Hurricane Irene

This past weekend, Hurricane Irene wrecked havoc on the east coast.  To be honest, I’ve never experienced a hurricane, and hope I never do, so my vision is of lots of wind and rain, causing roofs to blow off and trees to fall thanks to various news reports.  The closest I’ve come to a strong force of mother nature is a tornado, and that was far off in the distance.  But the pictures the news reports show don’t make either force look gentle or inviting.

The airports in New York were shut down on Saturday and Sunday, affecting a number of JetBlue flights.  According to JetBlue, 1,252 flights were cancelled between Saturday and Monday.  People who found themselves stranded got on Twitter and Facebook to share their frustration with the rest of us.

While I can relate to the frustration of being stranded and delayed when I flew last year due a much gentler weather situation, it was a good call to shut down airports and subways in New York this weekend.  It makes little sense to fly through a hurricane and risk damage to the aircraft, injuries to passengers and crew, all in the name of a hundred or so people getting closer to where they had planned to be.  Would be a great evacuation plan, but could have resulted in a terrible disaster.

As for all those Bluepass travellers.  It looks like the availability of seats became more of a challenge.  Even if you weren’t flying to the east coast, some flights were cancelled due to flights not arriving at the departing airports in other parts of the country.  It would have been a great, but disappointing, weekend to stay home.

My wishes to all those who were affected by Hurricane Irene, both materially and inconvenienced.