On the night of Jan. 9, 2011, a winter storm – “one of the more significant winter weather events in years,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – arrived in the state of Georgia. Precipitation started as sleet and freezing rain, before changing to steady snow.
The storm had moved out by Jan. 10 – but not before crippling the South’s largest city, Atlanta. Many of the city’s residents had no choice but to stay indoors, home from work or school because sidewalks, streets and major highways remained coated in a solid sheet of ice.
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The Christian Science Monitor reported the following, on Tuesday, January 11:
Indeed, much of the city remained impassable Tuesday as a sadly outmatched contingent of plows and sand trucks failed to make much of a dent in the one-inch ice sheet that remained after the six-inch Sunday night snow that paralyzed much of the Deep South, and most notably its symbolic capital. The snow quickly turned into a treacherous driving experience, with hundreds of accidents reported. Even a salt truck spun out against a wall, blocking traffic.
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At Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, hundreds of passengers remained stranded Tuesday, though the previous day’s 1,450 canceled flights were expected to dwindle as airport officials managed to clear four of five runways.
After receiving a 911 call Monday night, Atlanta police delivered sandwiches and water from a local jail kitchen to 150 stranded passengers at the Forsyth Street Greyhound station. Officers returned Monday morning with breakfast sandwiches. Local bus traffic, too, was canceled after a MARTA bus spun a full 180 on Monday morning.
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MARTA, Atlanta’s public transportation agency, was criticized by the public and the media for failing to provide efficient service during the 2011 storm. Boston’s public transportation agency, the MBTA, has faced similar criticism at the start of 2015, as 78 inches of snow has rendered the system practically inoperable. Dr. Beverly Scott knows this fact all too well.
Scott, who announced her resignation as general manager of the T in a letter Wednesday afternoon, was the head of Atlanta’s MARTA in 2011.
Before she was appointed general manager of the Commonwealth’s transit authority on Dec. 17, 2012, Scott helmed Atlanta’s public transit agency – like the T, a financially troubled system – for five years.
The storm that brought Atlanta to standstill in early 2011 occurred during Scott’s fourth year as MARTA’s leader.
Now, in 2015, a review of Scott’s actions in the immediate aftermath of the Atlanta ice storm, a little more than four years ago, makes what has transpired in Boston this week seem like deja vu. On Tuesday, the day before she wrote she would be stepping down from her post at the T, Scott held a fiery press conference (full version at the top), in which she defended the agency and appeared to thrust some of the blame for recent weather-related system inefficiencies on Beacon Hill.
During her Tuesday presser, Scott said:
I want to make a point particularly about the people that have been working doggone near three weeks, many of them around the clock, if you – I got a broad back. Anything that has happened it’s me. Because those folks that are out there, and are continuing to be out there, and will stay out there are giving it – they are absolutely poetry in motion. They are tired, but they love this Commonwealth. They love this place. And they are giving it all they have. And quite candidly, I’ve been around forty years, I’ve been through hurricanes, I’ve been through World Trade Center bombings, tornadoes coming, 30 inches, 36 inches, and all that. So this ain’t this woman’s first rodeo. And it is only because of the fact of the exceptional experience and knowledge of this team [the MBTA] that they have been making their way out of no way, and they’ve been doing it for years without significant investment.
Though hardly verbatim, Scott offered a very similar defense of MARTA and its personnel back in 2011. After Atlanta slowly started to resume normal operations, Scott, as a way of offering an explanation to the people of Atlanta for what had happened, penned a letter and distributed it to the press. Readers will find the full version of that below.
The 2011 letter is proof, as Scott said Tuesday, what has happened to the T in 2015 “isn’t this woman’s first rodeo.”
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By Dr. Beverly Scott
By all accounts, last week’s extraordinary weather conditions and associated public safety impacts were the most severe our region has experienced in years. For all of us, there are lessons to be learned and improvements to be made – individually and collectively.
At the same time, there were exceptional efforts made by many, many people that should not be overlooked in the rush to place blame and sell newspapers.
As MARTA’s CEO, I found the AJC story “MARTA’s Storm Response Leaves Passengers in Doubt,” sadly ironic – but not surprising. While the AJC was unfairly criticizing MARTA for suspending bus service, the newspaper’s management was apologizing for customer delivery failures during the same severe winter storm.
Moreover, the story was an extremely incomplete, one-sided and naive account of the extraordinary effort that hundreds of MARTA employees made – across all levels and departments – to keep our regional transit system operational.
For example, MARTA opened its Emergency Operations Center and began storm preparations well before the snow started on Sunday. Earlier, MARTA participated in a regional conference hosted by the Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency. During the emergency, MARTA had a representative serving at Atlanta’s Joint Operations Center. In addition, we were in regular contact with the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).
MARTA supervisors worked overnight to monitor road conditions as the storm began. We proactively closed the ramp entrances to the North Springs (GA 400 entrance) and Indian Creek (I-285 entrance) stations because these areas are prone to freezing and vehicles have previously gotten stuck during inclement winter weather. MARTA provided alternate directions to access these stations and GDOT assisted us in this important communications effort with their electronic signage. Beginning Sunday, we distributed regular updates to the public via our website, customer service line, Twitter, Facebook, service alert messages and press releases.
Our MARTA Mobility team worked with our extremely vulnerable paratransit customers and medical facilities to arrange emergency transportation for life-sustaining medical treatment. On Friday before the storm, Mobility proactively coordinated with dialysis centers to reschedule 52 customers from Monday to Sunday dialysis trips.
At the highest levels, the City of Atlanta staff worked with our team to clear priority streets. Finally, Mayor Kasim Reed and I spoke several times to review MARTA’s status and ensure that the public was receiving the best available information on MARTA operations.
As a public transit veteran of more than 30 years, I could not have been prouder of our employees, many of whom worked around the clock and were unable to get home for several days.
I am especially proud of the steady, experienced hand of our senior management team whose long years of operating transit systems in severe winter environments has taught them the difference between foolhardiness and ensuring public safety for customers, employees and the community at large.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, MARTA rail provided 36,000, 50,000 and 84,000 passenger trips, respectively. On Wednesday, MARTA was the first transit operator to restore limited bus and paratransit service. Be assured that stopping bus and paratransit service was not an easy decision, but it was the right decision under the circumstances.
Throughout this winter storm, our foremost priority has been safety. With that in mind, we heeded the emergency declaration by the City of Atlanta and the State of Georgia warning drivers to stay off the roadways.
We asked our employees to remain home if they were unable to travel safely and we kept buses off the streets on Monday and Tuesday. It would have been irresponsible and reckless for MARTA to add its fleet of 40-foot buses to the region’s already treacherous traffic conditions.
At MARTA, we are acutely aware of how much “MARTA Matters” to the overall Atlanta region as an irreplaceable lifeline and invaluable part of the economic engine that moves our capital city, region, and State. Hopefully, the AJC has now gained a better appreciation and greater respect for the importance of the work MARTA employees and other local transit operators do every day.
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Screenshot via NECN.
