The girls tried to get a few hours sleep at Dubai Airport where they could.
A team of 16 South Island teenagers have been caught in Dubai’s wild storm, leaving them to sleep on the floor at the airport and create make-shift tables from suitcases to eat meals off.
Mum Jane Thake, who has been anxiously waiting for her daughter’s return back home in New Zealand, said it had been a traumatic few days.
“The last 48 hours myself and all the other parents have been glued to our phones constantly refreshing, checking for updates and checking for flight times.
“I suspect the parents on the trip have been more stressed. The girls have just adapted.”
The representative South Island under-15 girls’ cricket team had spent ten days playing in the International R66T Dubai Cup tournament before travelling to Abu Dhabi to play local teams.
They were due to return to Dubai on Tuesday morning to catch their flight home when a severe storm intervened.
“Lightening displays, pouring rain, flooding coming into the hotel,” Thake said.
The United Arab Emirates was thrown into apocalyptic scenes when Dubai was pounded with more than a year’s worth of rain in a few hours, turning streets into rivers as rushing water inundated homes, businesses and the airport into a marina.
Dubai Airport needed 22 tankers with vacuum pumps to get water off its grounds, AP reported.
The cricket team braved the road and spent more than five hours dodging flooding and diversions to reach Dubai – a trip that usually only took about one and a half hours.
There were consistent delays at the airport, Thake said.
The girls played cricket, charades, and volleyball in the terminal while they waited and slept on the floor that night in their blue uniforms.
“Blue sardines we called them, sleeping in the terminal,” Thake said.
They arranged to spend the following night in a hotel and finally got on a flight home after that.
“Although we knew the girls were safe and being well looked after by the adults on the tour with regular updates and photos, we knew it could potentially take days for the storm disruption to settle and we were just so relieved when we saw the photo of the ‘boarding’ message,” Thake said.
The team were due to arrive home at 3pm this afternoon.
“They’ve had a brilliant time and I’m sure, to them, it will be a massive adventure and a good story to tell.”
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