Everyone has their own version of the truth

A bunch of people meeting for coffee but the convo soon turned to evacuation plans. Let me tell you about ours.

Last night we had only heard of WestJet suspending operations as of March 22nd. We, the four of us, had a return flight on April 2nd, so when Doreen woke up and said "perhaps we should leave earlier than April 2nd." - based on fears of local conditions entering the unknown. This was brought on by a Municipal proclamation from the Mayor's office that closed bars, casino, and restaurants over 50 people and anywhere that sold beer. I considered leaving early and got right on to the AirTransat (AT) website. Finding a flight that was leaving a week earlier than planned, next Thursday, I booked it and received a booking confirmation. Our fellow travellers did the same a little after us and did not get a confirmation number even though an email was sent from the credit card company that they has just purchased tickets.

So when the others questioned AirTransat why this had happened they were told that AT had just cancelled all flights in the system and to watch for news on the AT website. But we were told, by AT, that as we have a flight on the 2nd we should be back on a plane any day between April 2nd and 5th. So back to us - do we have the original booking or the new one (which btw had cost us $1300 each) time will tell. I had messaged AT on FB Messenger to ask which flight we had and a reply came back a few hours later asking what we wanted. I told them and now we wait for instructions.

Meanwhile we meet fellow snowbirds; all have a tale to tell. A couple of people have managed to get tickets by using the call centre in Canada by their kids using Canadian phones and another person just phoned his travel agent (an endangered species) and told her to get  on it - she did. We also had frantic friends who went to the airport to find out what was going on. One was told that there were no arrivals coming in, even though "FlightRadar" an aircraft tracking app showed five Canadian planes in the air, and another was told that the people at the airport would not know anything until after the 22nd. So we just sit and listen to all of the tales and wonder which one is the real one.

So we sit and wait!

In other news the local conditions don't seem to have changed much. The tourist industry has ground to a halt, as a result of the bars closing, and snowbirds just seem resigned to their fates of having to wait and watch airline websites for news. After making a list of missing food items, as I said we are thinking that we will be leaving April 2nd, we needed to go downstairs and buy them.

The pic on the right shows the scene in the produce department at 1pm today. An abundance of food and hardly any customers. The usual thing for any day - no panic buying yet!