HUNDREDS of North-East holiday makers were still stranded in Florida last night and hundreds more have had to cancel their holidays in the wake of Hurricane Frances.
Almost 400 people destined to jet out to Florida last Saturday from Newcastle Airport were offered refunds or alternative holidays after the morning flight was grounded due to the storm.
The closure of Orlando's two airports has also meant 6,000 British tourists were unable to return home over the weekend.
The 374 due to fly into the region on Sunday morning are now staying in accommodation provided by their tour operators .
Orlando International Airport was reopened yesterday but Orlando Sandford International Airport remained closed. Aviation authorities hope it will become operational today.
My Travel, the main tour operator in the region with customers stranded in Florida, flies to Sandford. It is sending a rescue aircraft out tomorrow to pick up the 374 holidaymakers and they are expected to return on Thursday morning.
A spokesperson for My Travel said most customers had been relocated to shelters.
"There are a number of shelters in Orlando that we have been able to send our customers to and they will stay there at our expense until we can get them on a flight home," she said. "Everybody is safe and well."
At the southern tip of the state, Miami Airport was also yesterday reopened and British Airways was able to operate its two London-Miami services and Virgin Atlantic Airways its Heathrow-Miami flight.
A Newcastle Airport spokesperson said: "We have two charter flights to Florida every week, one on Thursday and another on Saturday.
"Saturday's flight was cancelled and most passengers would have known about that before coming to the airport.
"We think that this Thursday's flight will go ahead as planned."
Hurricane Frances struck large areas of America's fourth largest state throughout Sunday, wrecking buildings, bringing down trees and power lines, and submerging roads, before being downgraded to a tropical storm. Two people died.
The hurricane forced the largest evacuation in state history, with 2.8 million people in coastal areas ordered inland and 86,000 placed in shelters. Five million people have been left without electricity.
Hurricane Frances was not thought to be severe as Hurricane Charley, which killed 27 people and caused billions of dollars of damage to south-west Florida three weeks ago.
Maxine Reay, 22, from Richmond, North Yorkshire, was staying in Kissimmee when Charley hit and said the house she was staying in has now been devastated by Hurricane Frances.
"It was really quite frightening when I was there. There was so much rain and the wind was literally blowing people over and ripping our roof off," she said. "We had no electricity or water."
Hurricane Ivan, the fifth hurricane of the year in the central Atlantic, is churning through the Caribbean in Frances' wake. It is expected to hit Barbados late today, but it is not yet known if it will make it as far as Florida.
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