Winter Storm William Tecumseh Sherman

Atlanta (CNN) -- When snow only three fingers deep triggers an epic traffic jam, stranding motorists and school kids on interstates for hours, there's something very wrong with this picture.

Two inches of snow isn't supposed to turn highways into campsites. Backups aren't supposed to last all day, through the night, and into the following morning.

And yet, here they were -- hundreds of motorists across Alabama and Georgia -- still hunched over in their cars Wednesday morning, feeling the aftereffects of a snow shower that hit the states a day earlier.

This morning, one of the Weather Channel dudes said that he walked 4.5 miles into work because the roads were impassable. They were covered in ice.

There's this modern technology called "weather forecasting" and, compared to decades ago, the short-term forecasts are usually pretty good. In places where they have weather like this, school administrators will cancel school and not have the kids come in so that they don't get stranded at school.

How many salt/brine/sand trucks do they have in the metro Atlanta area? And if they do have any, do they have enough stuff to treat the roads? I'm betting they don't. The usual method for dealing with snowstorms that far south is "wait for it to melt." Hell, even as far north as St Louis, they do that and they have for many decades (only now that the "snowflake millenials" are of voting age is that city considering changing that policy).

If the weather is going to be beyond the local ability to cope with it, stay the fuck home, people. You wouldn't be out going to work or school in a hurricane, would you? A bad winter storm isn't a hell of a lot different (other than the strong winds and flooding).