Extreme weather meets the peak travel period of the Spring Festival, a large number of returnees are stranded on the road, and the pressure on public transportation increases sharply. The relevant departments in various localities have taken measures at the first time to try their best to ensure travel and residents' daily life.
On February 4-5, some highways in Hubei fell into severe congestion **Courtesy of the interviewee.
Text |Gu Lingyu, Zheng Keshu, Liu Yiqin
Edit |Liu Yiqin
Since February 1, many provinces in central China have suffered the largest rain, snow and freezing weather since the beginning of winter this year, many cities in the south have first frozen rain, and then heavy snow, thick ice has formed on the road, both sides of the road are broken by ice and snow branches, high-speed rail, flights have been delayed or even canceled on a large scale, traffic jams on the highway are serious, and some rural areas have had power outages, network outages, etc.
On January 29, the Hubei Provincial Emergency Management Department issued a disaster risk reminder that from February 1 to 6, there will be a large-scale cold wave in Hubei Province, with a wide range of low temperature, rain, snow and freezing weather, long time and complex phases.
Even with early warning and early response, most people did not anticipate the impact of extreme weather so great. Master Lin, a 45-year-old native of Ningbo, Zhejiang, and his wife is from Hubei. They hadn't been back to Hubei for two years, and they had already decided on their own driving itinerary, and before leaving, they saw the news of the disaster weather warning, thinking that the situation would improve halfway, and decided to travel as originally planned. From Ningbo to his hometown in Hubei, it is a ten-hour drive under the condition of high-speed smoothness, and he thought that no matter how bad it is, he can always arrive in sixteen or seventeen hours.
On the afternoon of February 4, they set off from Ningbo as planned and drove to the Hangzhou section of the expressway, which was blocked for more than an hour. When he arrived in Anhui at eight o'clock in the evening, he found that there was a high-speed traffic jam ahead, so he took the provincial road instead. There were not many cars, but the road was icy, and there were piles of snow on both sides, so he drove slowly all night, and there was a section of the road that was icy and slippery, and he only dared to move 9 kilometers in an hour. This section of the road of more than 900 kilometers, Master Lin has been driving for 25 hours, except for sleeping in the car for more than an hour, there is almost no rest. With 90 kilometers to go, he "gritted his teeth and drove on."
From February 4th to 5th, some highways in Hubei fell into serious congestion. **Provided by respondents).
Since the beginning of February, much of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River has been shrouded in a chaotic rain and snow. In Wuhan, Hubei, rain, snow, and freezing rain alternate. In Yichang, Hubei Province, thunder and lightning are common in summer and blizzard warnings are common in winter at the same time. In the central and eastern parts of Anhui, the previous snow has not yet melted, and it has been shrouded in a new round of precipitation and snowfall. Shanghai has also fallen from the previous warm weather into a range of rain and cooling. In addition, snowfall has occurred in central and northern provinces including Ningxia, Gansu, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong, and even coastal cities such as Yantai have issued orange warnings for heavy snowfall. The scope and magnitude of this impact goes far beyond what is common in winter weather.
Extreme weather meets the peak travel period of the Spring Festival, a large number of returnees are stranded on the road, and the pressure on public transportation increases sharply. The relevant departments in various places have taken measures at the first time to try their best to ensure travel and residents' daily life, but in the face of natural disasters, most people can only wait.
Difficult way home
On the day of February 4, countless people were stranded on the road. The main cities that experienced extreme weather include Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Hefei, all of which are important transportation hubs in the central region, especially Wuhan, which ranks first in the country in terms of train passenger transfer volume and is the largest railway hub in Chinese mainland.
At 9 a.m. on February 4, Yu Jianghuai arrived at Wuhan Railway Station, he bought a ticket to Nanjing at 10 o'clock, and if everything went well, it only took 2 hours, that is, at 12 noon, he could arrive at Nanjing South Railway Station. The road was icy, and he was a little uneasy, but he didn't expect that he did arrive at Nanjing South at 12 o'clock - but at 12 o'clock that night. "At the beginning, I was told that it was only a few dozen minutes late, and I also refreshed the delay information in the 12306 software over and over again, this software is like a wolf's story, squeezing the departure time back little by little, but I can't give a real information. At 3 p.m., close to the estimated departure time displayed on the screen, Yu Jianghuai was reluctant to go down even if he just stayed in the dining area on the second floor. A man who was also sitting on a suitcase and waiting next to him began to curse that his train was scheduled to leave at 5 a.m., and after waiting for 11 hours, he was suddenly told that the train was canceled.
At this time, the high-speed rail station has begun to limit the flow, and only passengers who are within 45 minutes of the departure time can enter the station. Even so, the station was already overcrowded, looking at the crowd around him, they were all waiting in a helpless and numb posture, and Yu Jianghuai even began to question the meaning of working outside.
Wang Xin, who went to school in Nanjing, bought a high-speed train to Wuhan at 7 p.m. on February 4 from a rural village in Jingzhou, Hubei Province. On the afternoon of February 4, he arrived at Nanjing South Railway Station, the train information showed that it was three hours late, three hours later, the new notice was that it was expected to be four hours late, he checked the train information, the previous train had not even departed, he chose to refund the ticket.
Friends in his hometown told him that even if he arrived in Wuhan successfully, there would be no car to return to Jingzhou, because of the rain and snow and high-speed traffic control, almost all operating vehicles were suspended, and "the black cars were no longer alive". Wang Xin is ready to go home during the Spring Festival this year, and all high-speed rail flights show "no remaining tickets", he is worried that even if he grabs a ticket, he may not be able to go, and wants to try to find a ride.
At the same time, Wang Keshu, who planned to return to Henan from Wuhan, finally boarded the high-speed train after 4 hours of waiting, but this train was not to her home, but to other cities. However, the high-speed train that just started to depart was still moving at a speed of less than 200km h, and she watched the driving speed gradually increase after entering the territory of Henan, and finally put her mind at ease.
On February 5, train information at Hefei South Railway Station, **provided by the interviewee. ）
Also after four hours of waiting, at 9 p.m., Zhou Zhou, who was planning to travel from Shanghai to Beijing, finally boarded the high-speed train to Beijing by changing his ticket. The high-speed train, which was scheduled to depart Shanghai at 5:55 p.m. and arrive at Beijing South Railway Station at 10:35 p.m., finally arrived at Beijing South at 3 a.m. Zhou Zhou, who was reluctant to spend money on a taxi, waited at the station until dawn, when the subway began to operate before leaving.
At this time, 1,700 kilometers away, Wei Nan, who was planning to travel from Chongqing to Wuhan that day, woke up in the early morning and received a text message informing him that the ticket that had been changed once due to weather conditions had been canceled an hour earlier. There are only four hours left before the train's scheduled departure time of 8 a.m. on February 5. Wei Nan was completely sleepy, he simply ran directly to Chongqing North Railway Station, and grabbed a ticket for the departure at 7 o'clock in the morning as soon as the train was available for sale, but the happiness did not last long, until 9 o'clock in the morning, the train was still late.
According to the Hubei Railway Department, on February 4, some trains running between Hankou, Yichang, Enshi, Zaoyang and other places under the management of Wuhan Bureau were suspended, as well as some trains running between Yichang, Xiangyang and Wuhan to Zhengzhou, Nanchang, Sichuan and other places were suspended. On February 5, some trains of Wuhan Bureau were suspended, and in terms of direct (cross-bureau), 1 pair in the direction of Beijing, 6 pairs in the direction of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, 6 pairs in the direction of Shanghai and Hangzhou, and 5 pairs in other directions were suspended. All stations in Wuhan have opened special refund windows, and at the same time increased hot water and hot food**.
** out of Hankou Station, provided by the interviewee. ）
In the face of greater uncertainty in the face of railways, some people choose to change the way. On February 4, Wang Meng, who originally planned to take the high-speed train from Shanghai back to Wuhan, gritted her teeth and bought a plane ticket for 2,800 yuan after the train was canceled. She was even a little envious of her fellow villagers who had to take the train back to Wuhan in the early morning of February 9 because she couldn't grab a ticket, "I can't buy the high-speed rail at that time now, and the weather will be much better by then, and the traffic should return to normal." ”
On high speed, waiting is another kind of desperation. At 2 p.m. on February 3, Li Yi, whose destination was Changde, Hunan, drove into Hubei with a family of four from Henan, and according to the original plan, he could arrive at his hometown in Hunan at 6 a.m. on February 4. However, the reality is that part of the highway was closed in the early morning of the 4th, and he was only released after being trapped for 4 and a half hours, and then, he ran on the road for 2 whole days, "Some sections of the road even have almost no rut marks, and the bumps are particularly bad." He was worried that it would be more difficult to walk in the ice at night, so in the evening of the same day, Li Yi chose to get off the highway and take the more difficult national and provincial highways, and arrived in Jingzhou City for the night under the condition of congestion along the way. Not knowing how long the congestion would last, he took his two children around looking for gas stations to find food to avoid the situation getting worse. On February 5, in the Erguang Expressway section, due to the thick snow and icy roads, he only walked more than 30 kilometers in five hours. Until 4 p.m., when interviewed by "Caijing Eleven", he was still in Hubei Province.
Due to the impact of the heavy snowfall, some vehicles on the highway were stuck in snow. **Provided by respondents).）
According to the news of chasing waves, as of 15 o'clock on February 5, due to the freezing rain, ice and snow weather and the large flow of Spring Festival homecoming, many expressways in Hubei Province have high traffic pressure, namely: Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, Erguang Expressway, Xuguang Expressway, Shanghai-Rong Expressway, Wuhan Ring Expressway, Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway, Daguang Expressway and other sections. Among them, the Jingzhou section of the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway, the Xiaogan section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, the Hanchuan section of the Shanghai-Rong Expressway, the Jianli section of the Xuguang Expressway, and the Jingshan section have a long congestion time; The Jingshan section and Jianli section of Xuguang Expressway, the public security section of Erguang Expressway, the Jiangxia section of Wuhan-Shenzhen Expressway, the Jingzhou section of Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway, and the Jiang'an section of Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway have a long congestion distance.
Local workers in Wuhan are shoveling ice from the roads, **Courtesy of the interviewee. ）
The support work is carried out urgently
At half past eight in the morning of February 5, Liu Feijian entered the Wuhan Ring Expressway and began to jam traffic. By three o'clock in the afternoon, six or seven hours, the traffic had only moved twenty or thirty kilometers.
Along the way, he did not dare to drink water, in order to reduce the number of times he went to the toilet. There were several accidents on the side of the road, the most serious of which was when seven or eight vehicles slid and rear-ended, scattered on both sides, and the airbag of one of them was deployed.
A Wuhan citizen said that when the rain fell to **, it froze, and because the ground was frozen, many cars could not go up, "the basement, and the elevated ramp, there are drivers who get down to push the cart, and they can't push it, and many cars are blocking the indoor road." ”
Freezing rain is a kind of disastrous weather, freezing rain looks the same as ordinary raindrops, when it falls on an object with a temperature below 0, it immediately freezes into a smooth and transparent ice layer, called rime. Severe rain rime will crush trees and telephone poles, suspend communications and power supply, hinder road and railway traffic, and threaten the flight safety of aircraft.
Since February 4, Wang Xin's hometown of Jingzhou rural power outage, mobile phone can not receive signal, he and his parents lost contact for a day, until February 5 when his parents went to a nearby town, only to communicate with him, has not yet recovered.
Li Yun, who works in Tianmen City, Hubei Province, has chosen to walk to and from work in recent days, and the road surface is icy, and her car has also formed a layer of ice. I used to drive about 10 minutes to work, but now I have to walk for 1 hour. On February 5, the ice on the main road of Tianmen City had been basically cleared, but there was still very thick ice on some of the small roads. She originally planned to drive back to her hometown in the next few days, but the highways out of the province have been traffic controlled, and she doesn't want to be stuck in traffic.
The snow on the main road in Tianmen City, Hubei Province, has been largely cleared, **Courtesy of the interviewee. ）
Zhou Xing, a native of Wuhan, found that on the evening of February 3, he could no longer call an online car-hailing car, so he went out to find a shared bicycle, but the bicycle was already frozen. There were a number of crushed branches on the side of the road.
Bike-sharing on the freeze, **Courtesy of the interviewee. ）
Public transport in Wuhan is currently operating normally, and on February 3 and 4, the Wuhan Metro Line extended its operating hours to 24 o'clock, making it easier for passengers who are late at the airport and railway station to take the subway. Some Wuhan residents said that they saw the bus stuck in the snow, but it was quickly resolved. Many children in the community are playing in the snow, and on the slopes of the Wuhan Riverside, there are also some young people skiing, "The first time I saw pink snow in Wuhan." ”
According to Hubei**, due to continuous low temperature snowfall, from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. on February 4, the Wuhan Yangtze River Tunnel was used as an emergency passage across the river, implementing 24-hour traffic, and about 620 vehicles passed that night. This is the first time in the 15 years since the opening of the Yangtze River Tunnel that the nighttime road closure measures have been cancelled due to extreme weather.
According to data from the Wuhan Municipal Garden and Forestry Bureau, as of 16 o'clock on February 4, the city's garden department had dealt with a total of 2 broken branches on the roadMore than 320,000 places. Dong Likun, a senior engineer at the Institute of Plant Protection of the Wuhan Academy of Landscape Sciences, said that broken branches are one of the hazards of freezing rain. The freezing rain was even worse than in 2018, with sudden low temperatures and precipitation causing rainwater droplets to quickly freeze on the plants. As the rain continues to fall, the ice on the surface of the plant will become thicker and thicker, especially the evergreen camphor tree, privet and other trees, the freezing rain adheres to the leaves and branches, and the branches are "overwhelmed" and broken.
Workers are cleaning up crushed tree branches on the side of the road in Wuhan, **courtesy of the interviewee. ）
At present, the railway bureaus in various places are carrying out emergency maintenance on the railway system. Wuhan Railway Bureau organized nearly 3,000 employees and 4,000 groups of forks to clean the snow and apply antifreeze oil. Lay anti-slip mats on key parts such as passenger platforms, tunnels, squares, and overpasses to prevent passengers from slipping.
The Han-10 high-speed railway in the Xiangyang power supply section of Wuhan Bureau was affected by freezing rain and snow, and the catenary was covered with ice due to the sudden drop in temperature, resulting in the pantograph of the EMU being unable to obtain power unimpededly. On the one hand, an ordinary carbon and aluminum skateboard was installed on the pantograph of the special inspection vehicle for catenary hot skating and ice melting; On the other hand, the organization personnel use the 20-30 minutes between the running EMUs to use the icing insulating rod to carry out the catenary icing operation, the icing insulating rod is assembled by three pole bodies, weighs about 3 kilograms, is about 7 meters long, and the operator has to wave the icing rod more than 100 times at a time.
On February 5, Hubei Airport Group said that Wuhan Tianhe Airport has resumed dual-runway operation, with 326 inbound flights and 362 outbound flights planned. At present, trains at Wuhan Station, Hankou Station and Wuchang Station are gradually resuming operation.
However, in the next three days, Hubei will continue to have low temperature and freezing weather, and there will still be rain and snow, but the intensity will weaken. The meteorological department predicts that by February 9, that is, Chinese New Year's Eve, the precipitation in the south is expected to be completely ended, and most of China will welcome the Spring Festival with clear weather.