Hurricane stuff

First of all, I want to say that I sincerely hope that anyone who is directly affected by hurricane gustav or anyone that has family or friends affected by the storm will be ok. No one wants to see another Katrina, and I hope that people were able to get out in time.

I am curious though when there is a hurricane, do air traffic controllers have to stay through the storm or just until the airports close? I would imagine that military planes and other rescue aircraft need to be controlled after the storm.

Again, I hope that everyone will be okay during and after the storm.

There are different levels the FAA will implement....Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta(delta is post disaster) and we go from there. Charlie is the highest level and they will only allow essential personnel to work, providing re-location assistance to all other employees and dependents that are non-essential. Usually they will ask for volunteers to stay if they need to; however, I'd imagine if there was a supposed direct hit to a facility, they would evacuate the entire facility at some point after all the flights were no longer a factor and hand the airspace over to a TRACON or Center...there won't be much flying around during the hurricane, that's for sure...then once the storm passes the controllers that volunteered or can return to work will.

The FAA hands out green cards to stick in the dash of your car that say "Emergency Responder." On the back of the card it basically says all law enforcement officials must give you unrestricted access to disaster sites, accident sites, federal facilities and what not that are within the scope of your duties...that way you can get back to work if roads are closed or traffic is bad.

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Your friendly neighborhood Lawn Gnome

Yeah with what he said!

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TB

Military planes depart for safer location. Those that are hard broke are sheltered. Air Force controllers are evacuated like everyone else, though a small team of 4-5 stays behind to re-open the facilities once permitted.

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Radar - Join the Darkside