Blizzard 2010, JFK The Day After (pictures)

[gonzalu]

I had a chance to take a peek this afternoon as I was dying to see what the airport looked like after this massive storm. I can say that the airport was a standstill... however, ramps were being slowly cleaned out.

Runways however were NOT TOUCHED. At least not 31R and 4/22 L/R, could not see 31L/13R. The wind was making it seem like more snow and in some places it was impossible to see in front of you (under the airplane overpasses)

Surprisingly, access roads and ramps were fairly clean. Some were still untouched and of course, lots of cars stuck and left overnight abandoned in place.

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8145/1139248042_amHR5-O.jpg

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8149/1139248046_GdHXv-O.jpg

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8163/1139248054_uAggw-O.jpg

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8167/1139248135_sZf3b-O.jpg

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8170/1139248150_QVASR-O.jpg

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8177/1139248130_CwTcw-O.jpg

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8204/1139248176_fDV5N-O.jpg

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8219/1139248219_FvJqk-O.jpg

The winds were so fierce that 31R looked like fog...

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8225/1139248230_CPiqd-O.jpg

Perfectly clear day... this is simply from snow drift effect... blowing snow was tremendous!

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8232/1139248228_HupXv-O.jpg

this was enhanced. In reality it looked a lot worse :-)

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8233/1139248268_tqykU-O.jpg

not sure why they flipped this Evergreen around to face the wind... unless it is for that very reason...

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8268/1139248303_zP7Ms-O.jpg

Cargo areas were fairly well cleaned at this time... as most other ramps were. I guess that's more important than taxiways and runways?

http://manny.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Spotting/JFK-12272010/MAG8276/1139248316_q8mz5-O.jpg

[LIMatt]

I love the Caribbean shot with the snow blowing off the plane

[AirtrafficController]

Excellent coverage Manny. Good to see some of the Non-movement areas/ramp are clean. Those are cleaned off by the airlines (Evergreen, FedEx, jetBlue, etc.)
The PANYNJ is responsible for clearing active runways first, primary entry/exit taxiways of the active runways, then the other taxiways and inactive runway.

[Delta777LR]

Great shots Manny!! Cant believe you manage to get out there to get them shots.. those are great

[Derf]

Fantastic! LOVE IT!!!

[chrisparypa]

Manny great shots ! I was trying to move my car today but no luck, Brooklyn is under the snow today....

[lijk604]

Nice work Manny, great coverage that we rarely get to see.

[Zee71]

Excellent stuff Manny..........I was hoping to make it out there yesterday as well. My block finally got plowed around 3 a.m. this morning (12/28).

[gonzalu]

Thanks All!! I was very excited to have an opportunity I may not get again for years to come if ever in NYC. JFK was absolutely GORGEOUS! I may be crazy but it was beautiful seeing such a huge and complex machine such as JFK (the whole of it) collapse to a crawl! The light was magical. Take a look at the EXIF in the images... There was SOO MUCH light that I was getting exposures of 1/8000 sec @ f/4 ISO 200-400 (since I has hand holding most of them out of my car window in one had :-) I wanted to make sure I had high enough shutters) I also did not have to overexpose one bit for most shots... credit to Nikon Matrix on most of these as I shot them mainly blind.

Another amazing statistic is the lack of management at the terminal arrivals/departures ramps (the car side, not the plane side) they have complete dumases controlling traffic. I had two guys at the entrance of the JetBlue Departures ramp enforcing me to keep moving while it was painfully clear someone at the far end of the trail of cars had stopped in the middle of the only passable lane and blocked all traffic. I politely asked them to instead relocate to the front of the line to keep cars from stopping and all it did was anger them even more... they kept yelling and yelling "MOVE" "MOVE!" LOL.

Back to beauty. There were huge snow drifts and in mid day full on sun it was IMPOSSIBLE to see past the blowing snow. See the British Air 747 above. and the gorgeous light... oh how I wish there were some takeoffs or landings ... I was really shocked to see the runways had not been touched !! Seeing 13L untouched and buried in snow brought images of a future world where we had moved on from NYC to another part of the world and left this airport abandoned behind :-)

[NLovis]

We moved planes so the parking spots could be cleared of snow. I should know, I got stuck on overnight. Could only get out for one shot as everything else was blocked.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/6204/dpp0161.jpg

[ANITIX87]

I may be crazy but it was beautiful seeing such a huge and complex machine such as JFK (the whole of it) collapse to a crawl!

Beautiful unless you were trying to fly out. I was ticketed on CO80 (EWR-GVA) for Monday the 27th. It got cancelled. At the last minute. So my girlfriend waited on a reaccomodation line for 6 hours. Finally gave up as the airport employees seemed to be leaving. Went back to her house. Spent the ENTIRE next day on the phone. Now we're confirmed for January 1 departure. There was nothing before, and CO refused to book us on any other Star Alliance carrier (LX had plenty of seats out of JFK). The only thing they were willing to do was offer us a EWR-IAD flight and then put us on stand-by for IAD-GVA, which didn't have any open seats for the next 2 days. So now I'm stuck at home through the new year, missing out on three days in the alps (notably, I'll miss my trip to Zermatt).

I'm so beyond furious at CO's ineptitude and the whole situation. The fact that it takes major gateways more than 3 days to be back on track (11/29 at EWR is STILL not clear) is unacceptable. Thankfully my sister got out of LGA ok yesterday morning.

TIS

[NLovis]

11/29 or 12/29? Also isnt that part of UAL yet or is the customer service still seperate

[ANITIX87]

11/29 or 12/29? Also isnt that part of UAL yet or is the customer service still seperate
I meant runway 11/29 is still not cleared of snow, sorry.

As for customer service, they're still separate. The night of December 27, if you called the number, it said, "Due to snow and excessive call volume, we are not taking calls at this time. Thank you." And then it would hang up on you. My girlfriend's father called using his frequent flyer gold card or whatever it was, but they wouldn't help since he wasn't one of the people flying. Then he called his work's travel agent and she finally (after spending HOURS on the phone) got us on the January 1 flight. It's absurd that they won't, especially in a situation like this, re-book us on LX out of JFK, US out of PHL, or anything else. Like I said in my previous post, the only thing they'd do was put us on EWR-IAD (which was not guaranteed to go out yesterday), have us overnight in IAD, and then put us on stand-by for IAD-GVA with UA.

Just an awful experience. CO went from being my favorite airline, to having me wonder if I would fly them again if they weren't in Star Alliance.

TIS