(WXYZ) — Overnight flooding in the tunnel on Dingell Drive leading to the McNamara terminal led to dozens of cancellations, delays, and missed flights at Detroit Metro Airport Thursday night. The problems continued into the evening for some passengers, with long lines to check into their flights. The McNamara terminal is a hub for Delta.
The Westin Hotel at the terminal was also completely booked for the night, with many passengers stranded until the next day.
“Y'all see all these people? How do we get to our flight?” said Ayana Pennington of Detroit.
Pennington is heading to Houston with friends and family. They woke up at 7:00 a.m. for a noon flight that got delayed more than two hours. Even so, they still missed it and were stuck for hours in standstill traffic. By the time they parked, they had 30 minutes until takeoff.
“This is just ridiculous, even on a regular (day) you can't get through TSA and all this is in 30 minutes,” Pennington said, clearly frustrated. "Yeah, that’s just our morning. I'm pretty sure that's been everybody's morning.”
The delays and missed flights piled up for Delta after intense flooding Thursday morning. The tunnel to McNamara terminal filled with water, as passengers attempted to wade through it with luggage in hand. The closed tunnel led to massive backups on the roads leading to the airport with many people deciding to walk to try and make their flights.
“When we got to DTW everything was just crazy," said Melissa Marowelli from Saline. "There was just traffic, we couldn't even get off the highway to get on to Merriman.”
Marowelli had an 8:00 am flight to Portland, Oregon where she and a team of 11 others have a 200 mile relay race called "Hood to Coast," which starts at Mt. Hood and ends at the Pacific Ocean. The team ended up at a nearby Coney Island working to find a new flight, eventually driving to O'hare Airport in Chicago to make it in time for their 34 hour nonstop run.
“Our team is scheduled to start at 6:00 am.tomorrow, we are van 1 so we are the lead runners,” Marowelli said. “Our flight gets into Portland at midnight tonight, so we’re going to get a little bit of sleep before we get out there but not a whole lot.”
While the flooding cleared and the road was reopened by 3:30 pm, passengers with evening flights say they missed theirs too, stuck in massive lines to just to check in bags. By the time they got to the front, they were rescheduling new flights.
“They’re not even giving a solution, they're just saying stand in the line, that’s all they’re saying,” said Divyashree Tumakuru Ramesh of Rochester Hills. “We just came on time, we’re all stuck here.”
In a statement, DTW said “The sheer amount of rain in a short period of time is the primary driver for flooding at DTW. A pump station at the airport lost power early Thursday morning; however, it’s unclear how much of an impact this had on the flooding. The Airport Authority will continue working to identify and address the root cause.”
“It would have been nice if there would have been some kind of communication from DTW proper or from Delta because the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing and nobody knew what was going on,” Marowelli said.
“We just ready to get out of here, there's too many people,” Pennington said. “It’s irritating we've been here all morning.”
