High snow banks, 6-foot drifts, ice covered roads...these are just a few of the hazards bus drivers faced Wednesday.

With temperatures barely breaking the freezing mark, it looks as if the ride to school and home will be troublesome for a while.

For one Winchester city bus driver, the day started off in a snow bank while trying to turn onto Cork Street from Pleasant Valley Road.

Students were transferred to another bus and police helped get the bus back on the road.

"Be aware of children," says Sergeant Mark Lahman, WPD PIO. He adds, "There are a lot of children that are out near the bus stops. Some of the buses won't be able to pick them up where they normally do because a lot of the sidewalks are still impassable due to the snow."

Frederick county driver Bob Edmundson had a good, safe morning commute.

He said some roads were still half covered with snow and heard reports about dangerous curves.

"You have to make wide turns at the intersections because of the length of the bus, you have to allow for wide turns while watching for traffic and everything like that," explains Edmundson.

It's tough to find the middle-ground at the bus stops because bus drivers don't want the kids standing out in the street with fear of rush-hour traffic, but at the same time, many bus stops have been replaced with snow banks because there is no where else to put the snow.

"Some areas the kids were standing over in the snow banks, none of my children but some of the other ones, waiting on the buses. Some of the buses couldn't even get into them," exclaims Edmundson.

Chuck Puglisi, Director of Transportation with Frederick County Schools, said it was time to get back to school after 8 missed days.

Many divisions were on a delay to allow for the rush hour to pass and added daylight to see around the snow banks.

"We're trying to be as proactive as possible with our drivers because we can control what they do, but we can't control some of the road conditions and we certainly can't control what the other guy is going to do," says Puglisi.

Puglisi is asking drivers to be sensitive, aware, and patient with the buses for the next couple of weeks.

In many areas it's tough to see around the corners when you're trying to pull out and school buses might be going a little slower to make sure the kids get to where they need to safely.

"A lot of the stops are nothing but piles of snow right now. It's going to be difficult for kids to collect where we expect them to collect," says Puglisi. "Our drivers are out there, they are taking things slow and careful. A lot of the buses have instant chains that help us with this kind of weather," adds Puglisi.