Floridians scramble on last flights to and from Boston before Hurricane Ian hits
BOSTON – As evacuations ahead of Hurricane Ian's landfall, Floridians are scrambling both to get home and to get out of Florida on the last flights to and from Logan International Airport.
Tampa International Airport plans to suspend all flights starting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Some, like Bruce Eliot, were trying to get home as quickly as possible before the hurricane.
"Unless I can get through this line and get a boarding pass, I'm missing [my flight]," he told WBZ-TV as he anxiously awaited in an hour-long JetBlue line.
Eliot made it to security in the nick of time – anxious to get home to his wife and daughter.
"I'm ready to pack up and leave once I get there, so I've already tried to convince the wife," he said. "'Let's get in the car and just go to Tennessee or something.' So we may not be staying, I've just got to get back to leave. It may be an evacuation at this point, we don't even know. And I've talked to quite a few friends who ain't making it back home this time either, so I guess it's quite a scramble everywhere."
On the other hand, both Boston natives and Floridians were eager to get to Massachusetts on a JetBlue flight that landed just before 8 p.m. Monday.
Paulette Harris of Tyngsboro's vacation was cut short.
"Thank god we got out in the nick of time," she said. "Our hotel was going to close down within the next 24 hours. They were taking all the chairs, the umbrellas. Our vacation was over."
For others who live in Florida, an incoming hurricane is daunting.
Emre Barut just moved to Florida a year ago, and escaped to Boston to visit his girlfriend and avoid the hurricane.
"I didn't know it was this serious and then people told me it was a big one so I decided to come here," he said. "It's my first time so I'm not familiar with this … people were just stressed, like everyone was just too stressed. They were freaking each other out."