"The state Department of Transportation insists it has thrown 445 trucks at the snowstorm to sand and plow across the state."

I like projo.com's use of the word "insists." I didn't see any plows either. I also didn't see any police managing traffic. Another great job by our state and municipal workers!

I have a crew coming in from Narraganset. They
left at 2:30-it is now 8:00 and they are not back
yet. The is just like the blizzard of '78. You'd think they would have learned something from it!!

Almost six hours to get from Waltham. An hour and a half of that was getting around the jam in Pawtucket. Just as you thought you were home....

another botched job by the DOT...What were they thinking? The storm wasn't exactly a surprise...

As a parent I am appalled and outraged at what I saw on the news this evening regarding Providence school children not only stranded at school but also in buses on local roads for over 6 hours. These are elementary school students who have been sitting in a bus for hours, most of which are to young to have a cell phone to contact a parent or relative. They are without food, drinks or even a restroom. Why hasn't the Mayor of Providence held some kind of news conference or something to update what I am sure are concerned parents? When speaking to the person representing the school department she had no explaination as to why this happened nor could she say just how many children were involved. I hope that someone will be held accountable for this and that the Mayor and school officials will publically apologize to all the parents and the students involved in this situation. I know if it were one of my children I would be looking for an explaination!!!

I have not seen a single plow in the Elmhurst section of Providence all day (it's almost 9pm). At the corner of Smith and River a car was left abandoned at 3pm in the middle of the road as if waiting for a red light. Numerous cars, trucks and buses struggled all day to climb the hill on Smith Street by the Newport Creamery. By 4pm local businesses had plowed parking lots leaving mounds of snow on public streets making conditions worse.

Considering all the traffic and delays there was also no police at heavier intersections to monitor traffic especially during school closings.

This may have been a wake up call to years of mild winters in the area, however lack or readiness is inexcusable.

It leaves one to wonder if this was a more severe non-weather emergency, if the State is ready for the task, my opinion is no.

Where are the plowS??????? Why are we paying taxes?

ONE WOULD THINK AFTER 29 YEARS THIS STATE WOULD HAVE LEARNED SOMETHING FROM THE 78 BLIZZARD, BUT NO HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN, INSTEAD OF BEING THE SMALLEST STATE IN THE UNION WE SHOULD BE KNOWN AS THE DUMBEST STATE IN THE UNION CAN'T BELIEVE IT TOOK 5 HOURS FROM PAWTUCKET TO COVENTRY, COME ON RI WAKE UP AND GET WITH IT....

leave it to the state of Ri to have people panic about ab upcoming storm; then when it hits the roads are a nightmare. took my dad over 2and half hours from cranston to johnston! its really pathetic; where are the plows? i seen one at the gas station filling up and the only other ones i seen were doing empty parking lots!! -

It took me 6-1/2 hours to get from West Greenwich to East Providence. I saw one plow. The woman in the next car was crocheting.

I used to live in RI and now I live in Florida. I do miss the snow but not driving in it. I hope everyone there gets home safe.

Just goes to show you how years of corruption and poor city planning can cripple a city, if not the entire State.

I'm surprised projo failed to note how bad the situation was for people using RIPTA for transportation! I got out of school at 12:30, all the buses that came were either not letting people on or just passed by us (not just the packed ones, but even half-empty ones too!)--at one point, a bus (that wasn't even full) stopped at the bus stop, opened the door, and yelled "We're not letting anyone on!". We, who were waiting for nearly 2 hours for a bus, were asking why and the bus driver just rudely repeated himself and drove away.

The scene at Kennedy plaza was a mess. I bet you nearly HUNDREDS of people were waiting for buses to actually let them on for 1-2 hours tops. My friend and I gave up and started walking home, when finally a 22 stopped and let us on.

Honestly, in my opinion, we all would've been a LOT less angry and frustrated if someone actually TOLD us what was going on with the buses, rather than leaving us clueless, cold, frozen and wet, waiting for buses that just passed by us. What a bad experience I had.

I've had the most unnecessarily harrowing day of my life. The state of RI has literally risked my life and thousands upon thousands of others by doing nothing to manage the snow on our roadways today. This was MUCH WORSE than '78 because every plow operator in NE knew the storm was coming. I spent 8+ hours going from the MA border on 146 to Barrington. I was one of the lucky few eventually able to escape sleeping in my car on 95 by cutting across Providence to 195. The only plow I saw was at the 7 hour mark and after the final 1 hour of 195 being completely and inexplicably shut down... 1 single plow. Oh yes, and he had to wait as well... Someone should answer for this man-made disaster of unprecedented proportions...

This is a disgrace. I saw people at RIPTA bus stops crying b/c the buses where NOWHERE to be found. WTF is up with the head of the RI DOT? As usual, government has failed its citizens. No surprises there!

I left Rhode Island Hospital at 3:40 pm and arrived at my Warren, RI home at 7:30 pm. I managed to get off 195 E at the Warren Ave. exit at 6:45 pm. I was driving my husband's 4-wheel drive vehicle which had plenty of gas and wiper fluid in it before I left this morning. I honestly believe some burden lies with drivers who don't gas up and maintain their vehicles and who also are quite reluctant to drive courteously...there are lots of alpha dogs out there with no place to go but a major traffic jam... and what about tires! For travelers on 195- E, the I-way clearly doesn't help. The merges worsened the traffic tonight for certain.

I was out Christmas shopping when the snow began. I had to drive the length of North Main Street in Providence and up Smith Street to where I live in North Providence. It was incredibly slippery and at one point as I approached the finall hill on Smith Street, I was barely making traction. I saw no plows, no sand trucks and the snow was several inches deep. And I was lucky, I made it home in about half an hour. This reminds me of the Blizzard of '78 -- too little, too late. There is no excuse for the traffic jams and incrediblely long delays. The plows and sand trucks should have been out much earlier. Thank you Mayor Cicillini and DOT for proving that our officials never learn from the past.

Welcome to the world of budgetary restraint. You want your child to have special ed? You want to bring up that elderly relative from the islands to receive public monies? You want the doctor to write you a note to extend your TDI even if you know you can work? This, my friend is where we are headed. You might want to dust off your copy of "Atlas Shrugged".

this is the first storm we didn't have snow plows on our street, narragansett blvd in cranston until hours into the snow and never did we get any sand or salt on the road so it is going to be a mess of ice on the road now. somebody has given the wrong direction because this never happened in the past. this needs to be looked into for sure. cars were sliding all over infront of my house tonight. many going way to fast for the condition of the roads too.

I have been on the phone with my sister (I am in Philadelphia) since after 3:30 PM today. Her office FINALLY decided to let employees go home at that time. She is JUST getting on to the Route 6/10 connector. It is now almost 10PM! There are abandoned cars EVERYWHERE. It is like a science fiction movie. For hours she was behind a car with several children. While ambulances and emergency vehicles were trying to use the emergency lane...people were failing to yield the right of way....WHAT THE HECK are you people doing? Seems to me that this is not just a civil problem...but criminal. Lives are at risk with this nonsense. If I were a citizen of RI, I would insist on criminal charges! This is shameful.

When are you Rhode Islanders finally going to realize that government is a disgrace and cannot do anything correctly?

The welfare state has failed.

It took my dad 7 hours to get from Providence to Coventry. He left work in Pawtucket at 2 and didn't come home til 8:30. And he's diabetic, so it wasn't good.. Thankfully he's some safe!!

I spent 4+ hours on 295 north. That was only part of my trek home.. In that time I did not see a single plow on either 295 north or south. North bound was completely stopped but southbound there was very little traffic and yet still not a plow.. What gives?

Just another blob in our already depressed state!!
No plows,police or for that matter any one who gives a dam!!!
It is so a disgrace that such a beautiful state is so ugly!!!!!

Hour-by-Hour Forecast for
Daytona Beach, FL

Thu, December 13

11pm Partly Cloudy
67°F

i was shocked to not see many plows on the road.

I am disturbed about the kids who were on school buses for six hours. That is terrifying to me, as a mom to be! I fortunately was able to go home over the East side. I work at Miriam and live in Barrington. Those roads were not too bad, but were a little easier to go on since there was virtually no traffic there. I hope that next time, preparations will be better. I also think school and work should be canceled tomorrow. People have had a bad enough day!

The simple fact is that today's traffic jams are a direct result of the RIDOTs and the City of Providence's failure to enact any preventative measures to ensure that such a public health hazard would not occur. The snow started at 1030 AM. The interstates had not seen a plow at 3PM. This is inexcusable. The interstates had not been salted. Inexcusable. In a seven hour trek from NK to Providence I saw 4 plows - 3 of which were in rapid succession. Traffic was moving around 3 MPH which would mean that there were roughly 12 miles between plows. That's fantastic. I've ranted enough, so I won't even get into the fact that the corner of North Main and College Street was at a dead stop for over an hour. Suffice it to say that the head of RIDOT should be fired immediately and Cicciline (sp?) should stop making excuses and own up to the City's failure.

I just typed 'control F' as means of searching for the governor's name somewhere in the story. The system returned a wry 'carcieri not found' - ironic that the next senator or congressman or whatever-office-it-is that king donald has begun campaigning for with his current photo-op in iraq is "FIXING" things elsewhere. it's just like this ego-centric buffoon to be avoiding tending to the day-to-day issues people elected him for and to be pushing a personal "get-donald-ahead" agenda instead.

You tell me that we weren't warned that snow was going to fall at 1-3" per hour. The plow trucks should have been out in force at the first snow flakes,shoveling, sanding and salting. Someone in charge f...... up and should be held accountable.

I think I broke the record. I left work at 1:50 PM (cranston) and made it home at 10:49 PM (pawtucket). I was one of the less fortunate who's car died on the highway..I now have a greater appreciation for life!

It took me 2.5 hours to drive two and a half miles down Lonsdale Ave to Main Street in Pawtucket. My car finally gave out and quit from the stress. Yes, I had plenty of gas, my fluids were full etc.. I am sure that my car only has a simple problem while this state has a huge one. The snow came 2 hours earlier than forecasted and no one seemed to be ready. I never saw a single plow or sanding truck from when the snow began until I walked the 4.5 miles to my home. I will give NPPD props for blocking off Smithfield Road as that hill is treacherous. At least I could walk that mile up hill with dignity. I worry now that our greedy state will tow my car before I can get back to it.

Did the governor take all the plows to Iraq with him? Is anybody in charge? They all want the power, they don't do the work. Where's Cicilline in all this? Plowing the streets should be a no-brainer in New England. Throw the bums out.

I left Concord, MA at 1215 this afternoon, reached the entrance to the S curves in Pawtucket at 145, then sat and sat and sat. I finally arrived home (Providence/Cranston Line) at 910pm. Yes, that's right, it took almost 8 hours to travel a distance of 10 miles on 95 South. What a travesty. I want those hours of my life back.

THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND IS A NATIONAL DISGRACE AND THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE NATION - though 60 schoolbuses full of stranded children is no laughing matter. I am a RI native and former resident. I now live in Massachusetts, which is just as bad, if not worse than, RI. I moved to Tampa, FL in 2004 and unfortunately moved back to this region in July 2006. The apathy and lack of responsibility among the citizens of southern New England is appalling - beyond words. We are all reaping what we have sown during the past 20 years - which is NOTHING. This is what you get when you take no part in your local government, expect your elected officials to do everything for you, and take no action when a travesty like this takes place. 7" of snow paralyzes a state in a region where snow is normal???? What will happen if a blizzard hits this winter? And your governor is in IRAQ!!! Do you know that the Nat'l Guard was not even deployed tonight? Do you know that there are only 2000 Guardsmen in the state right now? I will not be surprised in the least if there is no public backlash from this absolutely outrageous situation. People will talk about it - as Rhode Islanders LOVE to do; and will scream that "somebody" should do something about it...and believe me, next big snowstorm, you'll all be in the same situation. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.

Our taxes should be paying for proper road maintenance and it is plainly evident that the management are not qualified to prepare for a snowstorm. In upper NY state (Syracuse and Buffalo) and NH, a snowstorm doesn't cripple a city. The people are able to go about their business normally because the maintenance departments do their job. There isn't even any need for early dismissal. Kids go home from school at the normal times and there's no massive gridlock. Why can't we model our snowstorm plans on their models? Why the early work and school dismissals that causes problems with too many cars on the road? Normal dismissal combined with better, earlier road maintenance would go a long way to preventing these 'disasters'. Citizens deserve better for our taxes.

You have got to be kidding me with the performance of the the RI DOT today. You would have though an atomic bomb dropped on 95 with the amount of abandon cars, it was a nightmare. I took 5 1/2 hours from East Greenwich to Providence. I am a New Yorker and have experience storms WAY worse than this never had an commute as frustrating and dangerous as my drive home today. I didn't see a single plow the entire way home from work, except plowing a parking lot (and the one plowing in my driveway). Someone needs to be held accountable and my heart goes out to those poor kids trapped on the buses the whole day.

here is what is pathetic. I live in Providence but work in Brockton. In Rhode Island there were no plows on the road, the roads were impassable, and cars were abandoned. As soon as I hit the Mass border it was smooth sailing with dry pavement. How could this be? Remember 1979 when I-95 was closed in RI and smooth sailing from the Mass line onward. Perhaps the Department of Transportation should spend a bit of money and take a field trip to Massachusetts and see how they line up sanders and plows and clean the pavements and plow the roads.

28 years later and still just as much incompetence!!

It seems to me that the History of Blizzard of 78 is repeating itself. RIers didnt learn their lesson. And We are in the same mess that we were in 29 years ago. Everyone is let out at the same time so that we are stuck in a gridlock. Geez. It took me 2.5 hours to go from Cranston to Providence. The worst of it was in the Elmhurst Neighborhood.

RIDOT can "insist" all they like about how many plows they made available. The fact of the matter is that I left Boston at 1:30pm and got home to Rumford at around 9:15pm. In all that time, in both MA and RI, traveling on I-93 and I-95 I saw a sum total of 0 plows until I was 1 mile from home. Beyond that, the police, both State and local, were conspicuously absent. This was an unmitigated disaster - a testament to poor planning and even worse policing. This storm was forecast well in advance. So these response teams presumably had the opportunity to plan accordingly. What is truly terrifying is that, with all this talk of terrorism and our preparedness, this sorry state of affairs shows that these clowns couldn't find their way out of a paper bag, let alone deal effectively with some major and unanticipated disaster, natural or otherwise! After all the hoopla, there will be the usual diet of "we"ll learn lessons from this" etc. etc. The bottom line is they let the storm get out in front of them, scrambled miserably and failed to catch up, did an incredibly poor job of communicating and will have the audacity and arrogance to offer neither apology nor accept responsibility for their ineptitude. And this is our best and brightest at work? God help us!!! Is this the United States or some third world outpost?

Only took me 4 hours to get from RIC to Broadway and Portland St. Way to Go Ocean STATE DOT!!!!!! This is NEW ENGLAND, not the deep SOUTH.

I used to live in RI but now I live in Alabama. It's 1:24 a.m. local time and the temp is hovering around 61 degrees. No snow down here! have fun shoveling tomorrow!

It took me an hour to get from Lincoln to my workplace on Silver Spring street, and I consider myself lucky. I have been watching cable news 6 all night and I am appalled at the way this whole thing was handled! The mayor stated that the plows had been out sanding since early today, and I call BS! It is so obvious that nothing was done to prepare for this storm, all you have to do is look outside, watch the news coverage, and talk to anyone who was out in it. Someone's got some 'splainin to do! AND ps.. I just can't get used to seeing Buddy on TV without his toupee. Be safe, everyone!

This is by far the worst response to a storm I have ever experienced. The state of RI should be ashamed; they needlessly risked lives with their incompetence and poor planning. I'm considering leaving the state after this latest, of many, failures of state government. By the way, our state leadership should be fired; should such a mechanism exist..

While our governor pontificates in Iraq; which incidentally is destroying our economy while degrading into a civil war of biblical proportions, the State of RI suffers. This is the worst failure of state government I have experienced in 30 years. No sanding, no plows visible; life at risk. The state leadership should hang their heads in shame.

This was a total incompetent disaster by all State and Local DOT officials, School Departments, and Emergancy Planning Directors regarding how this storm was handled, Where was Lt. Governor Roberts? Who is in charge and responsible while the Governor is away in Iraq? And why did the Major of Providence wait so long to get help out to those school children stuck on buses? This State is run by IDIOTS!! Fire all of them!!!

What were the plows doing in South Kingstown...yes they sanded and it didn't do much good, the snow was too deep and at 4 p.m. not a single scrape of the road was found. URI area was a mess without plowing and Route 1 was a disaster from Wakefield south...large ruts of snow and still they were only sanding even watching cars getting their wheels stuck in the 6-inch ruts.

If we have a hurricane and evacuation everyone had better have a helicopter because that will be the only way out of this incompetence.

It took me three hours to pick my daughter up from Stone Hill school. The Traffic was so bad and I did nt see any police helping control the traffic. Everydthing was out of control from hwy 95 to hwy 10/6 and even local road like Cranston road and Atwood Ave. Something has to get better and ready for the next storm.

As a former Providence East Side Resident now living in Rehoboth, my fist thoughts in any snow storm is to head for the border. The sooner I get out of RI and into MA the safer I feel. It's not only the road conditions, it's the traffic responding to the road conditions. Spin outs, blocking intersections and general panic and being unprepared is the norm in this part of New England. Here are just a few suggestions to the general public. Get good tires in preparation for winter, all weather, snow, whatever. Fill your gas tank before you run and get bread & milk. Make sure you have decent windshield wipers and a full tank of washer fluid. Buy a window scraper and maybe put some sand or salt and a small shovel in your car. Why go to all this trouble? Because just one or two cars that can't handle 2" of snow can bring an entire part of town to a stop. That means nobody moves. No plows, no emergency vehicle, NOBODY. Get with the program people. It's winter. Expect snow. Be responsible. Be Prepared.

It is 6:00AM and Providence has announced a one hour delay. What a joke and an insult to Providence students. Obviously the superintendent and mayor have no idea how their school transportation operates. After 60 busses were stranded, with children, until 11:00PM last night (8-10 hrs, not the “4-5” hrs that the mayor is labeling “unacceptable”) it is criminal to expect school busses to be on the roads and making regular, normal runs one hour later on the next day. These busses will be cleaned off? The bus yard plowed? Busses gassed up? Side streets, in Providence (!?) plowed and sanded? Not likely. What will happen is that students will be walking on unshoveled, slippery sidewalks, waiting to board busses from snow banks, waiting in the cold for busses who will take twice as long to complete their runs because of slippery, impassable Providence streets and arriving at their schools around lunch time. The mayor and superintendent should get in one of those Providence Police 4 wheel vehicles and follow a Providence school bus on a run this AM to see what these Providence students experience. Better yet, go to the bus yard, get on a bus at 6:00AM for the middle school runs, stay on the bus for the elementary school runs and ride around the city to see how difficult and dangerous it actually is for students, parents, bus drivers and bus monitors. Why is the superintendent afraid to make a decision for the safety of the students? A snow day is made up in June, so the issue can’t be financial. I have to go. My “Connect-Ed” message announcing the generous 1 hour delay advised that we get ready immediately and allow extra time due to the hazardous weather conditions. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT CHILDREN HERE!

i left the office at 2:30 andprovidence was locked up solid so i got off 95 after it took 2 1/2 hours to go from my office near the AAA on the Pawtucket line to downtown. Sat in a bar, had dinner, read a book, chatted on the cell. Left there at 7 - everything still locked up solid, even the back roads out of PVD. So I went back to the office, normally a ten minute drive from downtown, that took one hour. Stayed at work until 10, watching the (mostly dead) webcams. Then, it took one hour on a plowed 95 to get back to east greenwich. Interesting - the plows had managed to dump a solid 2 foot or more wall of crap where all the exits and entrances to 95 were, so there were TONS of folks unable to get from an entrance ramp onto 95. a complete boondoggle!

I left central falls @ 3:50 pm and arrived in providence @ 7:55 pm. I did not see One police officer,plow truck or any other state officer in the 3 + hours I spent in my car. I believe that if there have been police officers on the streets helping direct traffic, the gridlock would not have been half as bad. the people were making there own rules out there. going through red lights, blocking intersections. I dont blame DOT for this one. they cant plow what they can't GET to. I blame the people in charge of traffic.It BOGGLES my mind that at the biggest intersections in the state there was not one police officer to help us out. Where were they?

Hi commuters!
Funny thing is happeninig here!
First, TV weather clowns over-hype the snow fall, then everyone in a panic by the hype hits the road and the whole state is clooged up so bad that plows can't see the road, much less plow it. Then the same media blasts the way things have been handled and keeps on blahdi-bla-blahing forever about it until someone or something responsible for the whole thing can be found and cruzified.
It was almost pityful to watch the oh so valiant reporters "from the scene" trying to generate drama while standing in 2 inches of snow and desperately searching for words to repeat the same "nothing" for 5 minutes until they, mercifully, get relieved by the control room, which switches over to another poor reporter doing the same, sad thing, until we all are almost laughing!!
RI TV, will we take you seriously???
Pls stay tuned and we will tell you in an hour, during which we will bore you to death.
Oh, by the way, it will snow in the winter and traffic will be heavy.
Don't panic and things will go okay.
My own commute took a while, but i think most drivers were disciplined and did not add to the misery.
( Except for the "penile extension, 8 liter engine, V8, all wheel drive" neanderthal who almost assassinated a bunch of cars by overestimating his ability, making a private lane and then, oh wonder, sliding .....)
Happy commuting
Ciao