Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Florida Trip Travelog #17
JAX Airport - Tue, 27 Sep 2022, 8am

Wow, it's been a crazy past 10 days. A star-crossed, crazy past 10 days. My combined leisure-work trip has been knocked around by weather on both ends. It seems like I've spent half the trip either in an airport or driving between airports.

Recall the front half of our trip, the leisure part, got off to a bad start when a Midwest thunderstorm wreaked havoc with flights and connections. We were diverted from Chicago to Indianapolis, missed our connection to Ft. Myers, and sat up all night in an airport terminal. The next morning we couldn't even get a reasonable flight to Ft. Myers so we flew to Tampa instead, and rented a car there and drove 3 hours to Ft. Myers. Our checked bag flew to Ft. Myers without us. Well, it was supposed to. It didn't arrive. (It did come the next morning.)

Then there's the back half of the trip. Sunday I drove from Ft. Myers, where I dropped off Hawk to fly home, to Orlando for a conference this week. I got situated Sunday night at a beautiful hotel, ready to work as a conference presenter Monday-Thursday and fly home Friday. There was just one problem: a hurricane was coming. The conference organizers decided late-late Sunday night to cancel the show. I got the news Monday morning and scrambled to change plans. I wound up having to rebook away from Orlando to get out before Wednesday. I booked a new ticket on a different airline, departing out of Jacksonville, and rented a car and drove 3 hours from Orlando to Jacksonville yesterday. I stayed at a hotel next to JAX airport last night.

Which brings me to the present. Right now I'm at JAX airport, about to board a flight to DEN then connecting to SJC. Things are running smoothly at the airport, and my flights are showing on time. In 8 hours this mess of a trip will hopefully be behind me.

It's time to fly!

Update: I got home on time... and not a day too soon!

So many relatives and friends today have said, "I'm glad you left Florida." Recall I was in Orlando for a work-related conference, and getting out was something of an ordeal the past two days. Well, now under the category of "Glad I got out when I did" is tonight's news that Hurricane Ian has shifted course to the east. It may roll straight over Orlando!



This graphic courtesy of Fox 35 News in Orlando shows an estimate of the storm's path as of Tuesday 8pm EDT. The eye of the hurricane— though it will likely be downgraded to a tropical storm once it's that far inland— could pass over Orlando Thursday afternoon.

It's worth noting that the way we talk about a hurricane's strength is no longer a great indicator of the damage it can do. The Category 1-5 stuff is based on wind speed. That made sense maybe 50-75 years ago when the hurricane prone parts of the US were sparsely developed and the biggest hazard was inexpensive housing and commercial buildings near the coast being damaged by high winds. Nowadays flooding is a far bigger hazard. Dense urban development has greatly diminished natural drainage. When multiple inches of rain fall in a tropical storm it no longer has anywhere else to go. The biggest damage tolls from hurricanes in the US in the past 10 years have been from slow moving storms that dump lots of rain.

It's rain that's going to be the hazard for Orlando; rain that causes flooding because there's nowhere for the water to go. Flooding will destroy homes, cause power outages and cut transportation links. People could be without power for days, and getting the lights back on and getting help to people in emergencies will be slow going where roads are flooded.

Even this morning my colleagues who chose to remain in Orlando were seeing the situation getting difficult. Stores were already sold out of bottled water, flashlights, and spare batteries. Basic food ingredients were selling out, too. I hope the hotel has several days of food in its kitchens... and enough power to keep the refrigerators and stoves operating.