South Carolina – Escaping the Snow

Sometimes, when the weather is bad and flights are delayed and canceled, things seem to work out. I was at a customer site in Columbia, SC for a few days. On the third day, there was snow in the forecast. As you can probably guess, Columbia doesn’t get much snow so they don’t handle it very well. Around noon, the customer told me we should cancel the class for the rest of the day and I should try to get out of town asap.

I arrived at the airport around 2 pm for my 6 pm flight. It’s a long time to wait but no other flights were leaving earlier. Besides, the Columbia airport has some super comfy rocking chairs.

Around 4 pm, the snow started falling. And falling. And falling. With each flake, my hopes of getting to Chicago and back to Seattle were diminishing.

While I sat in my comfy rocking chair, flights started to delay and cancel. At one point, I remember looking for a hotel near the airport but they were all completely booked up given that flights were canceled not only for the rest of the day but also the following day. I’ve never had to sleep in an airport, but it started to feel like that might happen.

At 5:30 pm, they announced our flight was boarding. We wandered out through the snow to board our little regional jet. The pilot made the usual announcements and we taxied to the runway. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw them plowing the runway with a pickup truck with a plow attached to the front.

We sat at the end of the runway for a while. A flight landed, and our pilot announced that we had to go back to the gate given that landing pilot’s experience. It was too dangerous to take off safely. Back to the gate we went for lots of waiting around. But, as much as I was expecting it, they didn’t cancel the flight yet.

At 8 pm (6 hours in the small Columbia airport is a bit too much!), we boarded our plane again and taxied out to the runway. The snow had slowed down but we were going to try anyway.

At this point, I knew I wasn’t going to make any connection in Chicago back to Seattle. But, if I could get to Chicago, I’d have options on how to get home. In Columbia, I had no options. As we sat at the end of the runway, the pilot announced that we would try to take off soon. Fortunately, I had my phone so I decided to risk it and make a reservation at the O’Hare Hilton so I’d at least have a place to stay if/when we got to Chicago.

About an hour later, around 9 pm, we took off. 3 hours late, 7 hours at the Columbia airport, and over 2 hours sitting on the plane going back and forth trying to determine if we could take off. Once we were up in the air, the pilot made his usual announcements and added, “You’re lucky that I wanted to get home tonight!”

I couldn’t help but smile and be very thankful to be on the lucky plane with the determined pilot who wanted to get home. I got home the next day, a little tired, but happy to be home.