If you're Southern, you know we get as much ice as we get snow. Sometimes a lot of ice. Ice is completely different for driving, clearing etc. from snow No, most southern cities don't have many snow plows. Not a real return on the investment--until some need them once in a decade...You don't/can't plow ice...You can treat road surfaces ahead of storms (and that was done), but it out-snowed the treatment, not melting ice fast enough to compensate for what was falling.
The problems are due to the intensity of the storm that passed over. It was unusual and potent. It dumped a foot or more of snow in less than five hours. We had thunder and lightening with it. It was snowing 1-3 inches per hour with 40 mph wind gusts. The snow was heavy and wet and stuck to everything. That combination of fast falling road temps, covered by wet snow that's pounded into a sheet of ice by traffic, is the culprit. 95 is always a mess because of volume. I've been stuck on that same stretch of road in March and November. One person screws up and it messes up traffic horrendously. Have six tractor trailers jackknife within two hours in a 10-15 miles stretch because of wind and ice? Well, there you go...
FWIW, D.C. area gets snow. Sometimes A LOT of it. We can handle it just as well as Mass. (or about as well as Mass. can handle an ice storm.) We had back to back blizzards in 2010 that dropped FIVE FEET of snow in four days. This doesn't compare to that...