Rare winter storm leaves students, drivers stranded in Deep South

A rare winter storm brought freezing rain, snow and bitter cold to the Deep South on Tuesday, leaving hundreds of children stranded at schools in Alabama and Georgia and rescue crews scrambling to reach stranded motorists along ice-covered highways.

The mad rush began at the first sight of snow: Across the Atlanta area, schools let out early and commuters left for home after lunch, instantly creating gridlock as highways surrounding the city that rarely see snow were converted into treacherous paths of ice.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said late Tuesday that state troopers were being sent in to rescue students stranded at schools with their teachers, hours after schools were dismissed early. Many children were stuck in schools into early Wednesday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

'Fortunately, they will be safe and warm, have facilities, and, if they stay overnight, will be fed dinner and breakfast,' Marietta City Schools spokesman Thomas Algarin told the newspaper. '[It's] not an ideal situation, but at least they are supervised, safe and accounted for.'

There were several reports of stranded school buses in Gordon County, but there were no reports of any serious injuries, MyFoxAtlanta reported.

Numerous students were stranded in Georgia's Cobb County in suburban Atlanta, said school district spokesman Jay Dillon. Bus drivers spent hours trying to ferry students home after they were dismissed two hours early, he said.

Deal said state and local officials also would try to rescue those stranded along highways that were at a standstill even close to midnight.

At Barber Middle School in the Atlanta suburb of Acworth, principal Lisa Williams said 972 students had made it home, but five were still left as of 9:40 p.m. as their parents struggled through the gridlock to get them.

'We are in the front office playing bingo and eating snacks,' she said. 'We're just enjoying the night until they get here.'

About 40 teachers and other school employees planned to spend the night rather than risk the dangerous ride home, Williams said.

Meanwhile, on the Gulf Shores beaches in Alabama, icicles hung from palm trees. Hundreds of students in the northeastern part of the state faced spending the night in gyms or classrooms because the roads were too icy.

Don Garrett, a second grade teacher at Grantswood Community School in Irondale, said teachers were trying to keep several stranded students busy.

'This is outside their routine and younger kids are pretty routine-oriented, and we're trying to maintain that,' Garrett told AL.com. 'The last thing we would want to do is panic the kids, so we're just doing business as usual.'

Several school buses being led by sand trucks and emergency vehicles were riding up and down a portion of Interstate 65 early Wednesday, picking up stranded drivers and taking them to nearby shelters, the newspaper reported.

The rare Southern winter storm dropped more than 3 inches of snow in some areas of north Georgia, while 2.3 inches were recorded at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, said National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Willis.

While such amounts barely qualify as a storm in the north, it was enough to paralyze the Deep South. Many folks across the region don't know how to drive in snow, and many cities don't have big fleets of salt trucks or snowplows. Hundreds of wrecks happened from Georgia to Texas. Two people died in an accident in Alabama.

In Atlanta, the gridlock was so bad, a baby girl was delivered alongside Interstate 285, said Capt. Steve Rose, a spokesman for Sandy Springs police in suburban north Atlanta. He said an officer made it to the mother and her husband in time to help with the delivery, which he described as 'flawless.' There were no complications and the family was taken to a hospital.

The governors of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi declared states of emergency. Four people were killed in a Mississippi mobile home fire blamed on a space heater.

Snow-covered Atlanta's statues of civil rights heroes, and snowplows that rarely leave the garage rolled out onto the city's streets. They didn't seem to do much good. Officials said many of the trucks couldn't move through clogged roads. And for commuters unaccustomed to snow-slicked roads, driving was nearly impossible.

Webster was thankful that she and her son had food and snacks stored in the car, and said she'll think twice before griping over another 45-minute commute.

'I won't be angry ever again,' she said, 'Today was definitely one for the books.'

As of 9 p.m., Georgia State Patrol responded to 940 crashes throughout the state, according to GSP spokesman Gordy Wright. He said 104 injuries and one fatality in Coweta County had been reported. Officials said Yvonne C. Nash, 60, of Griffin, died when she lost control of her car on Georgia Highway 85 in Senoia and landed upside down in a ditch.

Many Southerners also lack the winter tools that northerners take for granted -- such as snow shovels. At a hardware store in the Georgia town of Cumming, shovels were in short supply, but manager Tom Maron said feed scoops -- often used in barns -- could be substituted.

Charleston, S.C.; Savannah, Ga.; Pensacola, Fla.; Virginia Beach, Va.; and New Orleans -- popular warm-weather tourist destinations where visitors can usually golf and play tennis in shirt sleeves or light jackets this time of year -- were expecting ice and snow on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, dangerous cold continued to grip the region even as the storm moved south. Many schools closed for the second straight day. In Minnesota, forecasters said wind chills could reach 35 to 50 degrees below zero.

At Oak Mountain Intermediate School near Birmingham, Ala., principal Pat LeQuier said about 230 of the school's fourth- and fifth-graders and nearly all teachers and staff members were still on campus by late afternoon, and some could wind up spending the night since parents were stuck in traffic or at work.

'We have a toasty building, a fully stocked kitchen, and I'm not worried,' LeQuier said.

In Savannah, residents braced for a winter whiplash, barely 24 hours after the coastal city hit a T-shirt-friendly 73 degrees. Less than a quarter-inch of ice and up to an inch of snow were possible in a city that has seen very little snow on its manicured squares in the past 25 years.

Savannah had 3.6 inches of snow in December 1989, a dusting of 0.2 inches in February 1996 and 0.9 inches in February 2010.

Nationwide, more than 3,200 airline flights were canceled.

In Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp, the alligators burrowed into the mud to keep warm.

news3blog.blogspot.com contributed to this report. Click here for more from MyFoxAL.com.