Well, Crap

It finally happened. O'Hare got the first true snow of the season, and let me be the first to tell you that no one was ready for it. I am not talking about a little 1/2 inch that kind of stuck. I am talking about 6 inches in the last 18 hours, with another 3-6 more predicited for the rest of today.

The average departure delay topped 90 minutes, with the average arrival delay at over 3 hours. Oh, and if you didn't remember, it also happened to be the Sunday after Thanksgiving. One of the top 10 busiest travel days of the year. It seriously seemed like no one believed the weather reports that the snow was coming. Chicago had only about one third of the de-ice trucks operating, which reaked havoc at the gates. The same thing happened with the plows. When we landed in Chicago last night, we landed on an easy 3 inches of dirty slush on the runway. In case those desert people forgot what slush is, or how much fun it is to drive in said slush, imagine trying to put down a 80,000 pound aircraft with 70 people on board going about 170 mph. I love landing on unplowed runways. About as much as I love mushrooms!

This morning is already shaping up better. They have everyone and everything out in full force. Although the snow is still coming down, and fairly hard, it looks like they are doing well with keeping up with it all. There are also tons of de-ice trucks to get the planes in the air. And let me tell you there is enough people to fill every plane here 2 or 3 times over. As I was walking past one of the customer service counters for United last night, the line was an easy 250+ people deep. And that was just one of 10 Customer Service counters, not including all the gates and check-in counters too. ORD had to bring out cots and put them in the baggage claim. Walking through the terminal at 4:15am you could not find a seat that did not have someone curled up in a little ball trying to get a little sleep. CNN said this morning that early estimates say that over 5,000 people were stranded here last night.

Winter is here in all its glory I guess. Today is day four...I just want to fly and get home tonight. Keep your fingers crossed, although me being the pessismistic realist that I am, know that I will get hosed with delay afer delay. Oh well. Tis the season for more than just trees and Christmas carols!