Air Traffic Evacuation

[flower]

A question for our US colleagues.
I have been watching the progress of Hurricane Katrina and just wondered at what point do Airports and most particularly VCRs get evacuated.
Do as many aircraft as possible get flown out of the Airports prior to the Hurricane hitting and do they also allow ATC staff a reasonable time to evacuate ?

Sorry if this qustion has been asked before

[CUNIM]

Hi Flower

Long see, no time!! Since nobody has as yet replied, I was in Antigua, working I may add, well mostly, up till the rum cocktail in the surf time - eat your heart out.:ok:

When, during the hurricane season a forecasted blow was identified, the aircraft that could not be sheltered were removed out of harms way to another airport. As far as the tower controllers were concerned, I can only assume that they were in some form of shelter as large sheets of corrugated iron whipping around in the air at considerable knottinesses are hazardous to one's health.

Cheers

[Scott Voigt]

Hi Flower;

NEW tower was closed yesterday morning and allowed to let the folks get out of harms way. MSY TRACON closed about mid day and Houston Center took over the airspace. MSY tower stayed until that evening and then closed up shop. I would be surprised if a plane was flyable that it would have been left at the airport. I know that all the stuff that could fly was indeed flying last night when I was working. It was more than just a tad busy.

Right now there are a LOT of flow restrictions going into Memphis Center as well as the eastern portion of Houston Center since there are a lot of frequency outages and some radar issues. Katrina is already inland a bit and as of the last sigmet that I read at 1400 cst. it was still packing 135 knot winds. Lots of problems and everyone just trying to work around it. I expect that it is going to take a little while to get the communications assests as well as radar assets working again.

regards

Scott

[flower]

Thanks for the replies, I have been a bit of an anorak watching Fox network news today ( the only US channel news we can get here on SKY) quite incredible weather.
Good to here they let you get away in reasonable time.

[av8boy]

Right now there are a LOT of flow restrictions going into Memphis Center

On that note, I happened to say the words "oh my" out loud this afternoon when I saw the 1627Z message saying...


ZME HAS NO RADAR OR FREQUENCY COVERAGE IN THEIR AIRSPACE SOUTH OF A
LINE THAT RUNS EAST/WEST THROUGH MEM. TRAFFIC ROUTED THROUGH THE
IMPACTED AREA WILL BE GROUND STOPPED, OR REROUTED, OR PLACED IN AN
AIRBORNE HOLD UNTIL A REROUTE CAN BE FOUND.
IAH AND DFW ARRIVAL TRAFFIC ON SWAP ROUTES CONTAINED IN ADVISORIES
032 AND 034 RESPECTIVELY ARE GROUND STOPPED. NO OTHER ROUTE IS
AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME FOR THIS TRAFFIC.
USERS SHOULD EXPECT TACTICAL REROUTES FOR IMPACTED FLIGHTS... SOME
OF THESE MAY NOT BE DESCRIBED ON A NUMBERED ADVISORY.
EQUIPMENT PROBLEMS ARE EXPECTED TO CONTINUE INDEFINITELY DUE TO
SEVERITY OF THE WEATHER.


...followed smartly by a broader ground stop. Also noticed a group of "ATC 0" facilities...

Not a good day to be working the traffic or flying the airframes in that part of the world. I don't envy you today Scott!

Dave

[Scott Voigt]

It was an interesting day to say the least, but not all that bad considering that the airlines were all over the place. Some of the hardest things were trying to keep up with the ever changing flow restrictions and rerouting of aircraft, and of course answering the questions of why is this happening? <sigh> You would think that maybe the crews might JUST WATCH the frigging weather channel or maybe even get a weather briefing and put two and two together. Let's see, 25 foot storm surge = no coastal navaids, radars or radios... 175 knot winds even inland may just mean the same thing... <heavy sigh>

regards

Scott