It's storytime!
As some of you may have noticed, there was a small storm system that settled over parts of colorado and sundry other states this week. This weather system generated blizzard conditions which totally screwed several thousand people at the denver airport (and elsewhere I am sure, but this story is about me).
Things started out badly on wednesday morning. We had a 10:10am flight which we tried to leave at 8am for (since we were sooo damn close to the airport). Amazingly enough, we got massively delayed in traffic (due to the snow) and arrived at the airport with an hour to spare for check-in and security. At this time, they had already cancelled 90% of the flights. United only had about 7 flights still leaving and ours was one of them (YeS!!) Unfortunatly, we (the mob) were all filed into one line regardless of whether we had a chance of getting out (NO!!!) We did mention to several United reps that we actually had a chance of making it out, as opposed to the rest of those desperate bastards trying to re-schedule, "I have to get back to South Affrika!". But to no avail, even when they cancelled all flights at 10:30 and after (meaning we had probably 1 of the 3? flights still leaving), they still wouldn't let us sneak to the front of the line and our flight left without us.
Now I can hear you thinking "you dumbasses, if you had just left for the airport 3 hours in advance like you are SUPPOSED TO, none of this would have happened!!". Quite right, dear peanut gallery and as you shall see, we were well punished for our mistake. So let me tell you what it was like, to be stranded in Denver's infamous nipple airport...
As our flight left without us, we had to start planning our next step. We decided to relocate to the terminal exit area and hunker down. Being a small emotional eater, I went to get some tacos. I tossed back a margarita while waiting for my food and chatted with a TSA rep. turns out, she wasn't going home either. Even though the airport was officially closed, TSA still had to monitor the security checkpoints. I headed back to the light of my life (loml) and gave him a taco. While waiting, we had snagged a hotel reaccomodation form and I had booked a room at the Radission. Lucky us, they promised to send out a shuttle in an hour and a half (WTF??!!) but ok at least we had a room. So as the time drew near, I headed out to the shuttle stop and waited... and watched the other shuttles, and waited, and chatted it up with the others. Turns out that the mother of two next to me was also waiting for the Radisson. I tell her about the hour+ and she gets a bit upset, "I have two small children; I can't wait out here". And she was right. It was frickin' cold. I told her to go inside and find the loml and I would get them when the shuttle came. As I try to describe him, i realize its much easier to find my luggage, "Its a bright pink hawaiian print". What happened next was a bit sad.
Finally a Radisson shuttle appears and never stops (WTF??). I call the loml and tell him I think the shuttles are near but now he can't find the mother, "she went to the bathroom!". As it turns out, two Radisson shuttles showed up but the mob was in charge. Most of us didn't make it on the first shuttle and the other was already full. Apparently, there is another shuttle stop that they were hitting up first. The same thing happened to the next two shuttles. A mob, desperate to get out, was taking over. We never made it on those first four shuttles, and I would have been ashamed of myself if i had.
I head back inside and the mother is back. it turns out she had gone to food court to buy lunch but people had started panicking. All the food stands had huge lines and people were stocking up in case things went medieval. I called a good friend (actually, i called several. If you are reading this, thank you all). Unfortunatly, the storm had gotten so bad that the roads were closing and the airport shuttles were also having problems. We gave our hotel reaccomadation form to an old man who had no room. he seemed to need it more than we did. Alas, we never made it out of the airport and we didn't see the mother and old man again. Hopefully, they made it out on that first night.
I was upset and took a small walk to find a space to hunker down. We settled on a long carpetted walkway with an excellent view of "La Cantina", where I had gotten by tacos only a few hours before. Our neighbors were pretty cool. Two local girls who were trying to fly out for christmas, a couple of japanese chicks who kept hogging the electrical socket, and a young couple, who I only remember cause the guy kept trying to charge his cell phone for hours. You can see early on that the electrical socket is going to be the big social watering hole. It turns out the sockets weren't providing a normal charge or whatever; it did take forever to charge anything. On this note, you would later find people hangin out in the bathroom just trying to charge their phones.
Things got pretty routine, really fast. every 30 seconds, the denver airport announcement system would inform us that the airport was closed. Some weirdo was singing soul/blues music in the terminal. The line at La Cantina always had at least 20 people in it. We discovered that we were all trapped. Not just the passengers, but the airport officials, pilots, stewardesses, burger king workers, cleaning crews... and they had to keep working!! Alot of them had shown up at 4am or even earlier, so while some customers were pissy, I think we all realized after awhile that things were bad for everyone.
I read two books while in the airport. "The seven daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes and "Stiff" by Mary Roach. They were both good books but "the Seven Daughters.." was waay better. I recommend that one. "Stiff" is a good fun book but I got tired of reading about dead people after a 150 pages.
evening approached and we were getting no news from the airport. One of the local girls (Emily) had been re-booked for thursday. I had to call my friend Khara for news because the airport wasn't telling us anything. Rumors were running rampant amongst the stranded. I heard that the airport was going to re-open at noon, no wait at 7pm, or is it noon???. Emily started to lose it. She kept crying because, like most of us, she just wanted to go home and she had no idea if her flight was still good. The united phone lines kept dropping calls and the webpage had no information for us. The loml went walking by one (of the three) news crews. He has to hear from the reporter that the airport is closed until 7pm tommorrow, "I'm here at the Denver Airport where people are so bored that they are just watching me. well here is some news for you, the airport is closed until 7pm tomorrow!". What an insensitive bitch.
The airport starts handing out blankets to people. I go get one and hear that the interstates are closed due to the weather. My blanket is neatly labeled "Courtesy of Denver International Airport". Yay. a souvenir. On a side note, the loml was at the Hudson News (you know, that book store that sells candy and junk). he notices all the "I heart Denver" crap and asks the clerk if they are selling. Amazingly, they haven't sold any.
Around 9pm, another announcement is added to the maddening mix of airport PSAs. This new announcement says that for $99, you can catch a shuttle to a downtown hotel. This sounds like crack to me. The roads are closed and the blizzard is on. We decide we are staying at the airport, but the two local girls decide to leave. good-bye emily.
I can't take this reality anymore. The airport announcements keep going "the airport is closed...", "Unattended luggage is a security threat...", "Blah blah blah". The lights are still full blast, the line at "la cantina" is still huge, but at least the blues singer has shut up. the loml feeds me what he swears are sleeping pills. I don't care anymore. I take the pills, put on my snow jacket, pull my wool hat over my eyes, and try to ignore everything. I don't think I slept a bit. The airport was freezing and my free lint blanket (a little thinner than the airline blankets) wasn't doing the job. My hips start hurting from the floor and I start wishing I had swiped some cardboard boxes like some other people had. they must have been more comfortable than the floor. At some point, I "wake up". The loml is chatting to a new neighbor. In my delerium, I think I know her. i wave and go back to "sleep".
Day 2: I wake up. The loml has brought me a bagel. yay. I decide to perform a morning toilet. heck, lets go the whole nine yards and put on some make-up too. Just cause we are stuck here doesn't mean we have to look like ass. When I get to the bathroom, I see other women involved in morale boosting grooming. In restrospect, i wonder what the men were doing. I'll have to ask. But in the women's room, there was hair straightening, make-upping, and mutual compliments between strangers on how well our hair looked. There was also one lady looking for a travel iron. eeeee! As I wander through the airport, I can hear bits of conversation. Sounds like the car rental companies were taking advantage of the situation and were renting SUV's for over $100 a day. Yay capitalist pigs. The airport road has finally re-opened but the interstates are still hosed. They are recommending that only vehicles with 4 wheel drive and high clearances be out on the roads. It seems like we are going to have spend another day in the airport. I head back to our spot and meet our new neghbor, Sally. (Sally, i doubt you will ever read this but I'm glad we met you and I hope you made it to where you were going). We settle back into the routine... airport announcements, la cantina, etc..
I take a walk around 10am (and if this tale seems like its going on forever, then you now have a feeling what is was like to be in the airport. eternity, as I discovered, really blows). As I walk around, I see that some lucky people got cots to sleep in. The red cross had shown up the previous night, but you had to have small children or be old in order to get anything. For the first time in my life, I feel empathy for those asshole men on the titanic who shoved women and children aside in order to escape a sinking ship. Note* its still an asshole move. There are people passing out info sheets. I look at it. Its an aiport circular with actual news on it. Finally! News.. I can't believe it took the airport officials 24 hours to come up with this. It looks like they are attempting to shuttle out more people to downtown hotels. There is even information for hotels with rooms available. Holy Holy. I discuss with the loml. Yeah, we are getting out of here. Sally hears us talking and wants to share a room. Awesome, yes, we are getting out of here. Heaven is named the Holiday Inn and we can get a room for $99. The info sheet says the buses will be here at 11 and will leave at 12:30. I don't understand the timing but we all agree that we need to get there at 11, just in case.
The info sheet directs us to an exit door, number 506. As we get there, there is a huge line. The estimates of the stranded range from 2,000 to 5,000. I have no idea how many people were in that line. After all this, a little caution is in order. I ask an airport official. turns out that there are 5 meeting points, one for each hotel. The holiday inn line is about 5 doors down. The loml calls my cell; he's already found the Holiday Inn line. There are only 15 people when we get there. Life is good. the buses start pulling in. They are huge and beautiful. We get in our bus; there is no mob here. we are all too tired. In total, ten buses came to the airport (2 per hotel). I hear only 800 people made it out on those shuttles. Our caravan left the airport, led by a snow plow and an airport escort. I suspect it took us at least an hour to get to the hotel but I wouldn't know because we were all so happy to be out. to quote the woman in front of me, "If I spend another 20 seconds in that airport, I'll go f*cking n*ts!".
Well, this is a good spot to end the venting. Of course there is more to tell. as I write this, I'm still stuck in Denver. Sally tried to get out the next day on standby but her flight got cancelled. We are still waiting. I guess there may be some lessons learned which I will try to sum up here: