4 million people took to the streets in a span of 20 minutes.

I had employees literally run to their cars with abject terror on their faces before any accumulation happened on pavement.

Turns out they were right in a way... some of our folks never got home, one had a 13 hour trip.

Took me three hours and I live 10 minutes from work. ( I waited 4 hours working)

I became used to the sight of people abandoning their cars on Interstates / major roads in the traffic lanes when accumulation was about an inch.

I had heard tales but thought they were exaggerated.

Seems to me everybody shoulders some blame here. The city did not do a good job on the roads and then releasing everybody at the same time made matters worse. But the general public deserves some blame as well, they also knew what was coming but just figured everything would work like a normal day, figured somebody else would look after them.

If you know snow and ice are coming you just don't go out, you keep the kids home from school and you work from home. And yeah, I know that's not an option for some people.

Dallas is the same way when snow and ice hits, total paralysis. But many people don't go out, they know the area can't take care of the roads very well. A couple of months ago the day before a bad storm hit, I made sure I had enough groceries for nearly a week and just assumed I wouldn't be going out for many days. The storm iced everything over for several days as I hibernated.

Scar, I'm assuming the media outlets didn't say just stay home the night before. That's what they do here. It does seem as though a lot of teachers deserve a raise for taking proper care of stuck kids. And the media making a fuss over adults sleeping in a grocery store or similar is silly, they were under a roof, warm, had food and drink, and were perfectly safe. Probably half the planet would kill for accommodations that nice.

An event of this magnitude will help make sure that everybody from the mayor to the public does a much better job in this scenario next time.

Well, I was texting with an employee who couldn't find a room from her phone, couldn't find gas, it was 12 degrees at midnight and she was alone and scared halfway home navigating abandoned cars and jack knifed trucks on I-75! and hadn't been out of her car in 11 hours to go to the bathroom. She is a very level headed person who left at about the first snowflakes as she had a ways to go. I wanted to go help her but I knew I was powerless to cross the city.

There were a lot of frightened people out there; I'm amazed there weren't more tragedies.

It really didn't have to be that way, but it was.

Yeah, I know it's easy to have an opinion as one who wasn't there, that's kinda why I brought it up so someone who was there can reply.

Let me ask you this about her and her terrible situation. She knew bad weather was going to hit and had to travel a ways, did she have the option of working from home or simply staying at home?

For what it's worth, while I have my opinion on this situation, it could certainly be swayed by those who have more facts and info than I.