As many as 50,000 Britons were stranded on the eastern seaboard by Hurricane Sandy this week with British Airways warning that passengers could have to wait “some time” to get home, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
Although winds eased enough to allow a number of airports, including Washington and Boston to re-open by Wednesday, the backlog of international flights to and from New York’s main international airports – JFK and Newark – were expected to take several days to clear.
According to the Foreign Office almost 50,000 British tourists had their return to the UK delayed by the hurricane.
The storm hit the east coast on Monday night, killing at least 80 people in the US.
Millions of homes have been left without power and many visitors are scrambling for airline seats now the storm has passed.
Mira Robinson, from Sheffield, had her flight delayed from Tuesday until Friday and is desperate to get home to see her children.
“I’ve got a daughter who’s two so she doesn’t really know what’s going on, but my six-year-old son is very upset,” she said.
“I have been talking to him every day and saying that I miss him and I love him.”
Mrs Robinson flew to the city with a friend to take in some Broadway shows.
Speaking from Manhattan about the aftermath of the storm, she added: “The further downtown you go, the more you see devastation. There are no traffic lights and there are trees down.
“When we went out yesterday all the roads were blocked with cars and we saw a couple of crashes where people had nudged forward and got side swiped.”
In Queens, New York, US-based British photographer Lem Lattimer took pictures showing the full force of the storm.
“It’s devastation everywhere,” he said.
“The winds were so bad that you thought trees were going to come down around you. I love extreme weather but there was no way I was going out while it was all going on.
“I wanted to see the aftermath, so yesterday I went to the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens which got hit really hard.
“It’s a popular beach spot but the sand dunes are completely gone, while so many houses are destroyed.
“My wife and I have friends who have had their homes destroyed up in Breezy Point; they’ve just gone.”
Schoolgirls stranded
Five schoolgirls whose journey home was delayed will be taken straight from Heathrow Airport to vital exam resits when they finally return to the UK next week.
The teenagers are part of a group of 38 from Leicester High School for Girls, and they are due to take the exams following this summer’s controversy over GCSE English grade boundary changes.
Their flight will land at 06:35 GMT next Wednesday and the school has arranged a bus to take them directly to sit the papers.
‘Terrific’ wind
Jo Sensini, a PR executive from Chiswick, west London, was on the 26th floor of the New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan with her two sons and a friend during the storm.
They were told they could move down to the ballroom on the second floor if they wanted.
“It was a very scary night on Monday but we braved it out in the room,” she said. “A lot of other people went down to the second floor.
“The wind was terrific. We were in a protected part of the building but you could really feel it and the windows were rattling.
“We walked around on Tuesday night and it was pitch darkness. The power was out in most places and lots of people were in Starbucks charging their phones.
“I’m flying back to London tonight. I don’t think I will be coming back to New York for quite a long time.”
Jo was active on Twitter throughout the week, and was still displaying a stiff upper lip as her departure time finally neared.
“Thank goodness for the mastercard lounge here at JFK – makes the 10 hour wait a little easier to bear,” she wrote before embarking on her flight home late Thursday night.
