Sep 1, 2008 6:48 am US/Central
Travelers Scramble Out Of Areas Hit By Gustav
Some Chicago Area Vacationers Forced To Weather Storm
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Millions of people have been scrambling to get out of New Orleans before Gustav hits. And some of those evacuees have ended up right here in Chicago.
CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports that at O'Hare Airport, some travelers are relieved after the panic that filled the Gulf region and the Caribbean.
Travelers left the storm region, but not without some trouble. The airport in New Orleans closed and some people had to drive to other cities to get flights to Chicago. They say they grew anxious as they saw communities along the Gulf Coast become deserted.
Midwesterners either cut vacations short, or spent extra days just trying to find a way out.
As CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports, dozens of flights from the Gulf Coast landed at O'Hare yesterday. They made it out just ahead of what some are calling the storm of the century.
Amanda Higley, Darcy Lown and Jenna Honrath drove from Louis Armstrong-New Orleans International Airport to Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport – both now closed. They had gone to New Orleans to party over the weekend, but before too long, the city had turned to a ghost town.
"We actually flew in Friday morning at 10 o'clock, and we were out Saturday afternoon, in at 9 o'clock at night," Higley said.
"It was just back and forth changing plans all the time, you just didn't know," said Darcy Lown. "They were saying stuff so you had to just evacuate as soon as possible. We ran into some police officers when we were coming back to get our rental car, and they were like, 'Get your stuff and get out of town now.'"
They hit the road, joining legions of people evacuating New Orleans.
"It was crazy. It was like a ghost town being in New Orleans," Higley said. "There was nobody there; the National Guard all around."
They first headed to Gulfport, Miss., the heavy traffic stretching a trip that would usually be just over an hour long.
"Bumper to bumper traffic the whole way; 76 miles and it took us 5 hours to get there," Honrath said.
Higley, Lown and Honrath arrived in Chicago just after 8 p.m., a little worn from their harrowing trip home, but still thinking about those who may lose the only homes they know.
"For us, because we were just visiting, it wasn't bad," Honrath said. "But it was just really sad to see the people leaving there with all of their stuff – their pets, their children, their families. It was just very sad to see them pack up and have to go."
One of the women is from Chicago, the other two are from Grand Rapids, Mich. They say despite all their trouble, they're happy they saw New Orleans when they did.
Malinda Obershaw of Beloit, Wis., is just back from Jamaica a few days later than planned. Hurricane Gustav is to blame.
"We were held within our resort for two days," Obershaw said. "We were supposed to leave Friday but they didn't let shuttles or anything go out Thursday or Friday."
Obershaw is just glad to have made it out of Montego Bay which she says in the wake of the storm looked more like Venice.
"We were on a busy street that became silent. The roads were flooded," she said. "It was nerve-wracking."
Obershaw said she spent two days praying for the people of Jamaica because she said their homes provided little protection from the storm. But fortunately, Jamaica received something of a glancing blow from the storm.
Haiti wasn't so lucky where more than 65 people are confirmed dead. Mary Casimir's son, daughter and mother are all on the island, and she knows they're alive but that's it.
"I pray to God to help them and to protect them for me – not only my country, but other countries the storm hit," Casimir said.
So this week she'll be praying for her adopted country and New Orleans, which is now in the storm's path.
Tracye and Rod Simmons of Dolton are among the hundreds of thousands evacuated from the region.
"We're coming back earlier because the hotel we were in actually closed and asked us to leave early, so as a consequence, we had to go," Rod Simmons said.
Tracye Simmons' dad and his family live in New Orleans and are now waiting the storm out in Alabama. She fears this storm will be worse than Katrina, which destroyed a hundred thousand homes three years ago.
"They lost everything the first time so they could possibly lose it again," Tracye Simmons said. "In fact, they just rebuilt. They just moved back into their home about a year ago."
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport are both closed indefinitely. Lafayette Regional Airport is also reportedly closed, and Mobile Regional Airport was to close Sunday night at 10 p.m. and reopen Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. Bush International Airport in Houston remains open.
Memories of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are on the minds of everyone. This time, the evacuation was much more coordinated.
Chicago-area travelers who went to New Orleans say they were happy to see it coming back from Katrina, but now they fear that the city might have to start all over again.
Hurricane Katrina claimed more than 1,800 lives, and with some people predicting that this storm could be even worse, comparatively few people have elected to try to tough it out.
CBS 2's Joanie Lum, Pamela Jones and Mike Puccinelli contributed to this report.
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