ENJOY THE SUNSHINE
Nobody will welcome
springtime and summer
more this year than
Floridians who survived
COMMAERNTTARY
By John Wilson
the coldest weather in the Sunshine
State since 1965. Record-breaking
cold gripped New England and the
Southeast; and on Interstate 26 in North Carolina, outside
Asheville, an unpredicted snow and ice storm trapped thousands
of motorists on Slick Rock Mountain.
Fortunately, the winter weather did not stay cold long enough
in Florida to cause major damage to crops. However, on that
10-to-15-mile stretch of Interstate 26 in North Carolina, it was
chaotic, as some motorists were trapped in a very long line
of thousands of vehicles that were forced to stop because the
highway had turned into ice as the result of a surprise winter
storm. There were scores of accidents, injuries, overheated cars
and frustrated motorists who wondered why the interstate
system had been closed.
My wife Mary K and I were part of an eastbound bumper-tobumper
John Wilson
backup into Asheville and a westbound backup to the
outskirts of Flat Rock and Hendersonville, North Carolina. The
dead-stop traffic barely moved 20 feet in 4 ½ hours. I tried calling
the highway patrol and the state highway department to find
out just what was happening. I used my best reportorial skills
and also called the newsrooms of two TV stations. One contact
expressed sympathy and said it was due to a flood of accidents.
Another said “nobody is answering the phones.” The dispatcher
for the Asheville Police Department was curt and brutal when
he hung up after saying, “Not our jurisdiction!”
144 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE | MARCH/APRIL 2018
I saw one woman get out of a car
on the opposite side the interstate,
carrying what appeared to be a baby
wrapped in a blanket to protect it
from biting cold. She went from car
to car, knocking on windows asking
drivers to let her get in, while the car
she came in drove away in the opposite direction. I’m not sure
what good that did.
Other drivers got out of their vehicles, trying to see what
was happening ahead. We were constantly asked to pull over
to the sides of the highway as far as we could go to allow salt
trucks, ambulances, wreckers and EMTS to get through. It was a
frustrating process to watch and be part of, as I was unable to do
anything. There was no way out, and a lot of people who didn’t
know each other were trapped on a desolate stretch of highway
in an ice storm for which nobody was prepared.
A tractor-trailer in front of us stopped with its right side
front and rear wheels on the shoulder of the highway. However,
when the truck driver was given the opportunity to move, he
couldn’t do so because of the ice. That gave us the opportunity
to drive around him. The state had clearly waited too late to
close the highway.
The point is this: Do not attempt to cross Sam’s Gap or Slick
Rock Mountain on the Appalachian Trail in the dead of winter
with a storm coming. Fortunately, this is not a problem we have
in the Tampa Bay area. So let’s appreciate that sunshine. 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: John Wilson, who retired from Fox TV in 2014,
worked more than 50 years in radio and television news broadcasting.