Power Outage in Snellville & People Driving Into Ditches

Snellville Police, Fire/EMS, and emergency dispatchers certainly had their hands full this morning.

I was at Snellville United Methodist Church when the power went out, and by the time I was out of the building, I saw several EMS and Fire vehicles, so I knew something was going on. By the time I got home, a helicopter was hovering around, so that got me curious enough to listen to the scanner feed of the Snellville Police that's available on ScanGwinnett.com

If you listen to the communication feeds and make some notes like I did, you will see what a great job all our emergency personnel do in Snellville! They can deal with anything from the mundane to the insane in minutes. It's amazing to me how calm they can remain.

So here's what I found out from the Police Scanner feed, along with some of my personal comments.

A little after 10:30 am, a power grid went down, causing most of the center of Snellville to lose power. Power failure of the traffic signals was a huge problem. Power was out from Henry Clower Blvd, areas all around Scenic Hwy/124 in Snellville up to Dogwood Road. Police were kept busy dealing with accidents and directing traffic.

The intersection of Hwy 78 and Hwy 124 is difficult even when everything's working well, but with the lights out, it was mass confusion because drivers fail to recognize that intersection as a 4-way stop if the lights are non-functional. If you read this blog regularly, you'll know that one of my pet peeves is that people don't know what to do at a 4-way stop...and those are the non-electric 4 way stops! If you take a 4-way stop that usually has traffic signals, and it doesn't have the signals due to power outtage, watch out, something BAD is going to happen! There was an accident between a moving van and a minivan at 78 and Hwy 124.

Power was restored by 11:30 am, but signals at Hwy 124 and the Snellville Pavilion shopping center needed a key to reset the light, which was flashing yellow. The light wanted to be ornery, and it wouldn't reset, so they had to call out Snellville Traffic Engineers to fix it.

All this is going on, a black Chevy Suburban was stolen, or it was broken into, in front of the Old Navy store on Hwy 124. I'm not sure which it was, I could only hear that it was "theft."

But that was not enough. A 2000 Silver Mercury vehicle was partially in a ditch on Skyland Drive near Street DeVille. The car was registered to someone with a Loganville/Grayson address. Can you believe that people make a special trip into Snellville just to drive into our ditches?!? Do they not have ditches in Loganville or Grayson? They really should get their own ditches. It's just really rude to come here and use our ditches. That's all I'm going to say about that. ;-)

So have a better day than the Snellville Police had! I still don't know why the power grid failed.

9 out of 10 Hemmorhoid Sufferers are against Speed Bumps

I was looking over the '2030 Comprehensive Plan' for the City of Snellville. You might want to take a look too, so just click here to check it out: LINK.

I was disappointed to see speed bumps/speed humps or something like them, planned for Skyland Drive in Snellville. I have a dislike of speed bumps. With each hit of the brakes and then the subsequent acceleration, it just causes more air pollution from the cars.

I'm sure they are effective in slowing traffic, but so are our Snellville Police officers. They do good work on Skyland. Really good work. I really watch my speed when I drive on Skyland, because I know speed is being checked.

There are a few other drawbacks to speed humps. They slow down emergency services' response - I don't know about you, but when I have my stroke, I want the EMS to not have to drive over speed bumps to get to me. Speedbumps slow any large vehicle like a fire truck, trash truck, and even school buses. Speed-humps are difficult for bicyclists and anyone disabled to get over and around. I know sidewalks are also in the works, so that would take away that last concern.

I was driving in Walton County the other day, near sites for new schools, and realized that the whole area is full of new growth...the school isn't built yet, but they already have their sidewalks installed. I'm wondering why nobody ever thought earlier on to install sidewalks from Britt Elementary all the way down Skyland back when the school was built? Well we can't go back in a time machine, I just thought that was strange that the sidewalks were never put in.

Regarding Skyland Drive, I see the large frontage of the properties, and the increasing traffic in the area, and I can see it as a road that will eventually be widened and even could turn Commercially zoned. I'm not saying I want that, I am just saying I see it in the cards, so to speak...due to Skyland being an 'extension' sort of, of Wisteria Drive, and that is Commercially zoned now, but it wasn't all Commercial just 11 years or so ago.

How do you feel about speed humps?