November 2004
In August, Hurricane Charley blew through Florida and into the Carolinas. That fast-moving Category Four storm cut a compact swatch of destruction across the state, effectively bringing aviation operations to a halt for a few days, and much longer at affected airports.
Just when we got a handle on that recovery effort, and the TFRs had disappeared, Hurricane Frances entered our reality. On Monday, August 30, everyone began to take him seriously. Tuesday happened to be my kid’s birthday and I was determined not to press the panic button too early and deprive him of his day.
Wednesday it was apparent that we were going to feel some effects from Hurricane Frances, so everyone began battening down their home and airport properties. Thursday morning the storm had reached Category Four status and was heading straight for our home base at the Stuart Airport.
The moment of truth for my business partner and myself had arrived. What do we do with the aircraft that we manage and operate for charter? Do we stay with our homes or leave for safety reasons? If we leave, where do we go and what do we take with us? If we fly out, when will we be able to return? I had contemplated what to do at this moment for all of the 16 years I have lived in the “Sunshine State.” Now it was time to make a decision.
In the end, we decided to lock the charter aircraft in the hangars. I would escape the storm’s path via, of all things, a motor home. My partner, a former Marine, refused to be driven from his home and chose to stay. The logic to all of those who will wonder how anyone can leave behind millions of dollars’ worth of aircraft to the indiscriminant whim of Mother Nature is both simple and complicated. I could only fly one aircraft.
The other pilots who work for me all have homes and families of their own, and were not eager to leave them behind, or to drag them along to evacuate an aircraft. Other pilots who were eager to fly the aircraft out were either not rated nor insurable in the aircraft that needed to be flown out.
The fact is that all of the aircraft are fully insured. If they were to get destroyed in the storm, the insurance company would have to buy them. Our hangar at Stuart, Fla. is one of the newest in the county and built to the post-Hurricane Andrew building code, rated to withstand 150 mph winds.
With that in mind, we parked the commercial-use aircraft inside that hangar and bolted down the doors. My personal aircraft would have to take their chances in the hangar at my home on a private airstrip in Palm Beach County. I had learned much from my mentor, Owen Gassaway, the FBO at the Lantana, Fla. airport for the last 50-something years about hurricane proofing a hangar. Door cables holding the main door both in and out, along with anti-sway cables (steel hangars only), anchor pins and a good set of window and door shutters complete our hangar hurricane kit.
Personally, I would have preferred to escape via aircraft, but real concerns from my wife and kid about the wisdom of doing that—plus the ability to take a ton of personal files and records in the motor home that would otherwise need to be left behind if we flew—sealed the deal. Included in the evacuated documents were the logbooks for all of our aircraft as well as copies of the insurance paperwork.
We watched Hurricane Frances on TV from our hotel room in Savannah, Ga. I did, however, make good use of the four days I was forced to be away from home. I visited the Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, which I would recommend as a great day trip for anyone who is interested in aviation history and the Second World War. I also made it to Patriot Point in Charleston, S.C. Built around the USS Yorktown, it also features a WWII vintage submarine, a destroyer and a Coast Guard cutter. Again, this makes a great day trip for the aviation history buff.
Frances passed directly over the Stuart Airport and my business partner’s home at about midnight on Friday. It moved so slowly and the eye was so large that it took more than four hours for the eye to pass. The back side of the storm was more damaging then the front side. It took all day Saturday for Frances to get to Tampa, less than 180 miles away.
I planned on heading home Sunday morning, but Frances was so large that the fringes of the storm were creating tornadoes 450 miles away in Savannah. The ride home was treacherous. I would have personally rather flown through that weather than drive a high-profile vehicle over deepwater bridges in a 40-knot direct crosswind. That, coupled with the 2.5 million frustrated and road-weary refuges that composed the largest evacuation in the history of the State of Florida, all on the road at the same time, led me to believe I would have been safer in a plane than on the road.
Frances devastated everything from North Palm Beach to Fort Pierce on up to Daytona Beach. Palm Beach International Airport, although up and running by Wednesday, had several hangars lose their roofs.
Stuart Airport was far less lucky. Though our hangar was fine, and all aircraft undamaged, most of the “T” hangars were just flat-out gone. There was a pretty Cheyenne sitting out in the middle of the ramp with the remains of a hangar door draped across the right wing.
A Cessna that had been in one of the T-hangars lay upside down in the middle of the infield grass. The Martin County Maintenance Hangar had completely collapsed, as had the Life-Star helicopter hangar. The tower was not operational, and there was no power on the airport, nor would there be before Saturday, Aug. 11, a week after the storm passed.
Fort Pierce Airport lost several hangars as well as the United States Customs building; the Pan Am Flight Academy had sustained serious damage, too.
Lantana Airport in central Palm Beach suffered damage to the terminal building, and several aircraft tied down outside were wrecked.
Across the state of Florida, hundreds of aircraft were damaged or destroyed.
Remarkably, my hangar and home did well. No serious damage to my personal aircraft or to my house. Our grass runway, despite 15 inches of rain, was usable as early as Wednesday. Though with disaster TFRs everywhere, and President Bush and his TFR rolling through the state, I have not attempted to aviate just yet.
It is common for the FAA to place a low altitude TFR over a large geographic area following a natural disaster. Don’t be tempted to go out and “take a look” at the devastation from an airplane, or you may well violate that TFR.
The economic devastation to the aviation industry from these two storms is enormous. Florida is the home to several academy-type flight schools such as Pan Am, Flight Safety, Com Air and FIT, plus hundreds of smaller Part 61 and Part 141 training operations.
FBOs without power can’t sell fuel and even if they could, to whom? Maintenance facilities, aircraft paint and interior shops, avionics installation facilities, charter operators, banner towers and agricultural applicators have all had their businesses come to a sudden halt.
With no phone service, filing a flight plan, getting a customs clearance or filing an APIS (Advanced Passenger Information Service) is difficult if not in some cases, impossible.
Nationally, you can expect these storms to affect insurance rates for both hangar/airport property and aircraft. Why? Because without one single flight hour being flown, the insurance companies have incurred massive losses from these storms.
Most of this devastation that I have described came from a slow-moving Category Two hurricane named Frances. Could you imagine the damage and destruction that a Category Four or Five storm could inflict?
Well, we got a chance to find out. Hurricane Ivan, yet another Category Four storm ran over the island of Jamaica before turning northwest toward the eastern Gulf of Mexico and a storm battered South Florida. It wiped out Mobile, Ala. and caused severe damage as far east as Pensacola, Fla., and as far west as New Orleans. That made Ivan the third storm to hit Florida in 30 days, and the first time three storms has hit Florida in one year since 1964.
If that isn’t enough, Hurricane Jeanne is spinning out over Puerto Rico, and is forecast to move northwest toward—where else?—South Florida. From what I have seen, (and I lived in South Florida during Hurricane Andrew) if Jeanne develops into a major hurricane, I will again opt to leave. This time I will fly. There is no point racing home to a dark un-air conditioned house with no power, running water or phone service.
My partner, as tough as he is, will likely take an airplane and leave as well. Had Frances been a Category Four or Five when it came ashore as originally forecast, he would have lost far more than the roof on his house; he very well may have lost his life.
The lesson here is valid for anyone living on or near the coast from Brownsville, Tex. to as far north as New York (remember Hurricane Gloria?). If you own an aircraft, have a plan or series of plans ready to execute depending on what the storm is forecast to do.
If you leave your aircraft behind, take the logbooks and insurance documents. Read and understand your insurance coverage. Some policies may not cover your aircraft if the hangar it is in falls down on it. Be sure that your hangar lease doesn’t contain a subrogated waiver of liability, which would essentially prevent you or your insurance company from suing the landlord or his insurance company for damages.
Read and understand the limits of liability on the hangar in which you keep you airplane, and if you tie down outside, verify the airport’s policy about leaving aircraft tied down outside during a severe storm. It is entirely likely that should your airplane break free from its tiedown and it lands on a hangar that subsequently collapses onto a couple of Learjets, your coverage will not be adequate to protect you from the ensuing legal action.
Under no circumstances should you consider saving your cherished aircraft if weather conditions exceed your personal ability to fly the plane. We all love our aircraft, but they can be replaced.
Should Jeanne actually strike South Florida, it would be the proverbial “Strike Three” for Florida’s aviation industry. If it happens to come to Palm Beach, I personally plan to watch it on TV from my hotel room in a city far away from here.
Michael Leighton is a 3,100 hour CFII/MEI/ATP as well as an A&P, and holds a type rating in CE-500 series business jets. He is a current and active flight instructor and a former FAA Accident Prevention Counselor and operates a Part 135 on demand Air Carrier company in South Florida. You can reach him at av8tor@aol.com.
