Extended stay doesn’t bother some tourists

Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.

Visitors prevented from flying home by Monday's snowstorms on the East Coast said that being stranded in overcast but mild Las Vegas was not so bad.

"If you are going to be stuck anywhere, Las Vegas is the place," said Katie Graham, a 22-year-old counselor at a youth detention school in Castleton, Vt., who napped on her luggage Monday afternoon at McCarran International Airport.

Karen Kling, a 23-year-old banker from Raleigh, N.C., said she wanted to get home because she has responsibilities. But, she said, if she could not reach her intended destination because of an ice storm that has left more than 20,000 North Carolina residents without power, she would gladly wait it out here.

"If I learn today that I can't make it home, I won't take my connector flight to Dallas," she said. "I'll stay in Las Vegas for a couple more days. I'm not upset about this. No sense getting mad at something you can't control."

What she and other air passengers could not control was the worst East Coast blizzard in seven years that shut down much of the Northeast on Presidents Day. The blinding storm killed more than 20 and left snow drifts as high as four feet.

Airports in New York, Baltimore, Washington and Providence, R.I., were closed because of the storm that blew in from the Great Plains over the weekend, burying the Ohio Valley in snow and causing flooding and mudslides in the southern Appalachian Mountains.

Although several East Coast residents at McCarran on Monday said they were not looking forward to seeing the mess, they nonetheless mapped out strategies of how to get home while lounging at the airport.

"We'll catch the red-eye to Detroit tonight, and if we still can't get home, we'll stay at my sister's house there and wait it out," said Sherry Swelnis, 29, a teacher at the same school where her friend Graham works.

Graham said "this (flight cancellation) did not ruin our trip -- it was awesome." The two women came to town to meet up with friends and to attend the sold-out Phish rock concerts at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Graham and Swelnis said when you live in New England and travel, you have to expect that you may have trouble getting home during the harsh winter months.

"We took some kids (from the detention center) on a canoeing trip to Florida in January and when we got back home there was several feet of snow on the ground and it was minus-30 degrees," Swelnis said.

Kling and Kerry Hannon, 23, of Norfolk, Va., were two of a group of eight college pals who came to Las Vegas from all over the country for a five-day vacation. They considered themselves luckier than some of their friends.

"Some of them took connector flights and now are hopelessly stuck," said Hannon, general manager of a winery. In his home state, 6,000 people were without electricity Monday and, in some places, 30 to 35 inches of snow had fallen.

Hannon and his friends used their cell phones to give each other flight and weather updates.

"One of our friends got to Detroit and the best-case scenario there is that she won't get a flight out until Wednesday," Hannon said.

Another two members of the group, headed for Washington, D.C., caught a flight to Los Angeles where they were stuck waiting for the storm to let up, Kling said.

"I'd bet a lot of money that I will make it home today -- that is, if I hadn't lost it in the casino," Hannon laughed.

Debbie Munch, spokeswoman for Park Place Entertainment, the world's largest gaming company, said about 60 guests at the Las Vegas Hilton, Paris Las Vegas, Caesars Palace, Bally's and the Flamingo asked for and received extended accommodations Sunday and Monday because of the storm.

"We offered them attractive rates equal to or less than what they had been paying," Munch said. Many of the guests had gone to the Park Place McCarran Airport Check-in Lounge and asked for the additional accommodations, she said.

Munch said the extended stays were possible because there were postponements from Eastern conventioneers who had planned to come in Sunday and Monday for the Men's Apparel Guild Convention (MAGIC).

"A number of MAGIC guests said they would not be able to get to town until Tuesday," Munch said. "This is the height of the convention season."

There is no way to immediately determine what impact, if any, the postponements and extended stays will have on the resorts, Munch said.

McCarran spokeswoman Barbara Bolton said because the airlines do not have to report their cancellations to a centralized airport agency, she did not know how many local flights were canceled Monday because of the storm.