Those who fled now sweat how to get back
Evacuees face busy or blocked roads, canceled flights.
When Vicki Webber left town Wednesday to flee Hurricane Irma on a hastily booked flight to Minnesota, with her daughter and grandkids in tow, she says she had two immediate thoughts: how lucky they were to leave, and when they were going to be able to come back.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Palm Springs resident Webber by phone from Stillwater, a small town about a half-hour outside of Minneapolis, where she was staying in a hotel close to relatives who live there. “We were up most of the night, trying to get flights home. There’s nothing available until Thursday night, but we’re supposed to fly back then into Miami.”
That “supposed to” is very significant, as both Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport remain closed after suffering damage from the storm. More than 6 million Floridians were ordered to evacuate as Irma approached, and those who managed to leave the state, Webber among them, are now faced with canceled flights and blocked or busy roads. And once they get home, they don’t know what they’ll find when they get there.
Denise Riker left Boca Raton with daughter Duree Mellion Ross of Davie and her family to travel to a house that Ross owns in Aspen. It’s been a nice trip, full of pretty views and playing games, but Ross’ “stress and some kind of virus” has hampered her personal good time. There’s also the knowledge “that Fort Lauderdale is closed, and we can’t get back. (And) we do not have any power at our home.”
During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many residents fled New Orleans, so Britney Walton knows that it might sound odd to have left West Palm Beach for the Big Easy, where she was raised. So far, her flight back to Lauderdale is confirmed to be leaving on time, via email, even though the airport isn’t open yet.
What really has Walton concerned is that “Dollar Rent A Car was supposed to extend my rental till (Monday) at noon so I could figure out how much longer I’d be here, and now they’re telling me that I didn’t extend my rental. And that it’s $759 (extra because) of late charges, as if I wouldn’t have called to extend it!” she says. “I’m having a meltdown that this company is blaming me for keeping a car four days past its return time and trying to charge me right now and won’t put a supervisor on the phone at all.”
Michelle Gerson of Boynton Beach was already planning to visit her daughter in New York when she left Friday, but she hadn’t expected to stay so long: “My flight was canceled for (Tuesday) into West Palm Beach, so I’m coming back on Friday.”
But in this case, she didn’t mind so much, because she had a chance to spend a few more days with her daughter, and because she knew that her golden retriever, Chase, was safely boarded at Very Important Paws (VIP), a dog day care, spa and hotel in West Palm Beach.
“He’s in really good hands. He’s a very chill dog,” Gerson says. “I saw people trying to get on flights with their pets (ahead of the storm), and they couldn’t because they were too big. He’s huge, so I’d never try to fly with them. He likes the water anyway. He’d probably have liked to go stand outside.”
VIP co-founder and owner Will Corrente says staff posted more than 30 photos of dogs currently in their care, some of “whose parents couldn’t get back,” so that they knew “they were in good hands.” He and others stayed in the building with a total of 100 dogs, running the facility by generator, “because we weren’t just going to lock the door and leave them.”
That was a great relief to Paul Amelchenko, who left Labrador retriever Milo at West Palm Beach’s VIP when he and his family were under mandatory evacuation from their home in Lighthouse Point. They booked a hotel at Orlando’s Walt Disney World. Even though they drove to Orlando, “we assumed we were going to come back (Monday), but we might try to wait it out probably until tomorrow. The traffic is a concern with two little kids in the car, and we still don’t have power. Most of the city doesn’t.”
Even those South Floridians who left home for relatively pleasant places like Disney are now ready to get back home and back to their lives.
“The kids miss their dad, who stayed behind, and their cats. We all have stuff to take care of,” Webber says. “The weather here is beautiful. Leaves are falling, and fall is starting. But it’s not a vacation.”