Scenes As A Tornado Touched Down Near Chicago O’Hare Airport While Passengers Shelter

by Gary Leff

A tornado touched down near Chicago’s O’Hare airport late on Wednesday. There was a ground stop at both O’Hare and Midway airports late Wednesday, and passengers sheltered in place.

Here comes the tornado at O’Hare airport:

While passengers shelter in place:

And scenes from Chicago’s Midway airport:

Chicago O’Hare was the number one airport in the world for cancellations on Wednesday, with 172 flights dumped, while 550 flights (or 48% of the total) faced delays. Chicago Mdiway, with fewer total flights, was in the top five for cancellations and 51% of flights were delayed.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. ironically, United cancelled fewer system flights and the same on-time performance compared to a day with “just” thunderstorms at EWR

  2. Wow! Thanks for compiling all the tweets! Cool videos!

    Maybe I missed it, but all those videos of the United tunnel did have me wondering where all the AA and T2 pax would’ve gone during a tornado. I guess there are shelter rooms, but nowhere near the size of the UA tunnel or large enough to shelter the terminals, I’d assume.

  3. @MaxPower In the past, tornado warnings at ORD have evacuated T2 and T3 customers to baggage claim (requiring TSA rescreening after the all-clear) or airside lower level concourses where accessible to passengers (near G13-G17 as well as the G concourse rotunda). Only baggage claim would have the capacity of something comparable to the T1 tunnel.

  7. That’s a whole lot of gate lice and kettles to mingle with… No thanks, I will ride out the Storm from the comfort of a lounge.

  8. @Mano Where do the passengers in T5 go during a tornado? Also, how does this impact the FIS services for arriving passengers?

  9. @guflyer It’s a great question. I have no idea how they evacuate T5, although I imagine passport control and customs wouldn’t be endangered since those services are on the lower level of the terminal anyway.

Comments are closed.