Another dispatch from the Southern Front, from Daughter2’s hotel-room bunker:

“Good Morning. Still staying at the hotel. There is a good chance the roads won’t clear today. I’m sharing a room with a nice woman that used to work for a brokerage firm I’ve worked with (the firm, not her specifically). I got the room last night so she went ahead and reserved it for tonight just in case we need it. A woman came in last night with two small boys that were sick. She couldn’t pay for a room so someone else took care of it. There has been a lot of bunk sharing as all the rooms have a pull out couch. Some people had planned to be here for business and have been great about sharing toothpaste and what not. About the best experience one could hope for under these circumstances.

Some people are going to try the roads today, but a rescue crew stopped in for coffee and said the roads are not just iced over (2 inches of ice in Odenville), but 65, 280, 459 are all parking lots. Cars that died or ran out of gas or wrecked. Lots of cars in ditches and a few in the river. There was a 12 car pile up at Clairmont, downtown I think. A lot of people slept in their cars. Local business were trying to run water out to them.

I’m going to grab some breakfast. Love you lots!!!!! D2 “

She’s a few hundred yards from her office. (This was to be the first week at a new job.) The grandkid is 10 miles away with the emergency sitter who picked him up yesterday from daycare.