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Bad weather has put a brake on holiday travel, and a lot of people are stuck because of it. Airplanes, trains, buses are affected.
Right now at the Salt Lake Airport things are looking good. We're told there are no cancellations and no delays. But other parts of the country aren't so lucky, and that's why some travelers are stuck here.
Denali Knutson, a stranded Greyhound traveler, said, "We, luckily, just got a bus headed to Portland, Ore., so that's where we're headed.
Knutson has been stranded since Sunday. She said, "We're the last ones who made it through the door."
She's finally headed home, but it's a different story for those headed to Boise. James Harrington said, "Traveled about 4,000 miles, sit here all day and all night, all day and all night again."
Phil Rosa with Greyhound said, "[Interstate] 84 is still closed, so Boise's out. We'll have more people coming in this evening, and then of course this is going to start all over again on Christmas Day when the next storm comes in."
"I wasn't expecting to have to stay overnight on a cot with a hundred other people. You can't take a shower," Harrington said.
Yoonsook Pack is hoping to get on the next bus to Portland. She and Chihero, a Japanese exchange student, got stuck in Denver when their flight home got canceled.
Pack said, "We called Amtrak. We called all the different rental cars to see if they had one-way rental cars. The only thing available at that point out of Denver towards the west was Greyhound. So we decided to hop a bus."
But when they got to Salt Lake, they got stuck again. She said, "But we're going home, maybe in time for Christmas, maybe Christmas night, but we'll see."
Some have been stuck here in Salt Lake for six days. And Utahns are helping out. Vicki Richardson said, "This is the least we could do to give back." They finally have cots to sleep on and food thanks to people who've stepped up. Richardson explained, "We've fed them now, but they still need to be fed tonight, maybe tomorrow. There are people who have been stuck here for six days."
Bad weather is also affecting those traveling by train. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said crews in some cities headed out with picks and shovels to clear snow-packed track switches; elsewhere, trains were held back to give lavatory pipes time to thaw.
Each train delay caused a ripple effect, with other trains and their crews at other points having to wait or readjust, he added. "A combination of all those things is what presented this situation -- about which we're very regretful," Magliari said.
Around 600 passengers in Chicago waited for up to 22 hours before finally boarding their delayed trains -- the Lake Shore Limited, which was bound for New York, and the Seattle- and Portland, Ore.-bound Empire Builder.
The Chicago Department of Aviation said more than 400 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport because of the weather, and many others were delayed. So, stranded travelers are hoping for good weather traveling weather the next few days.
E-mail: corton@ksl.com
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
