Atlanta – The governor’s request that Georgia public schools take two “snow days” and close to conserve fuel did not sit well with parents who had to scramble to find babysitters and day care for their children.
Rasheed Ahmad said he would probably have to take today off from work to look after his daughters, ages 10, 8 and 4.
“Everybody’s rushing to day care, asking, ‘Do you have any vacancy for two days?”‘ said Ahmad. “And they say they don’t. It’s really bad.”
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s request Friday that schools close today and Tuesday was prompted by Hurricane Rita, which was bearing down on the oil refineries of the Gulf Coast.
He estimated that closing all the state’s schools would save about 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel by idling buses, plus an undetermined amount of gasoline by allowing teachers, staff members and some parents to stay home. All but four of the state’s 181 districts agreed.
Perdue made his decision after learning that a Houston-to- New York pipeline that supplies most of Georgia’s gasoline had been shut down, said Dan McLagan, Perdue’s spokesman. On Sunday, the pipeline was operating only sporadically.
If school buses had not been idled on purpose at the beginning of the week, they likely would have been shut down by empty tanks by the end of the week, McLagan said.
“The politically safe thing would be to do nothing, and then blame the hurricane for any subsequent problems. But that’s not leadership,” McLagan said.
The Republican governor’s action was attacked by Secretary of State Cathy Cox, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who called it a “stunt.”
Some people worried that his move would only create a panicked rush to gas stations, although by Sunday that did not seem to have happened, said Jim Tudor, president of the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores.
