By Thea Jarvis

WGST's Tom Houck dubbed it "Snow Jam '82." Commuters caught in metro traffic called it the South's biggest parking lot. Housebound mommas with young ones home from school called it cabin fever. And sledding children frolicking on whitened hills and empty roadways said it was the greatest adventure since "raiders of the Lost Ark."

Most agreed it was a change of pace from the usual run of January ho-hums that follow a madcap holiday season.

Amidst the snow, the sleds, the stalled cars and stranded travelers, people discovered -- and rediscovered -- the unmatched power of a winter storm.

*****

An in-depth theological dialogue was overhead in the Thriftown food store on Chamblee-Tucker Road Tuesday afternoon of "snow week." Fearful shoppers were spied hoarding groceries against the imminent blizzard.

"Of course, we'll buy all this food and the storm will pass us right by," said the knowing Holy Cross parishioner.

"The last time this happened," concurred her fellow church member, "I stocked up and there wasn't a flake."

Humility is alive and well in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

*****

Father John Henley was keeping things calm at St. Luke's in Dahlonega. Father Bob Poandl, the Glenmary pastor, sat out the storm in Blairsville where he has been fixing up the old violin repair shop that will be his new home come the spring.

"We didn't get hit as hard as in Atlanta," Father John commented, although some emergency calls did come in. A family of five were burned out of their home the Sunday before the storm and sought assistance.

"It happens frequently," the priest explained. "There were four burnouts in the past month" due to poor wiring or wood burning stoves packed into undersized trailers.

Parish secretary Frances Boerner, who has readied the combined church bulletin for St. Luke's, St. Francis of Assisi in Blairsville and St. Paul the Apostle in Cleveland faithfully for the past five years, never made it to the church office from her home on Lake Lanier.

But Father John was betting that Frances would show up Saturday and put the bulletin together, not wishing to mar her perfect record.

*****

Devil-may-care world traveler Father Ed O'Connor missed most of the snow, since he had flown to New York earlier in the week for a funeral.

"I left Atlanta in a blizzard and New York was gorgeous," he blithely reported.

But he did return to Hartsfield in time to find roads impassable and shored up in a nearby hotel for a night before beginning his long trek back to St. Michael's in Gainesville.

The following morning, Father Ed chipped away at the ice block that enveloped his little Toyota and readied himself for his trip home.

"Fortunately," remarked the ever-ready Father Ed, whose days of Irish footballing must have prepared him for the worst, "I got a new battery the day I left (for New York)."

No joke -- he really did…

*****

When the coldest weather of the century hit Cumming, the Dominican sisters at "The Place" found their pipes had frozen and their normally chilly buildings had grown frigid.

Emergency calls came in Tuesday from neighbors checking their eligibility for federal fuel assistance and the availability of money for medical prescriptions.

The Rural Social Services' center was closed for two days following the storm, but the sisters were able to shelter themselves at their farm in Gainesville, where the water pump and power were still operating. Sister June Racicot barely made it home Tuesday evening from a meeting in Roswell.

"The Place" opened again at the end of the week when Sister Nancyann Turner guided their front-wheel drive Horizon from Gainesville to Pirkle Ferry Road in Cumming.

Miami native Sister Kathryn Cliatt wouldn’t get behind the wheel, but Sister Nancyann's Yankee courage prevailed, despite her terror "of Georgia people trying to drive in the snow," Sister Kathy said.

Despite the few calls for help coming into "The Place" and the sisters' farm, there was a feeling that people did indeed need assistance but didn’t' know how to get it.

"I don't know who they are or where they are," Sister Kathy explained, contending that calls were received before the storm from individuals, so "there have got to be people out there in need."

Lamenting the lack of an emergency plan for the surrounding area. Sister Kathy intended to contact local officials in hopes of initiating a more creative approach to future emergency situations.

*****

It was a routine Tuesday afternoon for Monsignor Donald Kiernan, traveling to downtown Atlanta for a sick call at Crawford Long Hospital on Peachtree Street.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary pastor left the hospital a little before four o'clock and started home for the northeast suburbs just as the peaceful white flurries changed to the real thing.

Two hours later he had managed to swing by the Georgian Terrace Hotel near Ponce de Leon Avenue. By seven o'clock, the intrepid Bostonian made it to North Avenue -- and a hill.

"A police detective recognized me," reported Captain Kiernan, who is chaplain of the Georgia State Patrol and the DeKalb County Police Department. "He told me the hill was full of ice."

Backtracking was the only solution. Searching for places without hills, he took Glen Iris -- and another hour -- and wound up on Moreland Avenue.

"I went out by Emory and was doing real well," Monsignor Kiernan remembered. "All the Emory boys were out," helping to push stalled cars and get traffic underway.

On his trusty police radio, Monsignor Kiernan called DeKalb County to see if he could proceed down Clairmont.

"Negative. Traffic was a mess," they had told him. "So I turned on Clifton by the Emory law library and pulled into Wesley Woods," a local nursing home just waiting to receive him with open arms.

"They were very nice to me," he recalled, offering food and a place to rest to the many who had taken refuge there when cars would go no farther.

But a night at the nursing home was not to be …

"A young lady told me her 'daddy' was coming to pick her up" and said he would be glad to drop the snowbound monsignor off at IHM.

"It was Joe T. LaBoon, president of Atlanta Gas Light," said Monsignor Kiernan, who knew the man well and counted him among his friends.

"He had no trouble," and with chains on his Oldsmobile '98 managed to deliver the now-weary priest to his doorstep on Briarcliff Road.

"It was five past 11 when I got in -- seven hours and 15 minutes," the good Monsignor estimated.

And during his sojourn on the highways and byways of Atlanta, Monsignor Kiernan "said the rosary a couple of times -- and this time I really meant it! All those newfangled prayers don’t' mean a thing when you're in trouble."

Among his greatest concerns was whether or not the stogies would last the trip: "I was almost out of cigars," he mourned, "but I must admit when I skidded I chewed on them a bit!"