Blizzard makes travelers take long way home

They came from near and far, trying to get home or start a vacation. They showed up at local airports to find flights canceled by brutal blizzard conditions. Then they waited. And waited some more.

Many passengers at Kennedy Airport resigned themselves to spending a night or more tucked into concourse corners or stretched out on airport cots. Others gave up the battle to rebook flights and rented cars, depleting the supply at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma.

Elsa Charles, 30, sat in a quiet alcove at Kennedy Tuesday and waited to learn when she might be able to return home to St. Lucia. Her morning flight had been canceled and a new ticket issued for Friday.

“I’m trying to get it for Thursday, but no one seems to be canceling,” she said, her luggage at her feet. She plans to stay at the airport as long as it takes to get a flight out.

Lorrin Selby, 36, of New Jersey, was scheduled to leave Sunday night for the Philippines with a friend and her 11-month-old baby. After their flight was canceled, the trio spent the night at Kennedy and then moved to a hotel Monday after running low on milk and diapers. They finally canceled their trip. “We will try again next year,” Selby said. “But not in the winter.”

When Patrick Emeagwali’s family learned their flight from Orlando, Fla. to New York City had been canceled, they flew to Buffalo and took a cab to their Elmont home. That cab ride, from Buffalo to Elmont during the height of the blizzard, cost $900 and a sleepless night for Emeagwali, 56. “To me, it’s a big risk. I was scared,” he said. “It came out fine.”

Jonathan Hammond, 32, of Boston, had been trying for two days to fly home from St. Louis. His flight was diverted to Kennedy Airport just before the facility shut down. He stayed in a hotel and briefly considered renting a car to drive to Massachusetts before deciding to stay in New York. “I would rather be stranded here than on the side of the road,” he said.

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Chris and Debora Damm gave up trying to reschedule flights back to Minnesota after spending Christmas with family in North Bellmore. When their Monday flight from LaGuardia was canceled, they rented a minivan and were scheduled to leave Wednesday morning for Blaine, Minn. “What we’re doing is the best option to keeping the kids’ sanity and our sanity,” Chris Damm, 38, said.
Weather forecasts call for a storm in Minnesota on Friday, but Damm isn’t worried.

“They handle things differently out there,” he said. “They’ve got plows on the road, sanding and de-icing well before the storm dumps large amounts. Here, they tend to wait until the end, after everything’s come down.”

Barbara Gronberg, 78, of St. Augustine, Fla., said waiting at MacArthur Airport most of Tuesday was the only option after her flight home was canceled Monday night.

“It was a memorable Christmas” with her children and 11 grandchildren in Ronkonkoma, she said, “But I never want to see this again. If they want to see me in the winter, they’ll have to come down to me where it’s warmer.”

Amber Thorpe, 34, a tattoo artist from Nova Scotia, took a limousine to Kennedy Airport Monday when other transportation options failed. She spent a tense night at the airport trying to get information and a rebooked flight from American Airlines — one that doesn’t leave until Thursday. “People were screaming and yelling," she said. "It was insane."