As a result of the inclement weather from Tropical Storm Colin, a twin engine plane with two occupants lies in a ditch off the runway at Gainesville Regional Airport after skidding over 1,000 feet on Monday night, according to a Gainesville Fire Rescue emergency incident report. The pilots on board were unharmed, and the plane was removed from the runway, according to the report.
As a Floridian, Adrian Kern said Tropical Storm Colin was not the first storm he’s faced.
“I thought it was going to be much worse,” the 20-year-old UF business management sophomore said. “I guess you have to be careful and be prepared for situations like this.”
UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes said the university and its emergency manager monitored Colin throughout the weekend and felt the weather was not bad enough to cancel classes.
“We were pretty confident that we would receive some rain and maybe some wind, but not overly severe weather,” Sikes said.
Colin created winds of 50 mph when it came ashore in Taylor County on Monday evening, UF meteorologist Jeff Huffman wrote in an email.
“There is some lingering moisture in South Florida from Colin, and that might continue to produce some heavy rain through Friday,” Huffman wrote.
Gainesville’s buses also continued to operate amid the storm, Chip Skinner, the department marketing and communications supervisor for Regional Transit System, wrote in an email. The buses only stop running when the wind reaches a constant speed of 35 mph.
Kern said several people canceled their reservations at the hotel where he works, and that UF probably should have been closed.
“I know a lot of people who had exams that day or the next day that either weren’t able to study or couldn’t make it to school,” he said. “I just think it posts a hazard to students.”
