Members of the National Guard assist stranded motorists in Georgia on Jan. 30.

On Jan. 28, a rare winter storm covered Georgia with only two inches of snow and ice, but the effects were devastating. The snow managed to bring a virtual halt to Georgia’s freeways and left many children stranded in schools overnight, though in other locations the mere inches of snow would have been part of an ordinary winter routine.

Thousands of students were forced to sleep in school gyms Tuesday night while others were trapped in school buses headed home, and still more Georgian commuters were trapped in their cars on the highways for over 24 hours without food or water. Two days later, on Jan. 30, over 2,000 vehicles still lay littered on freeways in the Atlanta area, waiting for the National Guard to help.

“I’m not going to look for a scapegoat,” said Georgia governor Nathan Deal on Jan. 30, in his statement to Fox News. “I am the governor. The buck stops with me. I accept the responsibility for it, but I also accept the responsibility of being able to make corrective actions as they come into the future.”

He further promised that Georgia will take more weather related precautions in the future.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed also accepted some responsibility for the impassable gridlock that gripped interstates Tuesday afternoon. He acknowledged that he made a mistake in not staggering the release of school children and other commuters.

Despite the winter storm warning issued around 3 a.m. the morning of the storm, the governor continues to insist that the storm was unexpected and that it would have been impossible to predict the degree of the storm’s impact.