Norwich native Rikaasha Patel is a student at the University of Tampa.
She is one of the many people who flew into Bradley International Airport to get out of Hurricane Irma’s way.
She described her very hectic last two days.
"The school said to make secondary plans in case you couldn’t stay at school, and I took action to go with my friends to Atlanta," she said because flight prices from Tampa to Bradley were upwards of $1,000.
On Thursday, she hopped in a car with her friends and drove from the University of Tampa to Atlanta.
The trip from Tampa to Atlanta usually takes under seven hours, but with the thousands of other drivers on the highways also trying to get out of harm’s way, the drive took her 14 hours.
"I didn’t really have a ticket at that point and I was just going to stay with my friends' relatives and my friend was going to drive to New Jersey – she lives there – her family told me I could stay with her if I couldn’t go home," Patel said.
Lucky for her, she found a plane ticket from Georgia to Connecticut and got on the flight Friday morning.
"It was really crazy. My parents were really worried.They didn’t know what I was going to do," Patel said.
After two days, the moment she’d been waiting for: an emotional reunion with her father outside the arrival gate.
Kishor Patel embraced his daughter.
Patel kissed his daughter on the head and said, "It feels good you know," which was followed by a sigh of emotion. "I got her message at 9:30 but I couldn’t get out of school, I was in school so, you know, and I came out as soon as I could. Everybody was worried.”
Now, Rikaasha is back home with her family in Norwich.
When she’ll head back to Tampa is unclear. It all depends on Irma's path and the damage she leaves behind.
