ATLANTA — The last flights into Atlanta from Tampa landed Tuesday ahead of Hurricane Ian.
Tampa International Airport was slated to close at 5 p.m. as Florida's coast braced for the storm's impact. Nearly 500 miles away, Atlanta has been welcoming people at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport as they try to remove themselves from the storm's path.
Travelers said evacuating ahead of the Category 3 storm hasn't been easy.
"It's oversold, it's overbooked, we don't know what we are going to do, so I just went to the airport, they put me on standby, and I got lucky," Adam Graziosi said.
Graziosi is from Atlanta and was on vacation in Tampa when he realized how powerful the storm would get. Forecasters predict Ian could intensify to a Category 4 hurricane as it moves toward Florida.
His hotel was issued mandatory evacuation orders, meaning he had to leave Florida quickly.
"They called yesterday and said, 'you have to leave today.' And then they decided on some leniency, said we could leave at 7 a.m," he explained. "And they came knocking on the door at 8 a.m., so they gave me an extra hour."
His flight was packed with people from Tampa, coming to stay with family in Atlanta, like Ronaldo Moyer.
"This one, I am feeling not really good," he said about Hurricane Ian. "Before it's always been like, 'don't worry about it too much.' This one is more concern, more concern for everybody."
Moyer moved his flight up by hours to make sure he could get out before the airport closed.
Both men said they were relieved to be in Atlanta before Ian was scheduled to make landfall.
"You don't want to get stuck somewhere, there are no rental cars, every station on the news is showing cars backed up for miles. No rental cars, no flights, rain. I am from here, that doesn't really happen," said Graziosi.
There are still flights coming in from surrounding areas, like Orlando, Pensacola, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
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