 06:11 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Play Care:
To be honest I am furious on her behalf. The state of Georgia was well aware this storm was coming and left shutting down schools and business until the last minute. In 2011 the same thing happened and the state swore they would be better prepared the next time. I understand they don't get snow/ ice and therefore do not have plows but then you shut things down before it gets to that point. They should be embarrassed by their bungling of this. If it were my child stuck on a bus overnight I'd be on the horn to my elected officials and raising HELL.

16 hours after she left work my sister finally made it home.
Totally understand your frustration but as a parent, I would not have sent my kid to school. Sometimes there is much to be said about personal responsibility..kwim?

I understand your sister may not have had a lot of choice and maybe HAD to show up for work but sometimes, MY right to personal safety overrides someone else's right to tell me I have to show up at work.

This is similar to daycare closing when the weather is bad...there have been so many posts on here about parents not making the smart decision to stay home with their kids because "hey, you are open" so they might as well come.

As for the businesses in that area....people still showed up, I saw parking lots on the news for places like Applebees and the mall FULL of cars. I am pretty sure most of them weren't employees so why is everyone out there is the weather is so bad and they knew it was coming?

I am so happy to hear your sister made it home okay and is safe! What a horrible experience that must have been for her.
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spud912 06:22 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Totally understand your frustration but as a parent, I would not have sent my kid to school. Sometimes there is much to be said about personal responsibility..kwim?

I understand your sister may not have had a lot of choice and maybe HAD to show up for work but sometimes, MY right to personal safety overrides someone else's right to tell me I have to show up at work.

This is similar to daycare closing when the weather is bad...there have been so many posts on here about parents not making the smart decision to stay home with their kids because "hey, you are open" so they might as well come.

As for the businesses in that area....people still showed up, I saw parking lots on the news for places like Applebees and the mall FULL of cars. I am pretty sure most of them weren't employees so why is everyone out there is the weather is so bad and they knew it was coming?

I am so happy to hear your sister made it home okay and is safe! What a horrible experience that must have been for her.
I have a lot of friends in Georgia (I went to high school there) and one post on Facebook last night was a shared post about a daycare bus full of kids being stuck out there. This is exactly what you just said....avoid sending kids to daycare when the weather is known to be severe! Can you imagine the poor bus driver (and hopefully assistant) with a bunch of toddlers and preschoolers all night in that weather?!
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momofsix 06:25 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Totally understand your frustration but as a parent, I would not have sent my kid to school. Sometimes there is much to be said about personal responsibility..kwim?

I understand your sister may not have had a lot of choice and maybe HAD to show up for work but sometimes, MY right to personal safety overrides someone else's right to tell me I have to show up at work.

This is similar to daycare closing when the weather is bad...there have been so many posts on here about parents not making the smart decision to stay home with their kids because "hey, you are open" so they might as well come.

As for the businesses in that area....people still showed up, I saw parking lots on the news for places like Applebees and the mall FULL of cars. I am pretty sure most of them weren't employees so why is everyone out there is the weather is so bad and they knew it was coming?

I am so happy to hear your sister made it home okay and is safe! What a horrible experience that must have been for her.
This underscores what I was talking about in the STARS post. If the GOVERNMENT didn't declare a shutdown-people assumed it was safe to go out and have fun, even though they heard the weather forecast. We're being trained to rely on the gov't regulating our every move!
(sorry to hijack)

I too have kept my kids home from school, or pulled them out early when the weather looked like it was going to be bad. Never regretted it. As far as not showing up to work-around here, even if it's a declared state of emergency people are being threatened with getting fired for not showing up Our state is in a terrible economic place right now, so they would have no trouble hiring someone else.

OP I'm glad your sister made it home safely!
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Play Care 06:36 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Totally understand your frustration but as a parent, I would not have sent my kid to school. Sometimes there is much to be said about personal responsibility..kwim?

I understand your sister may not have had a lot of choice and maybe HAD to show up for work but sometimes, MY right to personal safety overrides someone else's right to tell me I have to show up at work.

This is similar to daycare closing when the weather is bad...there have been so many posts on here about parents not making the smart decision to stay home with their kids because "hey, you are open" so they might as well come.

As for the businesses in that area....people still showed up, I saw parking lots on the news for places like Applebees and the mall FULL of cars. I am pretty sure most of them weren't employees so why is everyone out there is the weather is so bad and they knew it was coming?

I am so happy to hear your sister made it home okay and is safe! What a horrible experience that must have been for her.
I think that the reality is for many people (myself included) that we don't have the luxury of calling off due to expected severe weather. And it *is* a luxury. A lot of people were out there because their jobs have said weather isn't an excuse for calling out - my sister included. So had she called off there would have been repercussions. Now, she has certainly learned her lesson and the next time this happens she will call off, repercussions be darned. Often even after a state of emergency has been declared many private business still expect their employees to show. Parents send their kids to school because, unlike dc, kids need school. Again, depending on how many days a child has missed, there could be repercussions. I'm sure many parents are now swearing they will never again take the chance.
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Play Care 06:38 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by momofsix:
This underscores what I was talking about in the STARS post. If the GOVERNMENT didn't declare a shutdown-people assumed it was safe to go out and have fun, even though they heard the weather forecast. We're being trained to rely on the gov't regulating our every move!
(sorry to hijack)

I too have kept my kids home from school, or pulled them out early when the weather looked like it was going to be bad. Never regretted it. As far as not showing up to work-around here, even if it's a declared state of emergency people are being threatened with getting fired for not showing up Our state is in a terrible economic place right now, so they would have no trouble hiring someone else.
OP I'm glad your sister made it home safely!
I know my sister HAD to be at work - weather isn't an excuse for employees to call out. If people were out shopping or whatever then that's something else. But many people don't have the luxury of calling out because of weather. In my area many jobs have polices that severe weather isn't an excuse to miss work, so you can be written up or fired for calling off.
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Play Care 06:41 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by spud912:
I have a lot of friends in Georgia (I went to high school there) and one post on Facebook last night was a shared post about a daycare bus full of kids being stuck out there. This is exactly what you just said....avoid sending kids to daycare when the weather is known to be severe! Can you imagine the poor bus driver (and hopefully assistant) with a bunch of toddlers and preschoolers all night in that weather?!
To me school is different from DC. Kids need education. My own dd has inattentive type ADHD and can not afford to miss school. Now, if we had weather that severe I would keep her home, but our schools would probably close anyway. The other week it was really cold here (negative temps and wind chill) and I got flak on a parent board for sending her to school. I drove her in, the school has heat and I knew they were not going outside (and even if they did she had all the right equipment) If I kept her out every time this winter we had those temps, she'd fail. You don't fail dc
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spud912 06:46 AM 01-29-2014
Those policies are ridiculous. I can't believe corporations find their place of work so much more important than their employees' safety .
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Unregistered 06:49 AM 01-29-2014
Maybe I'm misguided, but I by no means think kids NEED school. Their life does not depend on it. At least not to the point where they can not miss a day or two when weather puts their lives at risk.
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spud912 06:51 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Play Care:
To me school is different from DC. Kids need education. My own dd has inattentive type ADHD and can not afford to miss school. Now, if we had weather that severe I would keep her home, but our schools would probably close anyway. The other week it was really cold here (negative temps and wind chill) and I got flak on a parent board for sending her to school. I drove her in, the school has heat and I knew they were not going outside (and even if they did she had all the right equipment) If I kept her out every time this winter we had those temps, she'd fail. You don't fail dc
I getcha . The plus side is that in New York at least your state knows how to handle cold weather! The southern states don't even have snow plows or machinery to help with the ice.
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BrooklynM 06:55 AM 01-29-2014
I feel for your sister. That must have been horrible. Being a teacher, I'm sure she wanted to be there for her kids! My sister in law is a teacher in the Midwest and I'm always asking her- how do you know when the schools close? She says- oh they show it on TV. I'm like- with digital technology they can't automatically dial everyone's numbers or send out mass texts? I mean it seems like there could be several ways to get ahold of the teachers and in plenty of time before school starts.

We don't have to deal with that here since it doesn't snow but whenever there is an emergency of some sort or something major happens at a school, they have an automatic dialing system that calls everyone and there is a recorded message. For example, we live pretty close to a jail (a few miles) and an inmate escaped. They called everyone within minutes of the escape, and also sent out a mass email.

Do they do that where you guys live? Or is it like where my sister in law lives and it's just learning things by the news?
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Play Care 07:04 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Unregistered:
Maybe I'm misguided, but I by no means think kids NEED school. Their life does not depend on it. At least not to the point where they can not miss a day or two when weather puts their lives at risk.
If they want to find decent jobs, be able to provide for themselves and their families, school might be a good idea. Just sayin'
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Play Care 07:06 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by spud912:
Those policies are ridiculous. I can't believe corporations find their place of work so much more important than their employees' safety .
It comes down to MONEY. If they declare a SOE and the storm missed the area or wasn't as bad as predicted the state would lose tons of money. I've had ONE job where I got snow days - but all that meant was that instead of driving around to see my clients I had to drive to the office and work there.

Most of the jobs I've had require you to show if the office is open.
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Play Care 07:08 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by BrooklynM:
I feel for your sister. That must have been horrible. Being a teacher, I'm sure she wanted to be there for her kids! My sister in law is a teacher in the Midwest and I'm always asking her- how do you know when the schools close? She says- oh they show it on TV. I'm like- with digital technology they can't automatically dial everyone's numbers or send out mass texts? I mean it seems like there could be several ways to get ahold of the teachers and in plenty of time before school starts.

We don't have to deal with that here since it doesn't snow but whenever there is an emergency of some sort or something major happens at a school, they have an automatic dialing system that calls everyone and there is a recorded message. For example, we live pretty close to a jail (a few miles) and an inmate escaped. They called everyone within minutes of the escape, and also sent out a mass email.

Do they do that where you guys live? Or is it like where my sister in law lives and it's just learning things by the news?

We have the phone thing - which is so nice! DH is a teacher and it used to be a phone tree. He would get a call at 4:00AM from another teacher then he would have to call the next teacher on the list...Now it's all automated. Not sure about where my sister is. When she wakes up I'll text to ask
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Unregistered 07:44 AM 01-29-2014
The big storm that hit the east coast in December I believe, my neices work was PICKING employess up if they thought they wouldn't be able to drive! They were told not to call in because they would lose their jobs so asked to be picked up.

Wow oh wow oh wow!
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daycarediva 08:18 AM 01-29-2014
We had severe weather Monday-Tuesday. Monday school closed. Tuesday, they had a 2 hour delay, but remained open. My dh went out to check the roads and called me because he needed to turn around at the end of our street to come home, visibility and roads were that bad. We did NOT send our kids to school. We got a chastising email from the superintendent (sent to everyone, but obviously meant for those of us who kept our kids home).

I am glad your sister is safe! What a nightmare!!!
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Play Care 09:03 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by daycarediva:
We had severe weather Monday-Tuesday. Monday school closed. Tuesday, they had a 2 hour delay, but remained open. My dh went out to check the roads and called me because he needed to turn around at the end of our street to come home, visibility and roads were that bad. We did NOT send our kids to school. We got a chastising email from the superintendent (sent to everyone, but obviously meant for those of us who kept our kids home).

I am glad your sister is safe! What a nightmare!!!
Thanks! I gather from another Atlanta friend that the storm hadn't hit until mid morning - and the weather forecast was very ambiguous - it *might* hit, it *could* be bad, etc. now we've had forecasts like that and they close schools just in case and nothing hits...that was why you see so many people out and stranded. I maintain that by mid morning schools should have closed - and incidentally those that closed the earliest had all their kids home. The ones that waited had kids stranded.
I know that had it already started/ roads were bad before the commute my sister would have stayed home.
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KidGrind 09:43 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by spud912:
I have a lot of friends in Georgia (I went to high school there) and one post on Facebook last night was a shared post about a daycare bus full of kids being stuck out there. This is exactly what you just said....avoid sending kids to daycare when the weather is known to be severe! Can you imagine the poor bus driver (and hopefully assistant) with a bunch of toddlers and preschoolers all night in that weather?!
What a mess!
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melilley 10:20 AM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by BrooklynM:
I feel for your sister. That must have been horrible. Being a teacher, I'm sure she wanted to be there for her kids! My sister in law is a teacher in the Midwest and I'm always asking her- how do you know when the schools close? She says- oh they show it on TV. I'm like- with digital technology they can't automatically dial everyone's numbers or send out mass texts? I mean it seems like there could be several ways to get ahold of the teachers and in plenty of time before school starts.

We don't have to deal with that here since it doesn't snow but whenever there is an emergency of some sort or something major happens at a school, they have an automatic dialing system that calls everyone and there is a recorded message. For example, we live pretty close to a jail (a few miles) and an inmate escaped. They called everyone within minutes of the escape, and also sent out a mass email.

Do they do that where you guys live? Or is it like where my sister in law lives and it's just learning things by the news?
Here our schools call us either the night before they close or around 5:30am the day that they close or have a delay.
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safechner 11:51 AM 01-29-2014
I am so glad I am not live in Georgia for past 15 years! However, my family live in Marietta area. I am so embarrassed they never prepared to close schools, works, etc if they knew it is coming. Usually, THIS IS NOT FIRST TIME! It happened in 1993 and I was stuck in school for 4 days. I was not able to go home.

My brother in law was stuck in the car for hours but he finally made it home this late last night. Someone hit his car but there is nothing he can do about it. I was pretty mad at the government for not prepare for this bad weather and they should have sand on the road like it should be. Ha, they will not prepare for the future if it happens again like this. Shame on Georgia!
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My3cents 12:06 PM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Unregistered:
Maybe I'm misguided, but I by no means think kids NEED school. Their life does not depend on it. At least not to the point where they can not miss a day or two when weather puts their lives at risk.

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MNMommy2 12:26 PM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by Unregistered:
Maybe I'm misguided, but I by no means think kids NEED school. Their life does not depend on it. At least not to the point where they can not miss a day or two when weather puts their lives at risk.
I have to say I agree with this. We have had at least 4 days off this MONTH alone due to cold weather. I would much rather have the days made up at the end of the year than risk exposing kids to -60 degree wind chills. and REALLY, those 4 days are not going to matter in the end. They will be made up and I am quite sure that the kids will still grow up able to find a job.
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Bookworm 04:42 PM 01-29-2014
Being from the South, we take winter storm warnings seriously. The Atlanta situation was truly shocking. Normally we get notifications at least a week in advance so we begin to make preparations early. You know, better safe than sorry. SC got the same snow storm Atlanta got but we had been preparing since Sunday. I just can't understand why Atlanta wasn't ready for something they knew was coming that had the potential for every problem they've encountered.
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Play Care 05:22 PM 01-29-2014
Originally Posted by MNMommy2:
I have to say I agree with this. We have had at least 4 days off this MONTH alone due to cold weather. I would much rather have the days made up at the end of the year than risk exposing kids to -60 degree wind chills. and REALLY, those 4 days are not going to matter in the end. They will be made up and I am quite sure that the kids will still grow up able to find a job.
Eh, sure, if the child has only missed for weather relates closings. Heaven forbid they've been out ill or had any other issues.
And really, if the school closes, no biggie. But for parents of children who receive special services in school, missing days is a big deal.
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Tags:emergency preparedness plan, parental life choices, parental responsibility, personal decisions, winter storm, winter weather
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