HEAVY STORMS, CARRYING SNOW, HAIL, FOG, AND winds of gale proportions had swirled down out of the northwest and enveloped the entire Atlantic seaboard from the Carolinas northward in the worst weather of the year. All flights out of New York had been canceled for twenty-four hours, and so now it was Thursday afternoon, instead of Wednesday, when Captain March touched down the tricycle landing gear of his big DC-6-B on the concrete strip at Tampa airport.
The usually calm and placid air had been as rough as a rolling sea even at the plane’s normal “over weather” altitude for the first two hours of the flight; and since the ship was packed to capacity due to yesterday’s cancellations, Vicki and Cathy had their hands full.
But here, over Florida’s west coast, the sun shone brightly. The blu
