Who got hit by weather?

john smith wrote:
Anyone on the group weathered in by the storm that rolled up the eastern
US Friday?
How baddly did you get hit?

Yes, but not like you think. Wife took me to the St Louis airport to
catch a Southwest flight to Phoenix on Thursday morning. Sat in plane
on ramp for 3 hours waiting for a weather report that did not include
BOTH ice pellets and freezing rain. Went back to gate. After 2 hours we
were lined up for departure at the gate and crew was paged. Crew
arrived and said no way will we fly. Waited 1 more hour after which
flight was finally cancelled. Wife could not get back the 28 miles to
pick me up because of jacknifed semis on I-270 and general ice. Power
went off at home and was off for 24 hours. I got into a hotel across
the street from the airport. Fortunately there were a lot of
cancellations because fo flights that did not get into STL. Back on
another flight Friday at 7 am. Sat on plane waiting for deice. Airline
ran out of deicing fluid. Truckload expected in at noon. Truck arrived.
Wrong kind of fluid. 2 pm flight finally cancelled. After 7 hours on
plane passengers nearly rioted. We were confirmed on 8:50 pm flight.
That flight schedule slipped to 10:25 pm. Southwest rerouted a flight
from Birmingham to Phoenix to STL to pick us up at 6:15 pm, causing
many more unhappy passengers. After 39 hours we made it to Phoenix.

I felt very sorry for Southwest pilots. On Thursday airline lined us up
for departure obviously without consulting pilots. On Friday our pilot
found out that the flight was cancelled from a passenger. There is
obviously extremely poor communication at Southwest.

GA rules!
--
Gene Seibel
Gene & Sue's Aeroplanes - http://pad39a.com/gene/planes.html
Because we fly, we envy no one.

GA rules!

Amen, brother...to a point.

In conditions like you describe, I'm happy to let the heavy metal and
the pros do the flying. Of course, NOTHING was flying during the worst
of that ice.

My buddy in Springfield, IL says they only got two inches of snow --
but over an inch of ice. Entire trees and power poles were snapped
off like twigs, and he was on generator power (he lives in a rural
area) for 24 hours.

I'm really, REALLY glad it missed us!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"