Well if any of you plan on heading into Central and North West part of Oklahoma ... you may want to take a different route .. today in Tulsa we got 14 inches .. I know that's not much for other area's of the states ... but for us ... it shut down everyone and everything ... snow trucks couldn't keep up because of the high winds blowing the snow back on the hwy - they had just pushed off .. semi's all over the road - stuck in the middle of the hwys ... the high winds up to 50 mph .. made for alot of very high wind drifts .. taller than me ! ... So stay safe ... and if you must roll down the hwy ... please be careful.

 

I'm parked at a Loves outside of Milwaukee. I'm not even going to attempt to get out of my truck until I have to! I've been parked here since 1500 yesterday and the snow drifts at the foot of my doors are about 4 ft high! There's a pickup truck parked next to me and it's buried! The snow on his roof is about 5 ft high! I started the truck to warm it up and it took almost 30 minutes for my air pressure to build up on my secondary. The snow accumulated on my hood and windshield is about 2 foot thick. Just looking out, I would guestimate that the snow on the open ground is about a foot deep. It's a good thing that I delivered my load early yesterday (it was due at 0800 today), the consignee probably would have been closed today. I still have the slimmest hope that I might about to get out of here today.

 

What did they do? Turn over that new Flying J over to Love's????

 

I got out of Lima yesterday morning without too much problem. I-75 was ice covered to around the 100 mile marker. I saw quite a few truck wrecks heading north, though. It started with 2 trucks that got into each other on the highway. That one had traffic at a dead stop heading north. They had to bring a wrecker and a tow truck from north of them and had to go backwards on the northbound side to get to them.

South of that one was another 2-truck wreck on a southbound on-ramp. Not sure how those 2 got into each other. A mile or 2 further was a truck on the northbound side that was heading southbound. He wasn't jackknifed, but was pointing the wrong direction. Another mile or 2 south of that was a truck way off the highway on the northbound side. He stayed upright (barely) and wasn't jackknifed, but looked like it would be a tough one to tow out.

I'm in Atlanta now, heading for Gulfport, MS. Just looked at the radar and it looks like I'll be dealing with some more ice across I-20 and on I-65.

I *HATE* this stupid global warming. But, as someone else said, just think how cold it would be if it wasn't warming.

 

The last 40 miles of my Tuesday drive was ICE (from Memphis to Cincii was pouring rain)......but I made Jeffersonville OH in fine style and even had a great parking spot!! Woke up to a little ice....and some snow......and the drive to Johnstown NY was pretty uneventful.....though there was a lot of snow. Washing my tank here Albany NY now...then off to Fords NJ to load for E. St. Louis.

 

Ok WTF?!?!?! I'm in Port Allen, LA, heading for Dallas. I-10 is closed at mile 151 because of ice (detouring onto US-90). Then, I-10 is closed completely at Lake Charles for ice (no detour). Called into dispatch and she said there are trucks south of San Antonio that are shut down because of ice down there, closing I-35.

Seriously - when are these 'Global Warming' idiots gonna shut their damn mouths and let us run our trucks again.

 

By the time I got out of Port Allen, they had I-10 reopened and I was able to get onto I-49. I-49 had 2 closures on it, one at Alexandria and the other at Shreveport. At both of those, they diverted traffic onto the surface streets. Stopped at the J in Greenwood for fuel and made it across the bridge to get back onto I-20 and they were just closing it to clean up a wreck. Luckily the trooper at the end of the ramp understood that I couldn't just turn around on a 2 lane road and go back to the J, so he let me on the highway.

The wreck they were cleaning up was right past the weigh station and I only had to sit there for about 1/2 hour. Made it to the National Truckstop in Longview (which is closed now, BTW) to shut down for the night.

I'm used to driving in the snow and ice in the north, as most of you are. There's a huge difference between driving in it, say, on I-68 in Grantsville, MD and driving on it in Shreveport, LA. Most people on the road on I-68 KNOW how to drive on it. They know it's slick and slow down (most, but definitely not all). Completely different down here where most people see the stuff 1-2x in a decade. Plus, add the nonexistance of snowplows or anything to put on the road to treat it and, wow...

 

Holy )*&^*( what a day...

Left out of Longview, TX this morning at 7am with 196 miles to finish out the run. That 196 miles took 6.5 of actual driving time. I-20 in TX from mile 513 west until around the 635 split was an absolute disaster. We're talking 5mph when you were lucky. Also, I avoided being in a wreck close to Terrell when a Shaffer truck jackknifed. He ended up taking up both lanes and both shoulders, bringing everything to a dead stop for about an hour.

 

I've been on I-68 when it was bad. Some do slow down. Some stay home. But, as I recall, there were still enough of them to line the road in the median and in the ditch. Same goes for NJ. For that matter, I've also gone across ND in freezing rain. As fast as they could get out onto the road, the conditions took them off again. I put on an extra 19,000 pounds of ice just going across ND. Truck looked like it was made out of crystal. Had to hit the door a couple of times to get the ice to break loose so I could open the door. Cat's eyes broke 3 valve stems on the trailer because of the weight of the ice.

When the weather really gets bad, it doesn't matter where you are, there are always enough people that have no idea what to do with it. Believe me, they're all over the country. You don't have to go to TX or LA to find them.

 

:bigthink:


Okayokayokay!! You made it to Dallas. Now....Did you make it into the Superbowl????

:bigthumbsup:



Comeonnow....don't leave us hanging!