Decisions that could have changed history of Snowed Out Atlanta

Deal made a mistake by not declaring a state of emergency prior to the event and/or opening the EOC that morning and establishing unified command with a Incident Commander. You have different sections under the Incident Commander. http://www.fema.gov/incident-command-system that makes sure the flow of information and equipment and supplies are streamlined.
Mutual Aid could be established and assets and supplies and requests checked and checked off so duplication of response or services didn't happen. Also prevents one agency thinking another agency is taking care of a problem when in fact neither has taken care of it, thus creating delays in service to those affected. Tracking numbers for requests to the EOC are generated through EMIS(http://www.intergraph.com/learnmore/sgi/public-safety/emergency-management-software.aspx.)
It's a check and balance and a way to make sure the right assets and equipment get where needed as quickly as possible.

Another mistake was not pretreating the roads and making sure those first snowflakes didn't stick to the roadways and bridges. Atlanta has a vast Interstate system with many bridges, most notably the transition bridge from I-285 South onto I-85 North at Spaghetti Junction. This bridge is well over 200 feet in then air with low guardrails and very dangerous in this type weather scenario. If you don't clear your escape routes then you have what we saw, gridlock. Which leads to staggering of letting employees off early. Encourage employers to either let their employees telecommute, we had a few days notice that 1'-2' of snow were possible and 2011 proved the need to allow your employees to work from home. State and Local Governments should do the same. Schools were a part of the problem as well. It's better to let the kids stay home, than try to move thousands of students and buses during the event. As we saw, there were students on buses until 5:30 Wednesday morning. This should never happen with the information we have nowadays regarding impending weather events.

In conclusion, plan for the worst. Its better to preplan and have all the assets and people in place. Keep the children home. A little ribbing for a event that never happened is much easier to take than trying to explain why children and commuters were on the interstates for 18+ hours.