Blizzard In NE Strands Travelers At MIA & FLL
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MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) – Hundreds of travelers are stranded in South Florida after a monster snow storm shut down travel in the northeast part of the country. Now passengers are scrambling to find a place to spend the night until they can catch a flight out of Miami or Fort Lauderdale.
"I'm supposed to be going home to Philadelphia," said traveler Morgan Hosbach.
Hosbach traveled here from Philadelphia to celebrate her birthday.
Her flight to Philly has been canceled until Wednesday morning. She's stranded at Miami International Airport with her family. Now they're hotel hunting.
"We're already booked. There's no rooms available tonight," she said.
More than 5,000 flights in and out of East Coast airports have been canceled as a major snowstorm packing up to 3 feet of snow barrels down on the region.
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At Miami International Airport (MIA) 42 flights have been canceled and 36 have been delayed.
At Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport (FLL) a total of 70 flights have been cancelled and 73 others were delayed.
Passengers at MIA were seen scurrying around the airport, many keeping their fingers crossed that their flight may actually take-off.
CBS4's Cynthia Demos spoke to one passenger at MIA who was set to fly to New York Monday morning but her flight was canceled. Instead, she skipped her meeting in New York and went to Los Angeles, for another meeting, early.
"We were supposed to go to New York and from there to Helsinki, but they canceled our flight," said traveler Tuevo Loman.
Sunny Kantola and her crew were in Miami for the Miss Universe Pageant. She is Miss Finland's handler and the two gentlemen with her created Miss Finland's costume.
"The plan is to stay here now and get straight flight to Helsinki tomorrow," said Kantola.
The numbers of cancelations and delays is expected to increase as the National Weather service predicts 2 to 3 feet of snow for a 250-mile stretch of the Northeast, including the New York and Boston areas. Philadelphia should get 14 to 18 inches.
Airport officials encourage those traveling to or from the Northeast to monitor flight statuses.
To track your flights follow the links for MIA or FLL.
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