Fear Factor

Tropical storms are very common in the Caribbean Sea area during the summer, and I had the chance to experience one of them while I was not in the best place to do so: an airplane. One of the reasons why I was so unfortunate for having had to go through this frightening experience was because I was scared, but not as much of the storm as I was of people.

When that happened I was eighteen years old, I had been on holidays with my family and a friend of ours in Florida, USA. We had first been to Orlando for the third time, most especially to Disney World; we enjoy that place enormously, we all feel like we are kids again once we enter that magical land. After having spent a week and a half in that city, we deposited our luggage on our rented van and drove all the way down to Miami Beach. We did not stay there as long as we did up in Orlando, but we still enjoyed 6 beautiful days in that sunny place, we only had a little rain one or two days, apparently the weather was saving the real monster for the worst time possible for me and my family.

The departure day had finally arrived, we were not happy at all to have to leave, who wants their holidays to end? After we had finished packing all our suitcases, we left the hotel and directed ourselves to return the rented van to the agency, from where we were then driven to the airport by an employee.

While we were on that ride, we all found ourselves looking at the sky with worried faces: the sun was nowhere to be seen, instead, we had a very good view of threatening dark blue and gray clouds that seemed to be wanting to stay right there for some time. It was not still raining, but it seemed like it was going to start anytime soon; there was nonstop lighting, which made us even more uneasy. I remember I could not stop praying for those clouds to disappear, I most certainly did not want them to be sharing the sky with me while I was flying on the plane. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened.

The waiting time before boarding the plane seemed unusually long. We did not do more that worry and worry about those clouds, the rain would not come, but the clouds would not leave either. Finally, boarding time had arrived, and at the same time the rain started to pour. I do not think I had ever seen such a downpour before, there was so much water falling from the sky that you could barely see beyond that layer that had been formed. But water was not the only nature element that was present, there was wind and a never ending parade of lighting, thunders and rays. We could not believe our eyes, did all this have to start happening right when we have to board the plane?

We were not sure whether the flight would be delayed or not after witnessing this weather conditions, but then we heard the final call to board our plane, which we found a little puzzling because, according to the departure time stated on our tickets, we were not supposed to leave until forty more minutes. Well, we started anyway heading to our gate and once we were about to be on the plane itself, my older sister ran away yelling like a maniac and locked herself in the ladies room. I happened to find out about this after I had already sat down on my seat, I could not believe she had done that! I knew she was terrified of flying, but I never believed she would ever make a scene!

My younger sister, who was also with me on the plane, told me that my older sister had seen so much rain when she was walking towards the plane that she freaked out and started yelling that she would not get on the plane because we were all going to die since the weather was definitely not appropriate for a plane to take off. Crew members had to go to the restroom and try to convince her that everything was going to be just fine and she should not worry. Meanwhile, everybody on the plane was waiting just for her to come so that we could leave. After about ten or fifteen minutes, I still do not know how but my sister was on the plane, but my mother had to give her a tranquilizer.

Finally the plane started to move. I must admit that I was scared myself, this was certainly not the best weather to be putting a plane on the sky, but I had not have the nerve to say I would not get on the aircraft. Moreover, what scared me even more was that once the plane was heading to the right track, I overheard a conversation between two women that were sitting behind me and learned that apparently the airport was going to be closed at twelve o'clock, which was our real departure time, due to weather conditions. But we were taking off fifteen minutes before then, which was something that I could not understand at first, planes never leave before they should, there usually is some kind of delay and we have to wait for many minutes or even hours. But then, after hearing this piece of information, I realized why they had announced the final call to board the plane forty minutes before they should have: the pilot must have decided to leave before the airport closed so that he would not have to be stuck there for who knows how long. I got really frightened then, but there was nothing I could do anymore, or so I believed at the time.