Dtw

[T-handle]

Anyone fly (or attempt to) in/out of DTW today? First, a major snow storm setbacks back everything, then to ice the cake, around 2pm water lines burst in the control tower rendering all euipment inop and the controllers are literally using hand held radios to communicate.

 

[flagshipper]

I came into dtw from ind sat morning. Then I picked up my clearance for a fwa push at about noon or so and in the middle of my readback tower told us they are evacuating and will open back up in 40 minutes in the old tower. Well over an hour went by with all gates occupied and several planes waiting to get in. ATC had two available freqs. So NW sent 5 critical flights out and eventually 5 crjs waiting on gates parked on taxiways and the passengers walked in on the tarmac way past c37
I heard the real reason for the evacuation was some bug spray had gotten wet and created a mold that was making all the controllers sick but who knows. But ATC was trying to use handhelds and that was not working very well so they shut down again

 

[172driver]

They were performing some type of mold/mildew removal process and fumes from the chemicals got too strong, causing the evac. Great day for it...

 

[another cfii]

They probably should've followed the "Smoke Removal Procedure":

1) Smoke goggles and Oxygen mask - Don and 100%
2) Crew communication - Established

 

[T-handle]

I just thought a major metropolitan airport using handheld radios (with just a couple of working frequencies) without ground or local radar in a blizzard reducing visibility to 1/2 mile was a recipe for disaster.

Glad it was uneventful except for a few bruised egos as people were stepping all over each other on the radio and controllers having to relieve each other every 15 minutes because they were getting burnt out.

 

[Twotter76]

I tried to get into DTW in the back of a NWA dc-9 so I could get the he!! outta MKE where it was snowing up a storm. Unfortunately for me that water main break happened right after we pushed back so we sat on the ramp at MKE for 2 hours while they tried to figure it out. Finally gave up and cancelled the flight and I got about 9 hours after I started (my commute is usually 1 hour). Thanks to the NW crew for the ride (sort of) anyway.