KENNER, La. — The storms overnight caused a lot of people to have to rearrange travel plans and even spend the night in the airport.
And businesses lost sales on Friday because they had no power from the mess Mother Nature made.
MSY is saying the high winds and severe weather overnight did not cause any significant damage.
There was some damage to smaller, private aircraft, and equipment on the airfield.
The terminal never lost power and does have full generator backup, but there were some technical glitches and headaches for travelers.
MSY workers spent the morning dealing with power surges, getting those flight displays to reboot, and directing people around stopped escalators while weary travelers got some shut-eye.
“I got canceled my trip for three times. I been here in the airport for 30 hours. I left my home yesterday [at] 3 in the morning. It was so bad. I'm so tired,” said a Baton Rouge man.
One traveler coming back home to New Orleans from the Houston airport captured the storm in Texas. It got so dark, it looked like nighttime.
“Before I even sat down, they said everybody needed to get off the plane because high winds were coming. You could hear everybody around me, everybody's phone alarms were going off. They were getting tornado warnings,” said Carolyn Scofield.
She had to spend the night there with others trying to get to New Orleans for Tulane’s graduation.
“I felt most bad for people who were coming here for graduation, because there were a lot of parents on the flight talking about how they were trying to make these ceremonies this morning. Unfortunately, I think they missed them,” she added.
Another traveler went to fill up and return the rental car and found closed pumps at gas stations, because of the power outage.
“So, we had to bring the car into, into the return, and they said they weren't going to charge us for the gas, which I hope not, because their gas is $9 a gallon,” the woman leaving New Orleans said.
Along Airline Drive, there were no noon lines at fast food drive-thrus, nor lighted signs, or dine-in customers.
Customers at Charlie's Automotive Car Care Center in Kenner will have to be patient just like travelers. The power outage will delay getting their cars fixed.
“Everything was dark, you know we have cars on the lift. That all works by electrical, and we can't even let them down. It's just a big inconvenience. Oh, as far as Friday, I want to say probably two days,” said owner Charlie Calais about how long the delays could be.
One customer from Waggaman described his neighborhood post-storm.
“Fences blown over, trees limbs out in the middle of the street, like a tornado went through, or something. It's a little inconvenient, but of course, this is Louisiana,” said Rufus Portier.
The airlines will decide if they are going to fly with the next round of bad weather coming in. So, check directly with your airlines to see if there are delays and cancellations.
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