An Austerity Storm Hammers Georgia

John Nichols
The Nation
 

(Photo: AP)

In this aerial view looking at I-75 north at Mount Paran Road, abandoned cars are piled up on the median of the ice-covered interstate after a winter snowstorm Wednesday. Officials estimate that more than 2,000 cars still litter the highways. Americans are surrounded by examples of the extent to which the austerity compulsion has twisted the thinking of elected officials—December’s budget “compromise” failed to extend unemployment benefits, not just Republicans but many Democrats just voted for a Farm Bill that cuts aid for the hungry, states across the country are proposing to spend revenue surpluses on tax breaks for the rich and Detroit is trying to come up with a plan to avoid having to sell off its art museum.

But there will be no better example of how the austerity mindset warps the understanding of what government can and should be doing than the explanations Georgia officials are peddling for their failure to respond in a rational manner to warnings that their state was about to experience a winter storm. Instead of taking reasonable precautions such as closing schools, preparing major thoroughfares and highways, ordering truckers to use tire chains and imposing basic traffic-control measures, they allowed a nightmare scenario to play out.

With reports of deaths, thousands of stranded motorists, children stuck on school buses and trapped in schools, and commerce ground to a half, the Associated Press was describing the Atlanta metro area as “Exhibit A for how a Southern city could be sent reeling by winter weather that, in the North, might be no more than an inconvenience.” But what happened in Atlanta has more to do with the austerity mindset than snow and ice.

Weather forecasters did their job; the National Weather Service warned a day before the storm that snow on Atlanta-area roads “will make travel difficult.” And at 3:30 am Tuesday, the weather service issued a winter storm warning that cautioned against travel except in emergencies.

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