THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601090225
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: THE BLIZZARD OF '96
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, JOE JACKSON AND ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 122 lines
And the prize for most time spent snowbound at a local airport for the least reward goes to. . . .
Brian Anderson and Mugi Amu, who drove on an icy highway from Williamsburg to Norfolk, then slept on a couch overnight in the airport lobby, waiting for newlywed friends returning from the sunny Caribbean.
Their reward: Breakfast of hot chocolate in paper cups, bought with the last of their spare change. And still the newlyweds hadn't arrived, 14 hours late.
``They owe us,'' Anderson said. ``Big time.''
All over Hampton Roads it was the same story, different location, as long-distance commuters found themselves stuck like bugs in a Roach Motel.
If it wasn't the airport, it was the bus station.
``I miss my country,'' lamented Everard Findlay, a 21-year-old college student from Trinidad, stranded at the Norfolk Greyhound/Trailways terminal for two days after his bus to New York was canceled. ``Right now there's probably sunshine, beach and surf.''
And if it wasn't the bus, it was the taxi cab. Many cab companies never even started their engines Monday morning, when travelers most needed them. There was too much snow and ice on the streets.
While road conditions around Hampton Roads weren't terrible Monday - most major roads were clear early on - it was troubles elsewhere that fouled local travel plans.
All over the Northeast, planes, trains and automobiles were forced to a standstill. Most never arrived in Norfolk.
So while Norfolk International Airport never closed except for the wee hours of Sunday morning, when no planes were scheduled to arrive anyway, dozens of flights were canceled and delayed because the planes never showed.
``We're wide open today and ready to go,'' airport manager Wayne Shank said at midday Monday.
The airlines were not.
At USAir, the big information screens showed just seven arrivals, all from Pittsburgh and Charlotte. And two were late. ``All other flights canceled due to weather,'' the screens advised.
Same at American, with three out of four arrivals canceled. The fourth was 10 hours late.
But it wasn't the airline that stranded Joel Pomerinke, a 22-year-old Coast Guardsman who spent the night on a couch in the airport lobby. It was ground transportation.
Pomerinke, stationed at Sacramento, Calif., spent most of the day Sunday flying west to east. He left the house at 5:30 a.m., was delayed three hours in Sacramento, delayed 40 minutes in Chicago, and finally landed in Norfolk at 10:30 p.m.
Only to be stranded when his ride from Elizabeth City couldn't make it. There were no cabs and no buses.
The airport wasn't the only place where travelers were stranded.
When Findlay, the student from Trinidad, first arrived at the Norfolk bus terminal, his trip from North Carolina to New York was only supposed to take 16 hours. Instead, he has been stranded two days.
``They said yesterday we were leaving today and now they're saying today that we're going to leave tomorrow,'' Findlay said Monday. ``I've been sleeping on the chairs, I read my Bible and I read magazines.''
Terminal manager Mike Geres said all buses were canceled because of the storm.
According to Geres, about 25 passengers - most headed to New York - were affected. The passengers were forced to stay overnight in heated buses, with their engines running, when the terminal's power failed following Sunday's explosion downtown.
The Red Cross donated cots for passengers and the terminal is providing meal vouchers. ``Just keeping them warm and fed. . . . That's the only thing we can provide,'' Geres said.
Hunger and lack of heat were not the only obstacles bus passengers encountered. Mary Anderson, a nurse from Greensboro, N.C., and Christine Adams, a Navy legal secretary on her way to Philadelphia, arrived at the terminal early Monday and hoped to catch a shuttle to the Amtrak station in Newport News. But that shuttle never arrived.
Worse, both womens' bags were stolen. The two were waiting at the corner of Monticello and Brambleton Avenues for the shuttle but the cold proved unbearable. They ducked inside for a few minutes to warm up. When they returned to the corner, the bags with all their clothes were gone.
``I knew it would be bad,'' said Adams. ``But I didn't think it would be like this.''
Even if the two had made it to the Amtrak station, their journey still would have been delayed. Train 94 - the Newport News-to-Boston train scheduled to leave at 8:45 a.m. - was two hours late, Amtrak officials said. It was the only train scheduled to leave on Monday.
By midday Monday, Train 94 was running two hours and 24 minutes behind schedule out of Alexandria, said Amtrak spokesperson Maureen Garrity.
``The major problem was not deep snow, but snow freezing on the switches'' routing trains from track to track, Garrity said. ``The tracks are provided with automatic switch heaters that are supposed to prevent the switches from freezing up, but the high winds and snow are defeating that.''
So Amtrak called out crews to fix the switches, Garrity said. ``But the problem with that is that the snow is so bad that many of the crews have not been able to get in.''
Most trains up and down the East Coast were running one to three hours late, and all trains between New York City and Washington had been canceled, Garrity said. Besides the delay, there were no reported mishaps on Train 94, she said.
Back at the airport, Anderson and Amu waited for their honeymooning friends, Todd and Jen Miller. They crashed on the couch with almost no cash between them and no hope for relief from a broken automated teller machine in the lobby.
``We figured, what the heck, we'll sleep here tonight and call it an adventure and get the job done,'' Anderson said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
Mugi Amu and a friend waited 14 hours for newlywed friends at
Norfolk International Airport Monday.
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
The Virginian-Pilot
Crews were kept busy de-icing the few jetliners that made it through
to Norfolk Monday.
KEYWORDS: WINTER STORM BLIZZARD by CNB