Posted on 08/23/2017 5:43:07 PM PDT by DuncanWaring
My daughter and I drove up to Andersen, SC for the eclipse, leaving Sunday early in the morning and hanging out there Sunday afternoon and evening.
Let me first put an accolade out to the Hilton Garden Inn -- great people, and very accommodating. We wound up having to run-n-gun at the last minute as one nasty cloud threatened to obliterate our shots of the totality, but that gamble paid big; we were able to get into the clear with time remaining, and were set up and "on-point" about 3-4 minutes before totality was achieved.
The totality itself was surreal. Photographs, no matter how good, do not do it justice. I get it why people chase these things all over the world now.
The return trip home was something else. There was literally no movement over 25mph from Andersen SC southbound until we hit the 85/985 junction north of Atlanta and plenty of time spent at walking speed or less. You probably could have bicycled faster. Worse, attempting to re-route around it manually was pointless; all the state highways and similar were also jammed solid and worthless to try to use as alternative routes. During this time there was no congestion of any sort evident in any of the northbound lanes.
The mapping apps all said there were wrecks everywhere although we never saw one; by the time we got to wherever it had been flagged the wreck was long-gone but the impact remained for the entire rest of the day and evening. Cellular data was worthless or extremely spotty until, once again, we hit Atlanta metro. Voice calls and text messages were fine, but not data; the networks were simply slammed well beyond capacity.
This is very important information folks because while I've certainly seen chain-reaction events like this in some places to see them over a wide scale and large area was sobering.
If some jackass had hit us at that moment in time if you didn't have a go bag good for 3 days or so in the back of your car and be able to bail and get away from the highway you would be DEAD. Not maybe dead, CERTAINLY DEAD.
Let me further remind you that it was nearly 100F out on that highway too with zero cloud cover for most of the journey. My Mazda has an excellent AC system and while it was keeping up it wasn't digging it. What's in your go-bag? There better be drinkable water in there and a means to purify more of it, because at that temperature you're going to go through a hell of a lot of it in a really big hurry. Oh, let me remind you that water weighs 8lbs/gallon and I'm willing to bet that had we needed to bail a gallon per person would have likely been consumed in a few hours. In terms of water demand it probably would get close to (if not exceed) what I experienced while hiking out in the Grand Canyon on Kaibab South - brutal, in other words.
Next, consider what happens if someone else didn't have water and you do? Got anything effective to defend that water supply with and are you willing to use it?
Finally, how are you physically? Could you get out of that car, get away from the highway by a good quarter-mile or more and actually make time on foot, even if slowly, in that situation, toward somewhere safe? Oh, and where is "somewhere safe" in relationship to where you are?
Better have "yes" answers to the above because if not you would be a corpse.
Right near the GA/SC border we pulled into the Love's travel stop. It was mobbed. Cars parked on the grass, 30+ minute lines for fuel (I had filled the night before, anticipating possible shortages, and didn't need any) and a roughly 30 minute line to use the woman's room. The men's bathroom was far more-friendly in that men can******faster than women and were, but someone didn't make it -- there was a badly-soiled set of underwear in there. It would suck to be the dude with the bathroom cleaning responsibility yesterday and whoever previously owned that set of whitey-tighties obviously had a really bad day and rest-of-trip...
I'm sure that Love's made a fortune and "loved" the business; they were in the right place at the right time and I'd happily take the bet that yesterday was their highest grossing day ever in their history and will hold that record until the place finally is razed, whenever that is. This was a friendly crowd that was just looking for gas and something to eat and drink while 150ish miles of interstate was a parking lot. If it had been under less-friendly circumstances pulling in there would have been akin to walking into a massive bar-fight full of 2+ ton weapons and an unlimited supply of gasoline for people with truly nasty intentions, never mind the dozens of OTR trucks.
Again, this was a friendly incident folks and yet it appears that many people on one stretch of road which didn't even include the totality once you got to the GA border failed to manage to drive a car without wrecking. Now contemplate what a handful of intentional wrecks would have done by "someone" with malevolent intent and you start to sober up -- fast.
You got a freebie lesson in this regard if you ran into even a fringe of it, in terms of exactly how under-capacity our so-called "infrastructure" is in response to even relatively minor loads and under friendly terms. In short our so-called "civilization" is nothing more than a thin veneer over a really ugly reality, protected by nothing more than the fact that over the last 150 years it has never been challenged on the ground by heavy load during an ugly natural or man-made incident over any sort of materially-wide area.
Think Katrina times 100 and you might be getting close.
If it ever is challenged that infrastructure will collapse instantly and trap you.
Our ~150 year run in this regard may hold, but if it doesn't you cannot say you weren't warned. You got an object lesson in it on Monday, in spades and over a very wide swath of the nation. As such if you get caught with your pants down if and when the flag goes up you've intentionally ignored the warning you were gifted under friendly circumstances post-eclipse.
Ping.
Well the mother ship was circling the Earth so we were safe; and my cat’s first wedding anniversary went off without a hitch so there is that.
I mix my pessimism with optimism —
I think a catastrophe could very well cause a population collapse. There are many potential causes, I don’t need to pick one. But a serious die-off seems like a real possibility, given how fragile our society seems to be.
But on the bright side, the population on the far side of the catastrophe will be smarter and stronger, with a better immune system. And they will rebuild society in a way which is less fragile.
I’m sure I’ll be dead, I have no illusion on that. But a reaping seems overdue.
We drove nearly 8 hours to watch and about 14 to return home. That said, it was worth it. My 9-year twins were quite happy. Seeing the total eclipse is not something a picture can do justice with. The sun turned off/on like a light switch, the quiet was incredible. And feeling the temps drop, then go back up... Yes, worth the day off from school, the day off from work, the very long overnight camping trip to watch, in our case, from top of a ridgeline in central Oregon.
Hardly a year goes by in which I don’t hear about some super traffic jam around Atlanta.
I was at work and slept through the whole she-bang.
I have usually avoided large crowds and tend to move in the opposite direction or simply choose not to join in.
Been doing that for a long time. What few crowds I was ever in were mostly arena-rock concerts in the 1980’s. And I didn’t go to very many. I think somewhere around a dozen (went to a Boston concert in the 1990’s once).
Don’t have specific go-bags like that; but not a bad idea. I’d be concerned about getting on the road in an emergency unless there was simply no other choice.
LOL
Also, Northbound traffic from Tennessee was horrendous too. (See my post with Eclipse picture here.)
ML/NJ
Minus the zombies, this author experienced the opening of the Walking Dead. In the show, Lore, Carl, and Shane were trying to get to Atlanta but were stuck in traffic with no food. Carol, who was in the traffic jam too, gave Lore some food. Then they watched Atlanta get firebombed, and having no place else to go, turned off the road and camped at a rock quarry.
There were about 20 other people at a small lake in eastern Oregon watching with me. We were blown away by the totality. Temperature drop, fish jumping in lake during the darkness, , corona with small flares. Seeing the black disk surrounded by the corona seemed like being on another planet, or impending doom, or both.
Over my lifetime, two natural events stand out in my mind. This, and the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption, of which I was a witness to both.
BTW, no traffic problems to speak of (seemed normal volume), except at one highway bridge which was closed down to one lane for construction. Had to wait 20 minutes.
Five hours down, seven back, and in between was so very, very worth it. Got only two pix that were worth anything but they were worth it all.
And apropos to the theme of this thread, I did see a lot of very prepared people. I did pack a little for the hotel but the survival stuff was all in the Go bag and it took seconds to throw into the car. If you don't have one, make one.
We came in from Clemson on the same traffic jam. We had a case of water and plenty of snack food. Our four drive turned into 7.5.
There was a run on Moon Pies at Sam’s as well. They sold out really early. They even sold out their Sun chips.
I experienced travel northbound out of the Nashville area. One of my takeaways was that the best use of the go bag may involve going back inside and sheltering in place.
Another was that good old fashioned paper maps need to go back in each of my vehicles. Smart phone and built in GPS did not provide adequate perspective, when trying to cover long distances. And, popular travel apps do not register that their alternative routes have been overwhelmed until it is too late.
As for the eclipse, totality was awsome.
The situation in extreme western Nebraska north of US 20 was just fine on Monday. No (little) infrastructure, no problem...
I was up until 2AM Monday morning updating my various GPSs, mostly for exploring Blue Mountain trails later in the day, and then left for Phillip’s Lake at 3AM. Got to Baker, OR at 7AM, and it looked funny to see people milling around town at that early hour, kids playing in the park, etc. McDonalds had leased porta-poties since their indoor restrooms would be inadequate, and also had an extra refrigerated container of food outside. Good planning.
We drove about afternoon before to Wyoming, staying the night about 2 hours from our ‘totality spot’ on a gravel country road. We had 3 days food/water/clothes as our plan was continue NE after the eclipse into South Dakota for a two-night stay in Custer City and environs.
Going in, no problem at all. Leaving we got caught in one bottleneck that resulted in 90 minutes of creeping/sitting. After that, 75mph the rest of the way.
Seeing (and feeling) the eclipse was fabulous, as I’ve always loved astronomy. No clouds, but haze from wildfires in Montana added color.
It was a great mini-vacay and my pro-photog wife got great pics including the diamond ring effect.
Mt. Rushmore is awesome btw, had never seen it before.
Fortunately, being in central South Carolina, I could watch the eclipse just by going out my back door. If I’d been elsewhere and known how awesome it would be ahead of time, though, I’d have been willing to travel. Here are some posts that I wrote about it at the time on another forum:
A total eclipse of the sun is currently sweeping across the United States from the Northwest to the Southeast. (If you’re not already in its path, you’re probably too late.) It’s expected here in central South Carolina in about an hour.
I plan on going outside for the experience. Hope I don’t start howling and go berserk (and hope my neighbors don’t). If I don’t return, you’ll know the eclipse got me
It’s over. Wow! Was that great!
I’d seen a partial eclipse before (and projected the image onto a piece of paper), and wasn’t especially impressed. This was awesome, though — no comparison.
I didn’t have special glasses, so I had to wait for total darkness. That darkness lasted over two minutes, though, and during that time I could look up and see a black globe (the moon) with the sun’s corona around it.
As darkness began, insects started chirping. Then with complete darkness I could see lightning bugs (fireflies) flying about. When the sun returned, the chirping subsided, and the lightning bugs disappeared.
It was a great experience. If anyone who hasn’t seen a total eclipse ever has the opportunity later to travel a moderate distance to see one, I heartily recommend it.
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