Stranded for 16 Hours on Interstate Due to Blizzard Conditions

[Sam70]

I have read some discussion about this before. This is a new thread for bad winter conditions, not summer heat wave conditions.

Just this week I saw an interview on ABC Daily News of a lady driver who had been stranded for 16 hours on the Interstate. I am 70 and I have yet to hear any mention of what these people that are stranded do about bodily functions. This lady's big deal was how cold she had been while she had a bag of munchies that she said she had brought for the road trip and said she had just been munching. The camera panned to that stretch of the Interstate. No one was shown outside their cars. The snow all looked fresh and showed no signs of human traffic.

American media will interview people about how they stayed warm and how they managed water and food needs. Never is there a mention of how they dealt with bodily needs. At least this seems to be true of the networks that broadcast signals that can be received by TV's that have an antennae. (ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.)

I am not a rocket scientist. However, I know that after being stranded for 16 hours on the Interstate, every person stranded peed at least once during that time. If a person had not, this would become a medical emergency as pee would have begun to back up in the kidneys which could become fatal.

With snow drifts as high as they were there, there would be some people that would not be able to walk in that snow more than two steps.

Of course, the emergency units available could provide portable toilets for each car, but I have never read or heard of that happening.

The very elderly and the very ill might not live through a situation like this. Do emergency units try to get to each vehicle to see if any person in the vehicle is in danger of dying due to the weather.

At one time, I believed that the kidneys would quit sending urine to the bladder once the bladder was completely full. Not so according to what I have read. The production of urine would be that same as it would be if the person had used the toilet several times over 16 hours if all other factors were the same.

How much fluid consumed would influence the production of urine eventually.

I would like to limit this discussion to all situations like this were snow, sleet, and freezing rains have caused situations like this where people are stranded for a long time. Leave discussions where a big accident involving several vehicles in the middle of summer during a heat wave to another thread.

[Fred]

I saw some of the news coverage about this long tie-up, and I never heard a mention of the people that must have created yellow snow all over the place. Another example of "selective" news.