NFL

Disaster In Dallas: A Firsthand Account Of The Calamity That Was Super Bowl XLV

Once you get to know it, Ennis, Texas is probably a lovely place. But the Friday night before the Super Bowl,  a quiet town about 35 miles outside of Dallas was the last place we wanted to be. Icy roads had left us stranded just far enough from Dallas for there to be any form of excitement in sight. We felt like dogs staring at a piece of meat just out of reach.

We were on a road trip to the Super Bowl, on our way from New Orleans. But after seeing wrecked cars all over the side of the road and watching an Xterra drive over a guardrail on Highway 45, we decided to wait out the weather in Ennis. Most of us quickly realized it could have been a lot worse.

It wasn’t just the roads leading to Dallas that were unmanageable. The city itself was a disaster. Plane delays, traffic jams and icy sidewalks made getting around the Dallas-Fort Worth area a logistical nightmare.

As Jarrett Bell of USA Today points out, the sprawling metropolis would have had a difficult time handling the festivities even with ideal weather.

Dallas and Fort Worth are separated by 30 miles, and with 134 municipalities across the region involved, the last thing they needed was a blast of a New England winter.

Of course, taxi drivers choosing Super Bowl weekend as the ideal time to go on strike didn’t help matters. You could still get cabs, as many drivers traveled from out of town to Dallas to work for the week, but you had to be prepared to be extorted. Expecting a metered ride? Good luck.

The weather probably also had an effect on the taxi problem.

»»NEXT: Things didn’t get too much better around the stadium.

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