ATLANTA — The South Alabama women’s basketball team left Mobile on Tuesday morning for a routine road trip to Georgia State. The Lady Jaguars did not reach their Atlanta hotel until 24 hours later, after a night stranded on an iced-over interstate and a final walk of roughly a mile on foot.
The team departed campus at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday as a winter storm began moving into the Southeast and arrived at the hotel at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Snow From Greenville On
The bus first ran into snow near Greenville, Ala., and the weather continued as the team traveled toward Montgomery. The Lady Jaguars had planned a lunch stop in Montgomery, but most restaurants had closed. A Chick-fil-A that was about to shut its doors agreed to let the team come in and eat.
Flurries began after the bus crossed into Georgia, and about 40 miles from Atlanta the team began seeing snow on the roads. Traffic was still moving at that point. It did not begin to back up until the bus reached downtown Atlanta, and it came to a standstill as the team approached the exit for Georgia 400.
Sliding Across Six Lanes
Head coach Terry Fowler described the scene to AL.com. He said warning signs about icy conditions were posted everywhere and that trucks and buses were not attempting the Georgia 400 overpass, so the team planned to take the next exit and circle back to the hotel. By then, he said, the roadway was in total gridlock.
Fowler said that while the bus sat in the far right lane, the slope of the road caused it to slide across all six lanes to the far left lane without hitting another vehicle.
“We don’t touch anybody. All those cars,” Fowler told AL.com.
Around 8 p.m., the bus was stuck on an overpass. At about 9:30 p.m., Fowler said, an ambulance responding to a call tried to get through the traffic, slid, and stopped about an inch from the team’s bus. The ambulance crew turned off its lights and waited until the bus was able to inch forward and give it room to move.
Driver Praised
The team’s bus driver, Millie Hawkins of Cleveland, Ohio, previously worked for Greyhound for several years.
“Her experience came into play,” Fowler told AL.com. “She was calm, cool and collected the entire time. She was unbelievable.”
As the hours passed and the bus moved only a few feet at a time, the players and staff accepted that they would spend the night aboard and tried to sleep.
A Stranger Brings Food
At about 2 a.m., a man who identified himself only as Jason stopped by the bus. He told the team that buses on Georgia 400 were stuck against the guardrails and asked whether anyone had eaten. When told they had not, he returned to his car and brought peanut butter crackers, chips and other snacks, and he declined to accept payment. He also said he would return later Wednesday with more food if the team was still there.
By morning, Atlanta 511 response crews were working the area and helped get the bus moving again. The bus soon reached another stretch where only two lanes were passable and stalled cars could not climb a hill.
Walking to the Hotel
With the hotel nearby, Fowler and other team officials walked the route first to make sure it was safe. The walk took about 25 minutes, and they returned to the bus to lead the players to the hotel on foot. The driver reached the hotel with the bus about two hours later.
The team went directly to breakfast on arrival, then slept through most of the afternoon before a 3 p.m. study hall and dinner.
USA Athletics Director Joel Erdmann stayed in contact with the team by phone throughout the ordeal. Erdmann was also in contact with Georgia State officials, who had a fallback plan in place to assist the South Alabama team if needed.
Games Rescheduled
The Lady Jaguars’ game at Georgia State is scheduled to tip off at 3:30 p.m. Central on Thursday, and the team will return home afterward. South Alabama then hosts Arkansas-Little Rock on Saturday at the Mitchell Center.
The South Alabama men’s basketball team never left Mobile, and its game at Georgia State has been rescheduled for Monday at 6 p.m.
