CNN's Carol Costello is not happy with the way Atlanta has responded to its extreme weather emergency, and she made that clear in interviews with local officials on Wednesday.
Drivers were stuck on highways and students spent the night in schools after Atlanta got two inches of snow on Tuesday, making roads unsafe for travel. Matthew Kallmyer, the director of Atlanta's emergency management agency, spoke to Costello on Wednesday and defended the city's response.
"I'm just expressing the frustration of a city, as a person who was stuck in traffic for hours and hours and hours," Costello told Kelmeyer. CNN's headquarters, where Costello was speaking from, are in downtown Atlanta.
When he pointed out that major hospitals and trauma facilities have had "no problems," Costello wasn't having it. "You had over 1,000 traffic accidents," she said. "A woman had a baby inside of her car. There are school children still trapped on school buses on the highway. Right now, 18 hours after it started snowing. A lot of people would say that's unconscionable."
Later, she spoke to Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed and grilled him over who was responsible for keeping schools open. When he said that there were "no fatalities," Costello said that that could easily have not been the case (one fatality was reported by CNN after the interview).
"People got out of their cars in icy situations," she said.
"That’s easy to say from your anchor seat," Reed replied.
"No! I was out stuck in the traffic! I was one of those people!"
"If you put up CNN cameras it looks pretty good outside of CNN, and –"
"Right now it does."
Watch the full exchange in the video.