Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Riding it out

Wow, it's been just shy of two months since I posted? Boy am I lame! And busy.

A is trapped in New Jersey due to the storm. He's fine and in a hotel that has power (now); just stuck and waiting it out. He flew in on Sunday knowing the storm was coming but due to unanticipated time off in July, August AND September already and our new moneypit house we didn't want him to have MORE time off unpaid. So in he went. He flew two flights and then the company put him up in a hotel and canceled the rest of his 4 days of flights. He survived, the hotel lost power for about 24 hours and had some broken windows but he came through pretty much unscathed. He took the employee shuttle over to the airport and took advantage of their emergency power to charge his phone. He said the only active outlet he could find was in the ceiling above a ticket counter so he hopped up and hooked in. He was also able to scrounge some food from a catering truck since prepared food was non existent at both the hotel and airport. He reported that TSA had abandoned ship and anyone could walk right in the airport and into the sterile area. I had visions of some kind of 'Lord of the Flies' outbreak and him finally returning home missing a sleeve, a pant leg and a weeks worth of beard. But the hotel got their power back and now he's just waiting and waiting and waiting. He didn't have much time off between trips and the company wants to keep him there so they can use him when so many other inbound pilots are going to be stuck. I know he hates being away from the kids, especially on Halloween, but he'll get home eventually.  And now he has officially been through his first real hurricane.