I posted a brief article yesterday, Thursday, October 29, 2020 pertaining to the aftermath of Tropical Storm Zeta in the greater Atlanta metropolitan area; and this article contains additional photographs — including electrical power outages, the backup of traffic, and trying to obtain food — although these photographs are but a mere microcosm of what occurred.
Photographs of What Tropical Storm Zeta Did in Atlanta
I was scheduled to donate platelets at the local blood donor center to where I am based; so I went there early, not realizing that the electrical power was out at the facility and in the area itself — as evidenced by the traffic light which is shown in the photograph above — meaning that the apheresis equipment would be inoperable.
I also noticed that vehicles were in a long line of traffic which snaked out onto the main thoroughfare and backed it up with traffic as well in both directions, which was rather unusual.
The traffic was all for a local fast food restaurant, which was open and in operation — despite the electrical power outage — and the lines of vehicles wrapped around the building for drivers to order food through the drive-thru windows.
The traffic appeared to be in chaos at times, as the electrical power outage apparently was widespread and people were unable to prepare their own breakfast that morning.
As the phlebotomists at the local blood donor center confirmed to me that I would be unable to donate platelets due to the lack of electrical power, I decided to drive back to where I am based — dodging inoperable traffic lights which turned intersections into four-way stops…
…and causing many drivers to apparently not know how to navigate through them, which resulted in long lines of traffic.
When I attempted to use the two-lane road which is around the corner to where I am based, I met with a fallen tree which blocked my egress.
That did not stop a number of thoughtless drivers to navigate their vehicles onto the sidewalk and grass — which caused considerable damage to the property of someone else, when all they had to do was travel approximately one mile out of their way by using a different route, which is what I did.
Once encountering the fallen tree which blocked the road, the drivers of these pick-up trucks correctly decided to turn around and use the alternate route rather than inconsiderately use the sidewalk and grass to drive around the tree.
To complicate matters, electrical power lines were down because they were apparently snapped by the fallen tree.
The snapped electrical power lines were strewn all over the winding road.
The fallen tree blocks the road in the distance around the curve in the road.
This is a view close up of one of the snapped electrical power lines.
I waited for hours to see if anyone would come out to either clear the fallen tree or fix the electrical power lines — but when I saw that nothing was happening anytime soon, I knew I would be without electrical power for an extended period of time, which had never happened to me before in all of the years in which I lived in this area. I rarely experienced electrical power outages; but when I did, they only lasted a few minutes — except for one time when it lasted for a few hours.
Summary
Even though people who live along the Gulf Coast of the United States have experienced much worse with the landfalls of hurricanes and tropical storms this year — especially in Louisiana — the people in the greater Atlanta metropolitan area are simply not used to being adversely affected by tropical systems.
I did manage to grab a couple of fish sandwiches at a fast food restaurant which was nearby — but was this what I was going to eat for the next couple of days? After all, getting food would mean waiting in long lines — if places which sold food were open at all.
Anyway, while the situation could have been much worse and thankfully was not, I had to have a Plan B, as I would have no electrical power — and I decided to take an impromptu road trip to Chattanooga, which unexpectedly included my first stay in a hotel property this year since the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic started.
Please stay tuned…
Photograph ©2020 by Brian Cohen.
