0 >> reporter: governor f i could follow up, i was -- i was at -- >> reporter: why didn't you declare a state of emergency before the storm hit rather than after? >> well, we did not think it was justified to do so. we were putting all of our resources in play without the official declaration. the official declaration doesn't really do anything in terms of getting outside help or whatever. all it does is simply say that the state's resources will be available to local levels of government if they chose to ask us for that. and there were minimal requests, even now, from local levels of government for additional state assistance. >> reporter: couldn't that have kept people off the roads, though? if you declare a state of emergency and wouldn't that have kept people -- north carolina and other states aren't dealing the same issue we're dealing with because they declared a state of emergency before the storm hit. >> you may be right. that's a lesson we need to look at and see if it would have made a difference in this case. >> reporter: if i could follow up on that point, governor. i was at gema trying to get into the emergency ops center. they said it wasn't activated. that was 3:30 to 4:00. they told me because it wasn't activated. how can you say there wasn't an emergency when kids were stranded in schools and school buses at that time. >> charlie, you want to answer? >> yes, sir. the state operation center was partially activated. that means that some key state agencies were in place. and we were talking to even more of those people over the phone and through e-mail and things of that nature. and we were still gearing up for the response, because at 2:00 or 3:00 yesterday, it had still not gotten terrible on the roads. >> reporter: at 3:30 or 4:00 it wasn't terrible on the roads? is that what you're saying? >> yeah. it wasn't as gridlocked as it is now. >> reporter: governor, do you agree with that? >> i'm afraid i don't. because i was on the roads about that point in time and it was getting to be gridlocked. the interstates were already experiencing major difficulties. side roads that people were trying to take to get off were experiencing difficulties. so, you know, we all have some lessons we need to learn here from this. and i think we all will take that away. whether or not the declaration would have changed the circumstances, is a question i don't know the total answer to. we will talk with other departments such as local school superintendents as to whether or not they would have made a determination on their part had a declaration been issued earlier. i don't know whether that would have been the case or not. but certainly, all of that is the kind of thing that we have to evaluate. and will dictate whether or not we react in a different fashion at another point in time. hopefully it will not happen any time soon, but obviously this one is a bad situation. we're trying to deal with the realities now. >> reporter: governor, you said you don't blame anyone but some people are blaming you for the gridlock that we're seeing and the perception across the country is that georgia can't handle a storm like this. even al roker said that this is the result of poor preplanning. would you respond? >> well, i'm willing to take whatever blame comes my way. if i'm responsible for it, i'll accept that. i think the important thing to understand, though, is that we have geared up by way of resources. the mayor has already outlined that as to what the city has done since 2011 when we had a similar storm. the state has already done that as well through d.o.t. and, of course, here again, calling in the national guard and the assistance of the state patrol with the amount of equipment that is out there, we have much more equipment available. the problem was, though, the equipment could not function with so many people on the roadway and unable to move. now, i don't know the best way to solve that, other than to start taking it gradually to unclog that part of congestion. that's the approach that we've been taking. and those large trucks are a major portion of it. and maybe i should ask keith to talk to you about what could be done in terms of preparing them to either avoid an area such as this in a time of crisis with a storm, or whether or not there are requirements they should maybe have chains on their wheels in order to avoid these jack-knifes. >> reporter: mayor reed said he thought there was errors in that everyone was let out at the same time. do you agree, were there any errors made? >> obviously, there were errors. i think the mayor used a deskriptive term. like somebody blew a whistle and everyone left at the same time. that's exactly what happened. if we had blown the whistle earlier, would that have changed. i don't know. >> reporter: did you make the right call? >> we did under the circumstances of what we knew at that time. we alerted our state employees so they could leave earlier. get them off the roadways if they were in a position to leave. you know, we just got to learn the lessons from this. and they're hard lessons. and every situation manifests itself differently. it's not always the same way. we have always had emergency plans in place. sometimes they're adequate. sometimes they're not. let me ask keith, though, to talk about the situation with the 18-wheelers. >> thank you, governor. yes, after the 2011 event, which was really a totally different event. that event started at night on like a sunday night, monday mortga morning. we had 5 inches of accumulation very quickly, ice pack and we didn't get above freezing for four days. different event than today. to compare the two it's not necessarily totally fair. but what we did do after 2011 in legislation is 2011 we actually noticed that trucks were a problem and we continue to work on that. so, we actually got a statute passed that said we would require chains on tractor-trailers if we signed them into the region. that statute was passed. it's very difficult to do that. have you to understand, interstates are built to move commerce. looking at the event at 4:00, 5:00 in the morning and knowing we were looking for dustings, light dustings, maybe up to 2 inches would not have changed our response. as the governor said for us, at the department of transportation, we wouldn't have changed anything because we were still expecting heavy accumulation south of georgia. whether two hours north of cherokee or one hour north of cherokee. we could not have repositioned any of our folks. so, i don't know that we could have activated that. that's something we'll work with the department of public safety on and try to determine when's the best time to make that call to require tractor-trailers to have chains and when they come into the area they have the ability to have the traction and not have the impacts. >> reporter: were you able to stop any of the trucks coming in? at the point in time where everything was just shut down, are you able to stop the tractor-trailers from coming back into town? >> we started posting signage early yesterday afternoon advising tractor-trailers they should have chains. many did have chains. most of them do have chains as a part of their actual systems. so, we started doing that. we did not make it a mandatory event. we talked with the colonel about maybe in the next event what we would do differently and how we might could make that call. >> reporter: talk about your communication of strategy. did you or anybody have a conversation before this all happened to anticipate the possibility that on weekday, on a work day, that you might have what seems to be the catalyst, which is everybody hitting the roads at once, the communication to avoid that? >> i don't know if we went down to that level of planning. we take ever scenarios into play. in 2008 we had a similar event, people trying to get home from, work d a lot of walking. you try to take into consideration any options or do any scenarios. those are always taken -- yesterday, as i mentioned with the governor in speaking to him, it was challenging for us, again, that congestion did not allow us to get out and do the treatment. and i would second his notion that, you know, the actual delay of us getting out there was driven by the traffic. and, the -- >> reporter: i'm talking about communication with drivers. communication to the general public. don't go out on the roads. there seems to be little snippets in a broadcast here or a press release there. but never this, you know, getting to the bully pulpit and saying, stay off the roads tomorrow, folks. did you have that conversation? >> no. >> reporter: i was surprised when everyone -- >> reporter: we heard from people who call us, who e-mail us, you're looking at people coming from the 1982 storm, atlanta citizens, long-time citizens who say, we've been through this before, we saw this in '82, the storm was coming in and everybody was in the work day, nine, ten, 15-hour drive. the question we keep hearing over and over, why don't we learn anything in this state? why is it we're so caught offguard apparently every time one of these storms hits? >> i think we do need to drese that a little bit. having been through the 2011 experience, which was four days, we are far more activated faster than we ever were in '11. i was alive in '82, but i wasn't leading anything. so, the question is, there is no question if you go back to 2011 and you all pull all of your film, that the first two days we didn't do anything. and i take my share of blame. we started sanding at 9 a.m. after the alert. on sand and gravel. so, we fully mobilized all of our equipment, and we started partnering with the state by 10:00, 11:00 a.m. now, i understand people are frustrated and angry, but, you know, i couldn't stand here knowing that i was here in '11 and everybody thought the first two days of '11 was funny. it was like -- because it was sunday night when it happened. five inches came, 4 inches came. everybody knew the first two days were off. by the third day, i can tell you, it wasn't funny anymore. and you all didn't think it was funny. we're in day one. we're at about hour 16 right now. 120 pieces of state equipment have been mobilized. the national guard has been mobilized. the city of atlanta has been running 12-hour shifts. we've been running our spreaders and sanders nonstop. the issue is, and people are going to stop feeling frustration when we get people out of cars on the interstates. and, you know, i'll take credit -- i'll take credit or blame for my statement. we made a mistake by not staggering when people should leave. so, i'll take responsibility for that. we should -- lessons learned, because i know folks want to know that we're at least learning from this. please, remember, we're definitely better than we were in '11, and faster. but if we had it to do again, we would have said, schools, you go out, you go first. private sector businesses, you go second. and government goes last. so, i think that that would have helped and we should have been much clearer on our need to access the roads. >> reporter: mayor, that's why i think people are frustrated about -- >> reporter: to be proactive rather than reactive. >> we're going to break away from this press conference involving atlanta's mayor and the governor of the state of georgia, nathan deal. hello, i'm carol costello. >> i'm brooke baldwin. good afternoon to a lot of you on the east coast. my goodness. i think the word that comes to mind is mess. that's putting it nicely. >> i think it was apocalyptic. >> these are pictures we continue to see in the metro atlanta area. this is the story of the day. a lot of people outside the georgia area are shaking their heads wondering how this could happen with 2 inches of snow. let me tell you, people within atlanta are shaking their heads, wondering the compacted same thing up. just heard from the governor and the mayor specifically. and we'll play a part of your interview with mayor kasim reed. you were tough and rightly so. there is a lot that comes to blame deflection when it comes to city and state. first, chad myers is on the phone. we sent you to new orleans because of the icy cold conditions there. little did we know the story would be back here, cnn world headquarters in atlanta. i want you to respond to the city officials and statewide officials who constantly say, nope, they got it wrong. the meteorologists got it wrong. the national weather service got it wrong. we didn't know it would be this bad. your response. >> the forecast was 1 to 2 inches, brooke. we got 2.3. if that's wrong, then i take credit for being wrong. but at 2.3, when i said 1 to 2, i think so that's okay. and it came down at a time, at 1:00 to 2:00, when everybody tried to leave at the same time. and the mayor and the governor both had it right just now when they said we should not have let everybody out at the same time. on a normal friday, if i ring a bell at 2:00 in atlanta and i say, go, and everybody has to leave their house and leave their building and leigh their work to go and get their kids, to go to school, do whatever, you'll have a three-hour backup. no question on a regular, sunny day. >> but here's the thing -- here's the thing, chad. okay, so governor deal said that he -- you know, he can't predict mother nature. we didn't know. somebody blew that whistle for everyone to go home at the same time. and the governor and mayor seem to be blaming you guys, the meteorologists, because you didn't predict the precise time that it would get nasty here in atlanta, georgia. >> you know, that's right. we said between noon and 3:00. and it happened at 1:30. so, we really did miss that one. >> you know, i just -- it boggles the mind. something else to ask you about, because i know you know about these things. the salting of the road. everyone i spoke to today did not see one salt truck on the roadways. now, mayor kasim reed insists they started spreading salt on the roadways at 9:00. now, it did start snowing until about, oh, 1:00, per se, right? at that time everybody left. which meant the salt trucks couldn't get through the traffic to resalt the roads. what effect do you think that had, chad? >> well, i grew up in buffalo. let me tell you, when we knew snow was coming, the roads were white before it snowed. because they salted the heck out of everything when they knew snow was coming so that those first snowflakes didn't stick at all. and we had a good brine. this is an issue where nobody wants to take responsibility. these are my streets. no those are your streets. we don't care of the interstates. someone has to do everything at some point in time. but of the thousands of miles of roads in atlanta, we simply have never purchased the amount of equipment necessary. why would you in a city that gets one snow event every three years, why would you buy 500 snowplows and salt trucks and have them sit around for 1,000 days, waiting for the next event? that's the issue. we just don't have the ability to salt like a northern city does. >> here's my next question, before everyone really begins the monday morning-quarterbacking process. we're still in this. there are still am, many, many cars stuck on the highways. as i'm looking at the clock. it's just noon in atlanta right now. we're about six hours away from when the sun begins to set. i walked into work today. it's icy. it is snowy. i wonder if this is going to go into day two. >> absolutely. without a question, 285 on the north side of atlanta, especially westbound, trying to get from 85 all the way over to 75 on the north, it's an east-to-westbound road, it's still stopped and those cars have been stopped for 22 hours. and they are simply not going. and half the cars are abandoned in front of all the cars that can go. so, there's no way to get those abandoned vehicles out of the way except one tow truck at a time. there are hundreds of cars on every hill in atlanta that just couldn't get up last night. at 10:00 it was down to 17 degrees. snow turned into ice. every time a car ran into a little bit of snow, it pack the it down and made it more slippery. oh, yeah, still a couple more days to go. i'm worried about those stuck in cars without medication, babies without diapers, babies without medication. we're looking at 24 hours from now, pretty soon to when they possibly got stuck without medication. i know we have one fatality but i'm concerned with people in those cars running out of gas, running out of heat and running out of hope. >> luckily they finally called in the national guard late last night. the national guard on the highway. interestingly enough, they're passing out mres to drivers so they have something to eat. the problem is, have you these giant tractor-trailers. some are broken down. some are jack-knifed so the cars can't get past them. the salt trucks have to get up to these trucks to put salt on the roads so the trucks can begin moving. until that happens, no one's going anywhere. >> correct. and i -- the epitome of a salt truck in atlanta is two guys. one guy in the front of a pickup, one guy in the back of a pickup with a shovel and a pile of salt. and they drive around the streets. they shovel the shovel with a little salt and spread it behind the pickup truck. that's the way atlanta gets salt on some of its roads. it's a ridiculous situation. and in buffalo, this doesn't happen. everybody's home and having dinner last night in buffalo. but atlanta, because they didn't salt the streets ahead of time enough and they don't have equipment to do 4,000 miles worth of roads all at one time, this is what we're in right now. >> the word we missed yesterday was staggering. staggering the schools. staggering the government agencies. staggeringle businesses. leaving and making sure the timing of the few snowplows we do have. listen, i'm from atlanta. this isn't something we experience. i get that, okay? but it should have been done differently and blame should be taken. and it doesn't sound like it is yet. the frustration, i hear it from you on social media, from our own colleagues who were stuck in this -- chad mentioned mothers in cars with baby. how about the lady who gave birth with the sandy springs police officer and the father with help to get to the hospital with baby grace. by the way, baby grace is apparently doing okay. we look at these pictures and -- you think of people in california who oftentimes don't get rain. there are different situations. i'm sure some people can relate to this. we hope at the end of the day you can't. we hope this is a one-time thing. >> wouldn't it be nice to hear some politician say, you know what, we screwed up. i don't know what we were thinking. but we really need to work together better. we need to communicate better. no one is saying that. governor deal is blaming meteorologists. mayor kasim reed sort of accepted responsibility. he said he's not responsible for the highways. he's responsible for the city of atlanta. we'll talk to russel honore, who knows about disasters, gets troops in and out after katrina. ashleigh banfield will pick occupy that conversation. stories coming in as people sleep in home depots, under blankets, using toilet paper as a pillow. that's coming up. 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