For one Ottawa woman, a trip to Florida has turned into an exercise in emergency preparedness. Theresa Haveman flew into DeBary, Florida yesterday, about 25 miles north of Orlando, possibly in the path of Hurricane Matthew.
We met Theresa yesterday on that inaugural flight of Allegiant Air, which was heading to Florida.
Today's Allegiant Air flight to Fort Lauderdale was cancelled.
As for Theresa, she is there and "hunkering down" for what may come.
Ottawa's Theresa Haveman was lucky to be on the flight yesterday from Ogdensburg to Sanford, Florida, if “lucky” is the right word.
“Sanford is very convenient for where I want to go,” Haveman told CTV Ottawa Wednesday, as she prepared to board the plane.
It may be convenient but scary, too. Hurricane Matthew is bearing down on Florida, after slamming into Haiti and the Bahamas, leaving a trail of death and destruction. In fact, the airport where Haveman landed in Sanford is shut down today.
Haveman, who spent years living in Florida before retiring to Ottawa, is “hunkering down” tonight in the walk-in closet with her friend.
“So, we are prepared, we have food, water, we have generator, so we are good,” Haveman said, on the phone from DeBary, “We've been through this a number of times and hopefully everybody else is doing the same thing.”
At the Ottawa airport, Kim Cullen was taking what will probably be the last flight into Tampa for a few days.
“I’m excited because I’m going home,” said the Florida resident, “however, I just talked to my husband, it's not too bad yet, it is supposed to hit south Florida and then work its way up the coast at 2 a.m. and so most flights will probably be cancelled tomorrow.”
Airlines are sending out advisories to travel agencies, like Handa Travel in Ottawa.
“Obviously, if it's dangerous to go there, they will cancel the flight for that particular period,” says Mohinder Handa, the general manager of Handa Travel.
In fact, that is exactly what is happening. As of Thursday morning, more than three-thousand flights had been cancelled in the southeastern United States, between Wednesday and Saturday. The most affected areas are Miami and Fort Lauderdale that had planned to halt operations today.
“It’s scary, huh?” added another airline passenger, on his way to Texas, out of the path of the storm, “our second hurricane in the U.S. this year.”
The hurricane has killed more than one hundred people in Haiti. Kelly Fontil's daughter lives there. She is a medical doctor who had also been in Haiti during the earthquake in 2010. Fontil says fortunately, she is fine but he knows so many others are not.
“As you know we had an earthquake in the past,” Fontil said, “and we're still recovering from it. It's a slow process recovering from whatever nature brings to us.”
Just what nature has in store for Florida and the rest of the east coast remains to be seen. This could be the biggest storm many of these residents have seen in years; they are still hoping it will just pass them by.
