I just had an interesting vacation. If you have a couple of minutes, read on and you may find it an interesting story.
Wednesday, August 27th
My vacation spot of choice is the Turks and Caicos. As some of you know, I have a degree in Atmospheric Science. One of the reasons I choose the Turks and Caicos is that the islands are on the far eastern edge of the Caribbean. The open Atlantic on one side, the Caribbean sea on the other. This means that they almost never get Hurricanes. They have had 12 in 137 years of recorded history and the last major Hurricane was 47 years ago. With my weather know-how, I looked at the numerical models a little over a week ago. I spotted Hurricane Gustav in the model, and told my wife to have her sister prepare to evacuate from New Orleans... I spotted Hanna, and saw that it was going to move off to the Northwest and would miss Turks and Caicos... and I saw IKE forming over western Africa and said "we may need to cut our vacation short a couple of days...".
Sunday, August 30th
Tropical Storm Hanna had stayed to the north and as predicted went past the island but then did something unusual... headed south by south-east. Now upgraded, Hurricane Hanna hit the Turks and Caicos. Hanna continued on to Haiti (killing nearly 200 people.)
Monday, September 1st
Gustav made landfall exactly where the models said it would. The levees around New Orleans held, but that was a close one.
Tuesday, September 2nd
Hanna heads back north and hit Turks and Caicos again. Check out the unusual Hurricane track here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hanna_2008_track.png.
Wednesday, September 3rd
Now here is where the story gets a bit scary. Hurricane Hanna, a Category 1 Hurricane, killing hundreds of people and knocking out most of the infrastructure in the surrounding areas was moving away at 2 miles per hour. Meanwhile, Hurricane Ike (the storm I expected from Africa), had crossed the Atlantic at almost 20 miles per hour and was predicted to hit Turks and Caicos on Saturday evening as a Category 4 Hurricane.
OK... Hurricane 101. A Category 1 Hurricane has 75-90 mile per hour sustained winds. A Category 4 Hurricane has 131-155 mile per hour winds. Twice as fast means exponentially more destruction. A killer Hurricane is heading right for us...
Our flight out was scheduled for Sunday. We called USAirways who offered us a seat on the Saturday afternoon flight. We told them that it looks like there won't be a Saturday afternoon flight and was told that there "is no travel advisory for Turks and Caicos at this time... we have no plans to change our flight schedule." In the meantime, the folks at American Airlines appeared to be responding with additional flights, but they were all booked up with people that had American Airline tickets. My wife's mother was one of those lucky people with American Airlines tickets so we had her scheduled for a Saturday morning flight, they also said they had one ticket for Saturday morning. My wife and I had a short talk and decided that we would purchase the one ticket for our son. We were preparing for the worst... we decided that we would write our wills the following day and we would put him on a flight off the island. We would work out how to get him back later...
A sleepless night followed, trying to get a hold of anyone that could get us a flight out of there. By the way, no one could...
Thursday, September 4th
At 9am, calling American Airlines every hour paid off, they added another set of emergency flights to Miami. American Airlines had now added 10 flights to get people off of the island. We purchased tickets, damn the money, family comes first. We called US Airways to have them help us get from Miami to Boston. Their answer: "that is not our policy you will have to purchase a new ticket". After getting a supervisor on the line, and telling them again that they are paying no attention to the situation, and what American is doing, they told us "Well, you had to buy a ticket from American didn't you? why wouldn't you have to buy one from us?". How about, because we already did! Finally, they were "kind enough" to re-ticket us from Miami to Boston. The supervisor also told us that we "should know better than to go to the Caribbean during Hurricane season". Thank you US Airways, you have made my choice in selecting an airline provider so much easier. You WILL NEVER have my business again, EVER.
With Hanna finally out of the area the Providenciales airport reopens, having been shutdown since Sunday August 30th.
Beaches, the resort we were staying at, makes preparations for Hurricane Ike. Even as they have workers putting up plywood over every window, they still have the Sesame Street characters playing with the kids, grilled lobster for dinner, and the champagne flows... these guys are a class act. I also heard that they brought in a charter flight to help get customers out of harms way.
Friday, September 5th
My wife, son, and I are the last ones still at the resort. We take our son to the swimming pool and play in the pool while no one else is there. We go to the beach, no one, anywhere. It's the calm before the storm, and we're just trying to make the most of it. Our 2 and a half year old son, has no idea that anything is wrong... he's just playing in the sand like always.
Here is us at the pool... notice that it's sunny and clear... and we are the only people in sight. It's hard to see, but the large pool is filled with all of the lounge chairs that would normally be surrounding the pool.
Later that day, we fly to Miami, stay overnight at the Airport Marriott. 15 minutes after our flight takes off, US Airways adds a Travel Advisory for the Turks and Caicos... smooth move Ex-Lax.
Saturday, September 6th
We fly back to Boston, which is under a Tropical Storm warning for... you guessed it, Tropical Storm Hanna.
Back on Turks and Caicos The airport is closed again. The Saturday flight US Airways had booked us on was cancelled. Had we not taken action, and spent a couple thousand dollars to get new tickets from American Airlines, we would have been on Turks and Caicos for a Category 4 Hurricane. Again, US Airways, I hope someone there reads this, hire a meteorologist already, and cutting costs should not include cutting customer service.
And for the aftermath...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4699477.ece
Lessons learned:
- American Airlines is cool
- Don't fly US Airways
- Beaches Resorts are awesome, we'll still go back there (Plus they use ColdFusion... this may be a sign of intelligence)
- Hurricane's happen...
The trip was a bit of a nightmare, but at the same rate, I still had a decent vacation. It was definitely a break from the norm. And, at the same time, I have never felt closer to my family.
Best of luck on your next vacation, I'd suggest you check out one of the Beaches resorts.
Jason
P.S. Watch for Ike to weaken over Cuba the next couple of days and then into the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday, restrengthening to make landfall on the Lousiana coast as a Category 3 or 4 Hurricane.
