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The famous Raleigh Gridlock

It started snowing in Raleigh at 12 noon on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005. The roads were not treated because it was not supposed to be a bad storm. I tried to leave Raleigh at 2 p.m. and traffic was backed up in every direction. I could not believe my eyes. Cars were bumper to bumper. I saw a man at a bus stop who looked very cold. I gave him a ride. Even though we weren’t moving, we were warm.

It took me five hours to get three miles. I saw wrecks everywhere. I saw school buses that just could not make it. I saw two buses of children at 9 p.m. The children got off the school bus with their little book bags and marched down the sidewalk. Parents panicked, drivers panicked, and cars were overheating and running out of gas. People were getting out of their cars, walking around talking to other people in cars.

And wouldn’t you know it? Cell phones wouldn’t work. After seven hours I put my passenger from the bus stop out. I still had 20 miles to go. I prayed a lot.

Every way I tried to go the police would not let me through due to a wreck.
Then I decided to take the long way around Raleigh. The roads were all a sheet of ice. I drove up to the top of a hill on Durant Road. At the bottom of the hill was a wrecked car graveyard. There were two ladies sitting in their car looking down the hill. I said, “Well, what are you going to do?”

“We are scared,” they said.

“I am, too,” I said. I took a deep breath and decided to try it. “It’s me and you Lord, tell me what to do.”

I drove down the hill and when I got to the bottom around and around I went. Finally, the car straightened out, and I could see the two ladies at the top of the hill watching me. I kept driving. I got to my home in Youngsville at 4:15 a.m.

The Raleigh gridlock had made national news.

Linda Waiden
Youngsville
Wake EMC

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