Waiting in St. Louis

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I touched down in St. Louis on Thursday at 6:45pm local time. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, and the afternoon glow warmed everything it touched. By the time we got settled in for our connection flight, my sister and I noticed the darkening sky out the north bay of windows directly across from our gate. In fact, the sky wasn't merely darkening.. It was dark. "Due to high winds, Lambert Airport asks that you keep small children away from the windows." OK...we were getting concerned. The lights were flickering, the vents were spewing out large balls of dust and lint all over the floor, the northern sky was black, and the southern sky was that yellow-pink color of impending weather. The silhouettes of the light posts rocked and swayed against the dark-rose backdrop of the western horizon. All flights were now delayed. 7:00pm, local time. "EVACUATE THE CONCOURSE. ALL GATES ARE CLOSED. PLEASE MOVE TOWARD BAGGAGE CLAIM. NOW! WE ARE EVACUATING THE CONCOURSE! MOVE, MOVE!" I wished I had had my camera at the ready when the swarm of grounded air travellers burst into a sudden stampede of motion. Instead, I struggled with my sister to gather our things as quickly as possible so as to get out of the way of whatever unknown disaster had evacuated us and almost certainly delayed our departure for some time. We passed small children, overweight people of all manner and fashion, and countless family clusters (tiny swirling storm systems themselves) as we descended down a long ramp into the dark, sauna like cavern of the powerless baggage claim area.

"Here Peter, this is a good spot." I sat down next to my sister, huddled against a wall trying, as best we could, to avoid other people. You never can tell how people will behave in panic-type situations. They provoke in some an overwhelming vigilante law &order/authoritarian response, and turned others into rioting bandits. We wanted to stay as far to the edge of such absurdities as possible. Our clothing was sticky and damp, quite predictably, in the sweltering 100+ degree womb of Lambert Field Baggage Claim. With nothing else to do but wait, I took out my camera, determined to parlay a better knowledge of my camera's night/dark capabilities out of the presently unknown emergency. I ran off while my sister stayed behind to watch a movie. We passed several hours this way.

The sweltering heat had finally broken our strength. We couldn't sit huddled shoulder to shoulder in the sweating darkness any longer. "let's go have a cig, Emily" I said, as my sister fiddled with her laptop, our nearest and brightest source of light. "Can we go outside yet?" "Yea. The just announced it," I told her as she unplugged her headphones.. As we walked toward the door, we could see the frenzy of people, attracted to the open doors like moths to a porch light. The wheezy yellow light contrasted sharply against the inner darkness of Baggage Claim, and my eyes were pained to adjust themselves. We bolted to the right and were finally free of close contact with others. After scavenging a light off another smoker who had retained his lighter through the security check, we started up the ramp to the ticketing concourse where I was able to get some really nice shots of the evening sky and a few bolts of lightning. After passing an hour or so in the air, we decided to return to baggage claim. The waiting was interminable, and the best method of surviving it was frequent relocation. Having a camera helped immensely.

After another two or so hours, during which my sister watched a movie on her computer, and I lurked around in the dark in search of interesting photographs, we finally heard the announcement that made official the fear we had carried all night. Our flight had been canceled. Disappointed, dehydrated, and edgy we decided to call American Airlines and make other arrangements to get out of our layover at St. Louis.

1-800-something and I was connected to a gum chewing employee of the airline stationed god-knows-where, apparently entirely unaware of our situation in St. Louis. "How may I help you?" "Well, my sister and I are stranded in St. Louis where we've just learned that two tornadoes touched down earlier on airport grounds, that one of them tore a piece of roof off a building, and that another building caught on fire. We are here on a layover on our way to Virginia and are wondering how we can get out of here." "Just one moment." "Sure." silence....."sir?" "yes?" "All our flights are full." "So how do I get out of here?" "I don't know, sir." "Well,, there's gotta be a few options here." "I can book you on a flight out of Springfield in two days." "What? No. How am I supposed to get from St. Louis to Springfield? I don't have a car, I am from Seattle, and I'm trying to get to Virginia for a wedding." ""You're in Seattle right now?" "No! I'm in St. Louis." "Well, what am I supposed to do for you, sir? How am I supposed to help you?" "Get me out of St. Louis. Jesus Christ, that's" "Sir." "why" "Sir.." "I" "Sir..." "called you. Just tell me what my options are." "You can take the flight out of St. Louis in two days." "No. That isn't an acceptable option. That's a non-option." "Well, that's all I can do for you." "Then we have nothing more to say to each other. Goodbye."

Frustration. Emily cussing. Shaking my head. Etcetcetc...people are all the same when they get pissed off. Not angry. Pissed off.

"Here...give me your phone and I'll try again. Maybe we can get someone different to help us." "OK...just hit send again." Not owning a cell-phone myself, my sister feels the need to instruct me on its proper use each time (very occasionally) ask to use hers. This would normally irritate me but, under the circumstances, I failed to think about it until after the fact...when it no longer mattered. 1-800-etcetc, "Hello, American Airlines. This is Jennifer, how may I help you?" "Hello. My name is Peter Anderson. Are you aware of the situation in St. Louis?" "Yes, I've been watching the weather all day." "Well, my sister and I are stranded here, trying to get to Virginia from Seattle, and I am wondering what my options are." "Sure, just a moment." clicketyclacktypetypetype. "OK sir, you were on 5348 to Norfolk?" "Correct" "OK...I can get you...what's your sister's name?" "Emily Anderson" "OK, I can get you out tomorrow at 2:45pm via Dallas. All our earlier flights are full, but I can book you for this flight and you can try standby for something earlier." "That sounds wonderful. Thanks for being so helpful." "Well, as an employee of American Airlines, it's my job to help our passengers get where they're going as smoothly as possible." "Well, thanks." "Oh, it's no problem. Just a moment while I..." Lost call. Battery dead or something like that. I don't know. I don't own a cell phone. Were we booked?

Unaware of our status as passengers, unable to go anywhere, or even buy any water, my sister and I made our way upstairs to the newly reopened ticketing concourse. It was 12:45 am. We had to wait until 4:00am for the ticket counter to open. It was much cooler upstairs, so we decided to join 12 or so other stranded American passengers at the front of the line, opting to sleep on the tile floor for the sake of our position in line rather than seek out an empty baggage cart or two for the sake of our comfort.

After two hours of sleepless dozing on the concrete floor I awoke, abruptly and to a fully lit room, and reached for my shoes. I was getting up. I had to, if I still could. Wandering around, I was able to snap a few good pictures of sleepers. There were literally thousands of stranded passengers, all of them 'sleeping' in strange places, contorted positions, and in varying degrees of attire. Upon my return to our campsite, I found my sister had awoken (not before I had snapped a few compromising photos of her attempted slumber as well) and formed a chummy fellows-in-suffering bond with a small group of other passengers. Best of all, someone had found a source of water - the first water in many hours - and offered me some. I drank deeply, but was not refreshed. We had been sated for the moment, but were still quite uncomfortable. I resumed my prone position, this time with a book I had bought in Seattle. 3:00am...an hour to go. I found myself watching the clock in between sentences of the book I was 'reading'.

Somewhere between the middle of the chapter I was reading and the time I was rustled awake by my sister, I had managed to fall into the nearest thing to sleep I had experienced since our time in St. Louis began. Apparently, while I slept, my sister and another female in line had to defend our position against a hoard of would-be usurpers trying to cut their way ahead of roughly 200 people. The ferocity of my sis and the other woman was apparently met by the sort of bovine gazes and expressionless faces often adopted by people who have been uncomfortably and unexpectedly caught doing something they clearly knew to be inappropriate. Silently, they pretended nothing had occurred and slowly, nonchalantly backed away from the ribbons they had unhooked and made their way to the back of the herd. Upon hearing this story I groggily got to my feet, oriented myself, slipped on my shoes, and gathered my belongings as the now overcrowded serpentine of American Airlines passengers inched forward, person by person, to the ticketing counter where two American Airlines employees did what they could for who they could. The moment of truth had arrived. Were we booked on the flight to Dallas which would backtrack us but eventually dump us out at Norfolk, VA? Had the woman I had spoken to followed through with our booking? "Hello. What can I do for you?" "Well," I replied tot he ticketing agent - a fiftyish woman with blond hair and a lion's jaw, 'we need to get to Norfolk. Our flight yesterday was canceled, but we are apparently booked on the 2:45 to Dallas this afternoon." "What's your name?" "Anderson. Emily and Peter." Typing. "It looks like you're confirmed for that flight." "We've been here all night...is there any way we could get out of this place earlier?" "Well, it shows all the other flights as full, but I can put you on standby for the 6:00 flight and you can wait on standby for each flight leading up to 2:45 until you either get a seat or board the flight you are booked on." "Wonderful. So we just go through security now and we'll be automatically put on standby for all the flights before 2:45?" "Correct." "Thanks a lot. That's a big help." "Not a problem. I'd want to get out of here as soon as possible too. It's going to be crazy here all day. Have a good flight."

After an hour long wait in the security line, and 10 minutes spent putting shoes, belts, wallets and all manner of personal effects back into place, we were seated at the gate with our fingers crossed. Would we get out of this 12 hour stint in hell we had descended into? Each group was called to board, and other standbyers were assigned vacant seats. Creeping disappointment plagued us. We were surely going to be left behind. Of course. Just as I had prepared myself mentally for another 8.5 hours in St. Louis I heard something that caught my ear. :Anderson, Peter and Emily." Come again? "Anderson, Peter and Emily, please come forward for your seating assignments." Emily and I turned to each other, paused a moment, then each burst into a grin and hurriedly made our way to the counter. We were on a plane at last, soon to leave St. Louis and its swarm of stranded, angry, sweaty, dirty, noisy clusters of families and businessfolk below and behind us. We were on our way to Dallas and, with any luck, Norfolk after that. I just hoped, in the dark corner of my heart, that I didn't have to sit next to a fatso. Or a child. Or a smelly. Or anywhere near a noisy baby.

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