Stuck in storms driving to WDW?

[SandraC]

Hi all! Anyone ever been stuck in a rain/snow/other storm while driving to WDW from Ontario? S

 

[nepean]

We have driven 10 times from Ottawa to WDW
in January. We have had freezing rain, snow
and everything in between.

If the storm is in the Carolina's the road
conditions deteriorate very quickly since
they don' t have the equipment to handle
it. On the other hand most natives stay
home and we have found that the only
people on the roads are from Canada,
New York or Pennsylvania.

The storms we have experienced have
slowed us down but not too much.
We have hit them all on the way home
except in 1998 when we left Ottawa
the first day after the major ice storm.
The roads were really bad until Syracuse.
If you have any questions please e-mail.

Linda
Nepean

 

[cassmat]

Oh yes we have done that!! December 25, 2000, we left right after lunch, got to New York, had seen no snow, then got hit and hard!! Our wipers quit working, thank goodness hardly anybody was on the road. We pulled off the highway and NOTHING was opened. I prayed harder then i ever had in my life, and all of a sudden, the wipers started!! Oh what a releif!!
Another time we decided to stop in Myrtle Beach on the way home from WDW. The first snow they had had in 12 years, and the mall was closed, and none of the locals knew how to drive in the snow.

 

[TimNDansMom]

Sandra, Dh and I were just talking about this! On our way home (I 75) this past Jan. 5, we stopped in Knoxville for the night at our Sleep Inn reservation only to be told that there was storm coming overnight, by the clerk at the desk. We had heard about a possible storm earlier in the week but you know how it is...it's soon forgotten. I hardly slept that night as I watched the storm close in. There were very few staying over at the hotel that night....all the smart ones had probably driven right through.

It was a winter wonderland the next morning with a thick layer of snow on everything. The roads hadn't been plowed and were very crunchy, but we took it slow and eventually met up with a snowplow/sander in another county. There were many vehicles just stopped in the middle of the road, stuck. I was never so glad to get out of those mountains!

We decided that we would have been better off to have either stayed another night in Orlando or just driven right through before the storm hit. Of course these types of situations vary, but I'd definitely pay more attention to the weather forecasts at that time of year!

 

[SandraC]

We used to drive to North Bay every other weekend (before the kids) in every possible weather condition. I was wondering about the weather driving to WDW in March. S

 

[abbyndrewmom]

We drove through a really bad storm in Alabama one year on the way to Panama City and they actually had the natl guard out shoveling off the highway they had no snow removal equipment.

I've driven down many, many times and use to live in the south, only one time were we ever "stuck" on the side of the road. I was a teenager with my parents and luckily (or unluckily for my dad who was driving) we were towing a trailior anyway when they closed the road we were able to get off at the exit and park in the parking lot of an all night restaurant. We had a nice night as we had heat and everything the poor people stuck in there cars didn't look nearly as happy.

Allison

 

[Gdoody]

We generally make it a policy not to drive after October or before April, namely because you never know with the weather. Unfortunately, this has not stopped us from being caught in inclement weather. Last September we were chased out of Orlando by Tropical Storm Gabrielle. The driving was not too bad as we managed to stay just in front of the worst until we turned inland at I26.

The worst experience was in September 1993, when during our drive down through I79, just outside of Pittsburgh, the sky turned black, and I mean midnight black at 3:00 PM in the afternoon. I do not remember too much except a couple of vivid memories. 1) many cars pulled off of the road under underpasses, 2) the storm lasting only about 30 minutes with buckets of rain, and hail, and 3) a poor little frog in the middle of the highway, just wondering why all of these cars were invading his river. Caught in the beam of my headlights, I still cannot get the image of those beady eyes out of my mind, even today.