In the meantime we have been looking at the potential impact of Hurricane Irene – as of yesterday evening the New York City government decided to close its airports at Midday today, so our flight was cancelled.
Virgin managed to get around to e-mailing the confirmation of the flight cancellation at 11.00 a.m. UK time – 6.00 a.m. our time, but with no details of when we will be able to fly. We spent quite a lot of time yesterday (about 3.00 hours) on their US number but never got to the end of the queue. They did provide a website for us to provide our US contact details, but no news yet, I guess that might not happen until the airport reopens, which will not happen until Monday – we’ll see. Thankfully the great staff at the Hotel Bedford had no problem with us staying for as long as we need to, we didn't even need to move room.
We had breakfast at Blooms this morning, then spent the rest of the morning walking around town, seeing how many shops were already closed. As some of the photos reflect.
We also bought salads, sandwiches, bagels, fruit and drink as the advice is not to go out as the hurricane comes in (around 8.00 p.m. tonight).
The tropical storms in front of the hurricane are already here, with short sharp rain storms, so we got in-doors. The subway and buses all finished at Midday, so apart from popping around the corner for Mass this evening we will be inside from now until Monday morning. The hotel is likely to turn-off the lift when the storm hits, so that no one gets caught inside, so as we are on the 15th floor up we won’t be popping up and down any more times than we need.
Drew and I seem to have had a history of holiday events. In 2006, we flew out of Thailand 4 hours before a coup closed the airport, in 2008 we were hotel bound due to Hurricane Gustav (a category 5 hurricane) for a day. In 2010 we got stuck in Spain for a week due to the Iceland volcano. So here we are with an Earthquake four days ago and Irene on the way – exciting times. We didn’t have this problem in 2010 when we went to Yorkshire!!
I was wondering how you were both getting along as the weather seemed to be heading for a showdown with you! Where are you going next year so I can avoid that location :-) Don't think I would like to be stuck on level 15 you are hardy souls!! Hope everything goes well the images of the storm we are seeing are quite spectacular and the last count I saw they were talking about evacuating millions of people! Amazing!Take care!
ReplyDeleteHi Linda,
ReplyDeleteyes, all of lower Manhattan, including some of the streets we were on yesterday are likely to flood.
They have detailed plans for evacuation for Lower Manhattan - but the worst we should have is rain, loud winds and no electricity. I was out an hour ago and it is still hot and sticky our there. Luckily the church had air-conditioning.
In now until Monday morning!!
Cheers,
Haydn
Hi Haydn,
ReplyDeleteThinking about you & Drew and the bit of wind trouble you're experiencing. According to the adverts on TV Deflatine is good for gently dispersing wind so I'd advise you to pop out and get some (or the US equivalent) straight away. 15 flights of stairs should't be seen as a deterrent, more of an added healthy bonus. :-p
BTW, where were you and Drew thinking of going on your next holiday? Please share so we can all arrange to avoid disaster and be somewhere else.