IAN and United

  On the way to Turkey IAN ran into us or rather Florida on September 28th two days before our scheduled flight to Turkey from RSW. IAN was the deadliest hurricane to make landfall in Florida since the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 but we did not die. Our house remained intact. 

I, Richard, prepared by putting up our storm shutters, bagging clothes, books, electronics, etc. and stacking stuff as high as possible as a significantly high storm surge was predicted for Punta Gorda. I also raised the boat up high on the lift and strapped the boat down. As an afterthought, I added a stern line tied to a cleat mounted on one of the dock posts.  We had also parked Joanne’s car midlevel in Punta Gorda’s downtown parking garage. 

Following an old adage, Run from Water, Hide from Wind, Joanne, Bleu and Richard evacuated to a Day’s Inn along the Interstate and on high ground in Sarasota. We wanted to be close by so that after IAN passed by, we could drop Bleu off at the Cat Cottage and be home in time for our ride to RSW on the 30th. 

We weathered the storm in the Days Inn watching the horizontal rain blow by on the 28th and returned home early afternoon on the 29th.  Ian had uprooted our lime tree and bushes along our lanai, ripped branches off our Crape Myrtle tree and stripped away leaves and palm fronds leaving the palms and trees bare.  Some of our lanai screens blew out. Some water apparently blew in the vent on the roof but otherwise the roof was fine.

Despite the stern line, the wind pushed Lickity Split about two feet forward on the lift. The cleat on the dock post almost pulled out. 

A bunch of sheet metal we later learned was part of our neighbor’s chimney mangled our mail box but that was about it for damage. We were lucky.  

The power was out and the water just trickled out the faucets. 

Although the Cat Cottage was intact, the owners refused to take Bleu as the next-door unit in the strip center suffered extensive roof damage.  United informed us via email that our flight out of RSW was cancelled.

Our friend, Judy in North Fort Myers, agreed to add Bleu to her troop of two dogs and one cat. Joanne changed our reservations to fly out of Miami Saturday evening. 

She made a confirmed reservation for a rental car to be picked up at the Punta Gorda Airport in the morning. I had my doubts but kept my mouth shut. Sure enough, in the morning we found the rental car building damaged and obviously closed.  Deciding to drive Joanne’s car the Miami, I made a reservation at Park and Fly for the car and we were off to Turkey! 

After we checked in for our flight, Joanne called United to change our return trip to Miami. The agent said we really couldn’t do that once we checked in but he would try.  Later I checked the United app on my phone and we were all set, we thought.

Skip forward three weeks. Time to come home. 

I checked my United App – we were all set for our trip home. United had even emailed me request to choose entertainment options for our trip to Miami. 

I had made a reservation through Trip Advisor for a transfer from our Izmir hotel to the airport for 3:30 AM. The van arrived right on time.  A smooth check-in at the airport for our Sun Express flight to Frankfurt went well with a minor glitch: our boarding passes for  the Frankfurt to Newark and Newark to Miami didn’t print out. The gate attendant assured us that everything was fine; happens all the time. Our bags were checked to Newark. After boarding the plane, I checked my United App again; our final destination was now Frankfurt!

At the United gate in Frankfurt, we found that we weren’t on our flight, it was sold out and we weren’t on any flight at all!  We waited about hour and a half for the gate agent to finish the boarding of our plane. In the meantime, Joanne called United’s 800 number; United waitlisted us on a Lufthansa flight. Our helpful gate attended realized that made no sense and got us confirmed on Lufthansa to Orlando connecting via American Airlines to Miami. My reservation printed out but Joanne’s would not!  He said Sun Express had control of Joanne’s ticket and she would have to go to their main check-in station to get it. 

We went to Lufthansa to get my ticket and get help with Joanne’s. The agent told Joanne she could not help her and to go back to United. She told me to go to gate Z19; she even wrote “Z19” on my ticket.  So, I went to Z19 to wait and Joanne went off to find Sun Express.

After a while Joanne called to say that she couldn’t find Sun Express and that nobody seemed to know where they were.  Well, I thought maybe the Lufthansa agent at Z19 might know where Sun Express was located. I explained our problem. She said that it made no sense to go to Sun Express and anyway their agents had all gone home as they no more flights that day!  She made a couple of phone calls and then told me Joanne could her ticket a gate Z58, the gate for our flight! Why I was at gate Z19, I will never know. 

We got to gate Z58 in plenty of time for the flight but the flight was delayed an hour and a half because the caterer was late with the food. 

We arrived in Orlando late but missed our connecting flight. Our bags made it too! We had to rent a overpriced motel room for the night before getting a flight the next morning.  

After a bit of confusions and a near melt-down on my part we got our boarding passes for the American Airlines flight. Joanne’s boarding pass included the TSA Precheck verbiage; mine did not. The regular security line didn’t seem to be that long so I thought I would just get in line.  Wrong! The line made a right turn and down the airport about a block and back again. Luckily, a CLEAR agent offered to sign me up with CLEAR which would allow me to skip the line completely so I went with it.  It cost $189/yr but I could cancel within fourteen days at no charge. I did. I made it to the gate. We made it to Miami We picked up our car at Park & Fly. After stopping at Five Guys for hamburgers, we drove home.  We were lucky!    

Back home debris was piled high nearly to the sky. Our was mostly lawn waste. Around town, we could see furniture, insulation and all kinds of stuff lining the roads. Blue tarps covered parts of roofs  everywhere.  Friends' boats suffered damage far worse than our boat did. 

The FEMA claw picked up our yard waste the end of October; many many piles of yard waste and rubbish still line the streets of Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte.  

October 24 - Welcome Home! Later, we added the lime tree and the pile got bigger!

 

October 31 - The Claw Comes to Lido Drive