Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., remembered all too well the 27 hours he was stranded last winter on Interstate 95 with thousands of other motorists.
“My mindset changed about eight hours into this 27-hour experience,” Kaine said. “For eight hours, it was an extremely, frustrating commuter experience, and I was like, ‘Curses — when am I going to move?'”
The traffic on I-95 in Northern Virginia stretched for miles last January, with people running out of gas and freezing in their cars without any food. Close to a foot of snow fell on some areas of Virginia.
But then, Kaine said, it turned into a “survival experience.”
“When I shifted from an angry commuter to a survivalist … my mood improved because instead of just being frustrated, ‘OK — now I had a problem to solve,'” he said.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kaine described the experience, and also spoke about how there was a need for better communication from Virginia transportation officials.
Initially, there were few warnings for motorists to stay off the roads, despite the severity of the storm. He also noted that highway cameras froze in the Fredericksburg area, where he got stuck in traffic with many others on his way from Richmond to D.C.
Clear information about the situation wasn’t getting to people in their vehicles from state officials.
Kaine praised media organizations for generally getting information quickly to people.
“At WTOP, for example, where I’m getting traffic information on the ‘eights’ every day … when the news comes to you, you do a good job of telling everybody,” he said.
Kaine said he believes the most critical error made by the Virginia Department of Transportation and state officials was not communicating the need to “stay off the roads.”
For those who are driving during the winter months, Kaine had several pieces of advice.
His gas tank was about two-thirds full when he began his ordeal, he said, and that meant he often shut off his vehicle for as long as he could stay warm before starting it up again.
He said he wished he had an emergency kit in his vehicle, which he didn’t have.
But he had a cellphone, a coat, some blankets, some coffee and a Dr Pepper. Also, another motorist was kind enough to give him an orange, which they had bought during a trip to Florida.
Kaine also said he likes to get outdoors a lot, which helped him maintain his survival mode.
“Your mind just goes into a different ZIP code when you’re faced with a survival challenge,” he said. He added that he didn’t want to overstate the severity of the situation, joking he wasn’t facing a bear in the woods with a pocket knife.
With temperatures in the teens and many motorists running out of gas, he also said it was “heartwarming” to see how so many people stuck on the highway reached out to help others.
A report by Virginia’s inspector general, which came out last August, revealed glaring missteps by state agencies during the massive snowstorm in January that shut down Interstate 95 and left motorists stranded for hours.
