IAH and Hurricanes
 

For those CO folks living in Houston...how has CO and IAH handled hurricanes and tropical storms that have come through or near the Houston area?

Tropical Storm (soon to be hurricane) Rita is about to cross Florida in a couple days, then be off the Texas coast by late evening Friday. My Hawaii trip, planned over 6 months ago, has a connection to HNL at IAH on Saturday - now I am really concerned the storm might disrupt ops at IAH enough to wreck havoc with my trip and cost me at least one day of travel and possibly two pre-paid non-refundable hotel nights.

Is IAH inland enough from the coast so most storms are not expected to disrupt traffic in the area?

Is IAH inland enough from the coast so most storms are not expected to disrupt traffic in the area?

Having lived through Alicia in 1983, I can tell you that 60 miles made little difference in the amount of damage that storm did to downtown Houston after passing fight over it. That storm was only a catagory 1 or 2 storm when it reached Houston. I suspect that anything more would cause considerable disruption in traffic for at least the day of and one or two days after. Lets just pray that it goes somewhere unpopulated (like out to sea!)

Hurricane Alicia, 1983: Alicia was the first hurricane to strike the Continental U.S. since Allen in 1980. It was the longest period in this century that the U.S. mainland had gone without a hurricane landfall (though tropical storms did hit within that time). Alicia was a small to medium size hurricane. It reached a minimal Category 3 status as it hit land. The center of Alicia moved over the Texas coast about 25 miles southwest of Galveston on August 18. Aircraft observations indicated that only a 60 mile section of the coast, extending northeastward from Freeport, Texas, experienced hurricane force winds. Despite its small size, Alicia caused over $2.4 billion in damage (in 1990 dollars).


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Normally airlines clear out their expensive assets (aircraft) in advance of an approaching hurricane. You can be assured that IAH ops will be affected if Rita makes landfall in the Houston area as a Cat 3 storm.

You may also opt to go through EWR to HNL. The EWR flight leaves at 1 pm so no matter where you are coming from you should be able to connect. Another option, while avoiding IAH is to fly into LAX the night before and go out of LAX the next morning.

I have an IAH connection on Friday night <groan>

I just changed the HNL outbound via EWR - very helpful Elite desk agent was able to take care of everything. The problem is my destination is LIH. The CO flight arrives HNL at 605p, leaving one hour to connect to HA's 705p flight to LIH...which is too tight, given 15 appears to be 20-30mins late fairly often. Had to cancel the whole HA itinerary, eat $50 in cancel fees, rebook everything without the HNL-LIH segment, and buy a o/w HNL-LIH on Aloha with a 720p departure as insurance. Have a pre-paid nonrefundable room that night in Kauai...so I am really hoping 15 arrives HNL ontime and we can make that mad dash to the interisland terminal. Nothing like arriving for your vacation with a worrypit in your stomach :(

11am NHC update has the storm coming right through Houston as a hurricane on Saturday morning :( I have to feel for all the New Orleans people who were evacuated to Houston and will need to be traumatized all over again. I hate, hate, hate, hurricanes :mad:

Living in Houston, I have found this blog very interesting on the local paper's website:

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/

Flying back and forth between Florida over the last year, Continental has always been very generous and accurate with the "weather reaccomodation" section of their website. I have re-routed on several weekends over the last two hurricane seasons without any hassle or charges.

Hurricane Rita: Category 4/5 on IAH this Weekend
 

The current forecast models do have Rita forecast to be around the strength and intensity of Katrina with a near-Houston landfall on Saturday morning. However, there is a lot of spread between landfalls... ranging from further south on the Texas coast to as far east as New Orleans/Biloxi.

While the models have their eyes on IAH, it's still a long way away. I wouldn't panic or change plans on flights through IAH until later in the week when the storm gets closer to the coast. Right now, its just a strong tropical storm east of Florida. A lot can happen between now and Saturday.

http://www.weatheronline.com/tropical/index.html

Anyone with CO operations care to share what their regular hurricane plans are should a hurricane hit IAH? I'm sure they have a plan ...similar to their winter storm plans for EWR.

5pm advisory path has the hurricane crossing just abit west of Houston with the eye wall on the 'wrong' side - meaning the bulk of the winds and rain will be through the Houston area. The HNL seatmap shows a couple more defectors from IAH to the EWR flight.

With only one flight option out of EWR and two flights from IAH, perhaps CO might consider adding an extra flight from EWR to HNL on 9/24 (and possibly 9/25) and getting as many connecting pax rebooked on the extra session? Considering the aircraft operating CO2 and 72 will probably be moved to EWR from IAH ahead of the storm anyway, they would be in the right spot to work the flight.

Oil futures up $4 (biggest increase ever) and the mayor of New Orleans is suspending its re-opening :( What a horrible mess

I think that the hurricane's path and impact are sufficiently uncertain at this juncture to warrant such drastic preemptive action.

Agreed
 

At this point, the storm could go as far South as Brownsville and as far North up the Gulf Coast as New Orleans. It's way too early to tell.

I like Izzy connect through IAH Friday evening.. I thinkI am going to call the elite desk and try to reroute thru EWR. I feel for all of us FlyerTalkers who are scheduled to connect thru this friday/saturday

Good call - however, when called today they were not yet doing a free reroute. :( :confused: Hopefully that will change as I connect through IAH Sat night.

"Drastic" and "preemptive"? Since when is planning ahead and being proactive considered a bad thing? In my business, we don't wait until the tree limbs start snapping before making plans.

I would hope every option is on the table right now at CO ops...this is a major hub which has a very high statistical probability of being affected.

I certainly wasn't going to wait around for this stupid storm to blow away half my vacation.

If you're flying through houston anytime fri or sat...I'd watch the CO website so you can change your ticket to hopefully route through another city...I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing something like this with no charge by Wed if the news from here stays the same. If history tells us anything is that CO is very proactive when it comes to stuff like this when bad weather hits a hub. As someone living here near EFD...5 miles or so from Galveston bay, I'm planning and I'm sure CO is planning too for their biggest hub.

The news right now (Mon night 10pm) is looking pretty bad for Fri/ Sat for Houston....now they're saying direct hit at at least Cat 3. :( I bet thurs night ops would be effected also as they move out the 'assets'. (All this provided that they don't change their mind about the path.)