by Yesterday evening, I was supposed to fly to New Jersey for an all day meeting today. The weather was a little overcast, and there had been a few showers earlier, so I didn’t think there were going to be too many problems.
When I fly to NJ, I always take the 7:45 out of Columbus, which gets me into Newark at 9:30 and to my hotel by 10:00. I always try to get to the airport in time for the 5:01 flight; sometimes they cancel the 7:45, and I can rebook on the 5:01 if necessary. Yesterday, I was running a little late, and didn’t get there until just after 6:00.
I forgot about the current idiocy paranoia and tried to carry on my luggage, including my shaving kit (with shaving cream and tooth paste). Turns out you can’t carry on shaving cream and tooth paste currently, so they gave me the option of going back and checking my only bag (with my laptop, headphones, movies, and Sudoku book) or throwing those items away. I chose to throw those items away, figuring I could just replace them at the hotel.
As I got to the gate, I just saw the 5:01 leaving (not unusual for it to leave late), and the gate attendent informed me my flight would be an hour delayed as well. I settled into a corner, turned on my laptop, checked my hotel information, and started to watch a movie. Not long later, I heard a terrible noise that drowned out my movie — even through my headphones, like an avalanche hitting the roof. I stared out the window and watched golf ball sized hail pounding everything.
I stared in horror at this hail, thinking about my brand new 2007 Mazda 3s (less than 2000 miles) sitting on the roof of the parking garage because the interior floors were closed for some reason. I hoped that it would be ok, but had no way to go check it.
A little while later, the 5:01 flight came back to the gate, having gotten stuck on the runway in a ground stop because of the hail and the tornado watch that was issued. After the hail stopped, the gate attendent informed everyone that the crew of the 5:01 was now over their time limit and would be illegal if they flew. That flight was being delayed until 11:30, when another flight came in with an appropriate crew. My flight, was on a two hour delay (9:45) because the incoming flight had been diverted to another airport. They were rebooking as many people from the 5:01 to the 7:45 as they could, but not everyone because it was a smaller plane.
Our plane finally arrived around 9:30, and they got us loaded and ready for an almost on (revised) schedule departure. After we pulled back from the gate, the pilot came on and told us there was a ground stop issued by Newark, so we couldn’t leave until they cleared that, probably at 11:00. So we sat, and waiting. Around 10:45, we saw a fire truck go screaming across the airport. The pilot came back on to inform us that there had been a fire reported in the tower, the tower had been evacuated, and they couldn’t contact anyone in radio operations to determine if the Newark stop was being lifted. They had no idea how long the evacuation would be, and if we were delayed any later than 11:15, they would go illegal before we arrived at Newark, so they were pulling back to the gate to transfer us back to the 11:30 flight, whose incoming crew would be legal until around 3:00, so could be delayed until 1:30 departure (they were now expecting it to be delayed because it couldn’t land).
At that point, I decided to give up for the evening. If the flight was delayed until 1:00, I’d get to my hotel after 3:00 and have to be up by 7:00, so I’d only get at most 4 hours of sleep. If I went home, I could be in bed before midnight, get up at 5:00 to make the 6:55 flight, get 5 hours of sleep (plus a nap on the flight probably), and be to the office in time for the meeting to start. I’d miss the “catered” breakfast, but its usually continental anyway, so no great loss.
I went out to my car, the rain had now pretty much stopped, and tried to look for damage. In the darkness of the parking lot with water beading on my car, I didn’t see any damage and considered myself extremely lucky.
Next morning when I came out, it was still dark, so I still didn’t notice any damage. I drove back to the airport, checked in, and went to my gate. The gate agent was just there announcing that the plane we were scheduled to take to Newark had flown through the storm the night before, and the maintenance crew was just arriving to check it out. Because of this, we would be delayed at least a half an hour. Why they couldn’t check the plane the night before, when it arrived, and they were checking every other plane, I’ll never understand. A few minutes later, she announced they had found “considerable” hail damage to the plane, and this flight was being cancelled. We were all to be rebooked on the 9:30 flight. If I took that flight, I would miss pretty much the entire meeting, so I completely gave up, and decided to go to the office and just call in to the meeting (which I *abhor* doing, especially for multi-hour-through-lunch-and-beyond meetings).
I finally got to see my car in the light. Now, I’m not normally an extremely emotional person, but when I saw the amount of damage on my brand new car, I almost cried. I could see silver dollar sized dents all over the hood and the roof. On the left quarter panel and doors, I could see several smaller dents.
I called my insurance agent and found the company had received thousands of claims in the previous 12 hours. They arranged for me to take my car to a “crisis” center for appraisal. $2900 damage. Or, about $1.45 for ever mile I had put on it so far. And, the body shop is so busy, they can’t get my car in for 5 weeks, until 11/13. I think I’m going to be sick…. I’m not normally a drinker, but tonight I’m going to eat bloody, red meat, and drink heavily.
[I hate forgetting about started blog entries… continuing this post on 10/30]
I’m still waiting to get my car in for repairs. On a whim, I called today, to see if I can get my car in next week, while I’m in Phoenix for “SysAdminDays”:http://lopsa.org/SysAdminDays-Phoenix. They called me back a little while later and said they’d fit me in. So, at least once I come back from Phoenix, my car should be good as new again.