The Sky Is Falling: A Cautionary Tale of Travel and Technology

Well...that was interesting.

I was scheduled to leave Omaha yesterday on my way to Scotland. Notice the key word there: was.

I was sitting in the terminal messing around with my iPad as a way to distract myself from the ominous storm that was fast approaching out the windows.

If you've ever been to the Omaha airport (and why would you?) you know that the terminals are very small, only a handfull of gates and you are surrounded by windows.

All of a sudden:

thunk!

I lifted my head up, and then my left eyebrow. People all around were trying to figure out what the noise was. Then it happened again:

Thunk!!

I leaned forward and stretched my neck to get a better view outside. And then it happened in increasingly shorter incriments.

Thunk!
.
.
.
.
THUNK!
.
.
.
THUNK!
.
.
THUNK!
.
THUNK!
THUN THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK!!!!!

It didn't take much longer to realize that the sky was clearly falling. Softball-sized hail poured down from the massive storm cloud that lingered above. Calling it hail doesn't do it justice. Let's be honest, they were mini iceburgs.








It didn't take long before the ground as covered and windows were cracking. Of the seven planes on the ground, all were damaged beyond the point of flying, and two had their windshields cracked. A pilot had to be carted off by an ambulence after being knocked out by one while walking to a plane.

It became increasingly clear as the winds started picking up that I wasn't going to be flying out there. And about the time I saw a giant roof tile fly past the window, I knew I was doomed.

But, I didn't take my cell phone. I decided to leave it behind because I didn't want to accidentally rack up a massive phone bill in the UK.

Boy, was that a mistake.

I was trying to get in touch with my parents (who had driven me up from Lincoln), but I was having to use Skype and a 3G connection. If I had to classify my mom's knowledge of technology, I'd have to label it "Remedial" My mom has many skills and talents, but technology has never come without a million questions from her. Love you, Mom! So once the weather got bad she started to panic...and admittedly, using just skype was a total pain in the ass. Luckily, my parents had missed the hail. They were among the few...almost all cars in the parking lots had at least one window shattered from it.

When the board changed to show that my flight was officially cancelled, I booked it for the ticket counter.

Tip in Flight Cancellations #1:

NEVER, EVER, EVER wait to get your flight rebooked by standing in a line. Sure, it's good to go down there in case the lines are booked when you call in, but always get on the phone immediately with customer service. I had my flight rebooked before i even moved up one person in line. I continued to wait though because Delta wasn't announcing where we could pick up luggage.

Then the second phase of the storm hit. There had to have been a tornado in there somewhere. I looked out the window and the wind was blowing the rain straight sideways at speeds I had never seen before. I later heard that the winds there got up to 92 mph.

Around this time, I was trying to get in touch with my parents again. The last I had heard from them they were driving through insane winds and their massive tank of a Honda Pilot was lifting off the ground in the back from the wind. My mom was shouting at my dad to not stop for red lights. So when I couldn't get ahold of either of their cellphnes for about 30 minutes, I was starting to panic. I had finally got my luggage back (they couldn't bring it in for awhile because it they couldn't go outside to get it) and was about to make a panicked phone call to my brother about the unknown whereabouts of the parentals, when I see them walking towards me, drenched. My dad looked like he needed a Scotch pretty bad.

Thankfully, my awesome aunt (Laura) and uncle (John) let us crash at their place because the storm was headed down to Lincoln and it was definitely not safe. Trees and power lines were all over the road. And at one point that night we drove through 3 feet of flood waters.

It was intense to say the least.

But Laura & John set up a spare mattress for me and offered me ice cream with fresh cut mangos and it kind of made everything right in the world :-)

I was happy to see how sunny and clear skyed it was this morning.





The first leg of my flight was the smoothest ever.

So I am now in Minneapolis waiting on my flight to Amsterdam. I've managed to kill the last two hours of my five hour layover by trying to figure out how to post to my blog (I ended up surrendering, as you can see, and posting through blogger). So now I just have three more hours to go.

Next mission: figure out how I can cope with being stuck in a middle seat for eight hours (it was the last one left). The alcohol will help, i imagine.

Next time you hear from me I will be posting from a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet.

Until then,

Miss Adventurous