Jan 12, 2011 6 min read

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – The snow-and-ice storm that has shut down much of the South slowly rolled toward the Northeast on Tuesday, revealing a regional culture clash along the way.

Southerners seemed resigned to waiting out winter headaches such as slick roads and paralyzed airports. But people from Ohio to New York, who face up to a foot of snow in their third blast of winter in as many weeks, are already putting pressure on state and local governments to spare them from travel tangles and snow-choked roads.

Across the South, schools and government offices were closed for a second day, and travelers remained stranded at airports and bus stations. Road crews ill-equipped for the winter blast struggled to keep streets clear. Motorists sat for hours on slippery highways.

Despite the inconvenience, Southerners confronted the storm’s aftermath with patience – and a certain amount of wonder.

Lynn Marentette, a school psychologist who lives south of Charlotte, stayed home after classes were canceled. She spent the day catching up with friends on Facebook and watching children sled down a nearby hill – and ignored the stack of paperwork on her desk.

“It is a beautiful, beautiful day out there,” she said. “I have some paperwork and some things I’ve really put off doing, but how often do you have a chance to enjoy the snow?”

Nobody seemed to be complaining much at Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, either.

“It’s a once-in-a-decade event. There is no reason to prepare for it. It is not a wise spending of funds,” said Brent Taylor, an executive for the United Way who was pulling a sled carrying his 5-year-old daughters, Elise and Grace.

In Columbia, S.C., Will Nelson gingerly made his way down an icy sidewalk Tuesday, trying to get some lunch from a nearby Chick-fil-A. The 72-year-old retired lawyer said he was impressed with the condition of the roads considering what little snow-removal equipment most Southern cities and states own. “We’re from hardy stock. A little bit of this isn’t going to hurt us,” Nelson said. “Plus, it’s the sunny South. Most of the time it snows one day and it is gone the next.”

The South’s experience offered a preview of what’s in store for states from Ohio to New England, a region already tired of winter after digging out from two storms in recent weeks.

Those wintery blasts included a Christmas weekend blizzard that provoked anger in New York City and New Jersey over the slow cleanup.

Andre Borshch, owner of a chimney maintenance company in New York, worried that the city could come to a halt again.

“I’m not sure anybody’s going to make the right decisions,” he said. “Alaska and Canada spend six months like this, and they have no problems. But here in New York, the city doesn’t know what to do with snow. It’s like they’ve forgotten how to do it.”

New York City and its suburbs could get 8 to 14 inches of snow, with reduced visibility and wind gusts up to 35 mph, forecasters said. Long Island could get as much as 15 inches. In New England, forecasters were predicting up to a foot across most of Connecticut and the Boston area.

In Atlanta, trucker Vernon Cook, 67, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., had been sitting idle on an interstate ramp in Atlanta for almost 24 hours. His semi stood in a long line of tractor trailers that couldn’t move because of ice. “I’ve been a trucker for 46 years and have seen nothing like this,” said Cook, who was hauling a load of synthetic rubber from Beaumont, Texas, to Fayetteville, N.C. “I’ve always been stuck for a little short time, even in Chicago. Georgia DOT is not working, not on this road.”

But elsewhere, people seemed accepting, and in some cases cheerful, about canceling plans for school, work and errands.

Atlanta city Councilman Kwanza Hall spent much of Monday sledding and shoveling alongside his neighbors. He said many of his constituents didn’t mind staying in for part of the workweek.

“We’re very fortunate this time because the storm didn’t knock most of the power out,” Hall said. “So you still have warmth, lights and television. You just can’t go anywhere.”

Passengers stranded at an Atlanta bus station were helped by good Samaritans, including a woman who made the 15-mile drive from Smyrna, Ga., to drop off sandwiches.

Valencia Dantzler of Chicago had been stuck at the station since Sunday and took matters into her own hands: She called the McDonald’s corporate office and arranged for a downtown restaurant to bring food to the passengers.

“He brought like 150 double cheeseburgers and fries and salad. We ended up running out of food,” she said.

With only eight city-owned snow plows, Atlanta was hit particularly hard. But entrepreneurs didn’t miss an opportunity: Someone set up a website hawking T-shirts and other souvenirs for “Hothlanta,” a play on the city nickname “Hotlanta” and the frozen planet Hoth from the Star Wars movie “The Empire Strikes Back.” One showed an enemy robot walker and a sign for Waffle House, the iconic Southern diner chain.

The effects of the storm were likely to linger because continued cold temperatures will slow any melting, perhaps until the weekend.

Roads remained dangerous throughout the South as police responded to hundreds of calls for help. Airports were also affected, including more than 1,500 canceled flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest.

Some schools and local governments planned to remain closed Wednesday, a cautious move for a storm already blamed for 11 deaths and many more injuries.

The storm will also take an economic toll. North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said the state has already spent $26 million of the $30 million it set aside this fiscal year for storm-related cleanup expenses.

“If you can do anything for the state, could you pray that we get warm weather for the rest of the winter?” she said. “These trucks and these workers all come with a cost.”

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Associated Press writers Dorie Turner, Don Schanche and Errin Haines in Atlanta; Chris Hawley in New York City; Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh contributed to this report.

The Associated Press

01/11/11 16:37