could. cnn newsroom continues now with my friend. that is good to see you. you are here all week? i am. pen me in for some time with you. we are penned in. good to see you. live from studio 7. good morning, everyone. a blizzard is dumping snow. travelers got stuck. overnight we had about 250 passenger stranded in the airport. we did our best to accommodate them with cots, pillows, blankets, food and water. the hotel laguardia is up and running. an arizona state lawmaker
good stuff. the weather has thousands of travelers stuck at airports, including atlanta s hartsfield-jackson international airport. eric byfield from affiliate wsb talked to some of them. reporter: there s nothing like spending a holiday weekend stranded at the airport. ask patty expenser? reporter: i m not planning on getting home any time soon. it s like a nightmare that never ends. reporter: the plan was to change planes on the 25th before moving on to washington, d.c., for their son s wedding on monday but since the dress and the bride are also here, it looked iffy. that was until sabin s wife showed up with the news they waited nearly 36 hours to hear. we got our boarding tickets for this evening s flight to washington. reporter:? n spanish the bride-to-be told me she s thrilled to be able to leave. while it worked out for them, it won t for many others. the wicked weather forced airlines to cancel almost all flights to the northeast sunday.
delta alone canceled 850 flights. airtran 94. some people tell me the worst part about the waiting game is finding somewhere to sit because the stress level is running high. it s not comfortable. people s nerves are on edge. absolutely. what do you do if you re stuck in the middle of this mess? i c if you re already at the airport i can t lie it s a difficult situation. you want to make yourself as comfortable as possible. you want to talk to someone live at the airport, if there aren t this many employees around to talk to, you want to make sure you get on the phone, call your carrier, call the 1-800 number, see what they can do about getting you rescheduled on the quickest flight home. do you have priority, meaning if you are already stuck at an airport, let s say you missed your connection, do they try to place you first as opposed to the people at home or no?
yes. a lot of people spent the night in airports, no flights going in or out, places like new york and still not flying. you heard that from chad. cnn s senior correspondent allan chernoff is at log wardia airport. reporter: the mood is fine. most of the people stayed overnight in very good moods, because they figure look, what else can we do? the weather right now actually has cleared up. chad should snow, nice and sunny outside, a little bit of wind but not all that bad. we ve been telling you about their nightmare scenarios of staying overnight, even though they re pretty good moods about it but nonetheless, boy, what a hassle. consider this, what about the folks who actually drove through the night to get to the airport, thinking that their flights were still on. we have one of those gentlemen with us, roger moscaso, roger left westchester county at what
time? 3:30 in the morning. reporter: normally 45-minute drive in. yes, 45-minute drive, two and a half hours. reporter: you get to the airport, crack of dawn and what do you hear? the counter says the flight is canceled. reporter: checked online, called the airline in. i checked online, called the airline, many times before i left and everything was okay, come here and they say the flight is canceled. 9:45 down to miami? first in atlanta then miami, florida. reporter: what do we do now? here we are at the airport. i actually found roger sitting on one of the cots that the people who had stayed overnight were using. you re ready to crash here, huh? yeah, well it s kind of handy. i wanted to stay until 4:00 which is the official hour, then i m going to head for a hotel maybe. reporter: you don t have any word on when you may get out of here? no, and i have to pay for that, you know that, right? reporter: i guarantee you the airline is not paying for a hotel. a