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How Virginia's I-95 fiasco led to a 93-year-old driver's 39-hour odyssey [View all]
Inspired Life
How Virginia’s I-95 fiasco led to a 93-year-old driver’s 39-hour odyssey
James Murphy got trapped on an icy Interstate 95 and then got lost. A radio reporter, travel planner, police officer and hotel workers helped him on his way.
James Murphy, a retired orthodontist from Albany, N.Y., ended up on a 39-hour odyssey after hitting overnight backups on Virginia’s Interstate 95 following Monday’s snowstorm. Murphy, 93, said it would have taken longer if not for the strangers who helped him find his way. (Kathleen Murphy)
By Katherine Shaver
January 6, 2022 | Updated January 6, 2022 at 7:58 p.m. EST
At 93, James Murphy usually takes the Amtrak auto train to Florida to escape the Upstate New York winter. But this year, the retired orthodontist headed down Interstate 95 — and into a 39-hour odyssey through Virginia after getting ensnared, alone, in a snowstorm-induced traffic meltdown and lost on backcountry roads with a dwindling gas supply and dying cellphone battery. ... Murphy left Albany, N.Y., about 8:30 a.m. Monday. He didn’t get to sleep again — or eat another meal following a brief Monday lunch break — until almost 11 p.m. Tuesday.
{snip}
After a brief lunch stopover with his daughter in Manhattan, Murphy headed south around 2 p.m. with a couple of Diet Cokes, a big chocolate chip cookie and a small container of peanuts. Kathleen wasn’t thrilled about her father driving solo to Naples, Fla. He’s relatively robust, she said, but has a pacemaker and bad knees. ... “He’s 93,” she said, “but good Lord, we can’t stop him.”
While heading through Northern Virginia on I-95 in the early evening, her father later recounted, he suddenly hit a wall of traffic that would eventually stretch for miles. ... He wouldn’t budge for another 17 hours. ... “There was nowhere to go,” he said. “All I could do was sit there and try to stay warm.”
He passed the time singing along to Tony Bennett’s greatest hits and a collection of Broadway show tunes, including “Hello, Dolly” and “Oklahoma.” Expecting traffic to move again any minute, he fought to stay awake. As the night wore on and temperatures dropped into the teens, he kept his Lincoln sedan running intermittently for heat, then would turn it off to save gas. ... Was he ever bored? Tired? Hungry? ... “Yes,” he said. “But there’s nothing you can do about it, so you just put up with it.”
{snip}
By Katherine Shaver
Katherine Shaver is a transportation and development reporter focusing on urban/suburban planning issues and construction of Maryland's light-rail Purple Line. Since joining The Washington Post in 1997, she also has covered crime, courts, education and local government. Twitter https://twitter.com/shaverk
How Virginia’s I-95 fiasco led to a 93-year-old driver’s 39-hour odyssey
James Murphy got trapped on an icy Interstate 95 and then got lost. A radio reporter, travel planner, police officer and hotel workers helped him on his way.
James Murphy, a retired orthodontist from Albany, N.Y., ended up on a 39-hour odyssey after hitting overnight backups on Virginia’s Interstate 95 following Monday’s snowstorm. Murphy, 93, said it would have taken longer if not for the strangers who helped him find his way. (Kathleen Murphy)
By Katherine Shaver
January 6, 2022 | Updated January 6, 2022 at 7:58 p.m. EST
At 93, James Murphy usually takes the Amtrak auto train to Florida to escape the Upstate New York winter. But this year, the retired orthodontist headed down Interstate 95 — and into a 39-hour odyssey through Virginia after getting ensnared, alone, in a snowstorm-induced traffic meltdown and lost on backcountry roads with a dwindling gas supply and dying cellphone battery. ... Murphy left Albany, N.Y., about 8:30 a.m. Monday. He didn’t get to sleep again — or eat another meal following a brief Monday lunch break — until almost 11 p.m. Tuesday.
{snip}
After a brief lunch stopover with his daughter in Manhattan, Murphy headed south around 2 p.m. with a couple of Diet Cokes, a big chocolate chip cookie and a small container of peanuts. Kathleen wasn’t thrilled about her father driving solo to Naples, Fla. He’s relatively robust, she said, but has a pacemaker and bad knees. ... “He’s 93,” she said, “but good Lord, we can’t stop him.”
While heading through Northern Virginia on I-95 in the early evening, her father later recounted, he suddenly hit a wall of traffic that would eventually stretch for miles. ... He wouldn’t budge for another 17 hours. ... “There was nowhere to go,” he said. “All I could do was sit there and try to stay warm.”
He passed the time singing along to Tony Bennett’s greatest hits and a collection of Broadway show tunes, including “Hello, Dolly” and “Oklahoma.” Expecting traffic to move again any minute, he fought to stay awake. As the night wore on and temperatures dropped into the teens, he kept his Lincoln sedan running intermittently for heat, then would turn it off to save gas. ... Was he ever bored? Tired? Hungry? ... “Yes,” he said. “But there’s nothing you can do about it, so you just put up with it.”
{snip}
By Katherine Shaver
Katherine Shaver is a transportation and development reporter focusing on urban/suburban planning issues and construction of Maryland's light-rail Purple Line. Since joining The Washington Post in 1997, she also has covered crime, courts, education and local government. Twitter https://twitter.com/shaverk
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