Sunday’s strong storms and tornadoes caused widespread devastation across parts of the south — particularly in Georgia, which got hit the hardest — leaving at least 18 people dead and 50 more injured. Not surprisingly, the storms have crippled air travel, leaving hundreds stranded at the Atlanta International Airport Sunday night, as captured in the above video by photographer and author Kyle Cassidy. As you can see in the clip, it took him over two full minutes to walk to the front of the line of people attempting to rebook their canceled flights snaking through the airport.
Cassidy, who had been in town for the American Library Association midwinter conference to promote his new book, This Is What a Librarian Looks Like, writes in an accompanying Facebook post that his flight got canceled after they had waited so long on the ground that the pilots exceeded their maximum time awake. He later told us over email that while his quick-thinking publisher was able to secure him a room at a nearby hotel, dozens of others were not as fortunate, and that when he arrived at his hotel there were at least 50 distressed travelers in front of him that the airline had sent over looking for rooms. And unfortunately, the congestion was only exacerbated by Sunday night’s Atlanta Falcons playoff game.
Ground traffic didn’t fare much better, as the hashtag #ATLtraffic was still trending on Twitter into Monday morning. But given the alternative, those stuck at the airport or caught in highway traffic still got off pretty lucky, all things considered.
Thinking about #ATLtraffic right now… pic.twitter.com/3bPmp6cjDQ
— Renee Gardner (@ReneetheG) January 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/chinky_atlanta/status/823530636724097024