All night long last night and through the morning today, the entire New York City area experienced torrential downpour. I woke up in the middle of the night to the rain loudly tapping my windows, and I knew this was going to be really bad. Some subway stations  got flooded in uptown Manhattan. I even got a flight alert notification saying that my early morning flight today might get delayed due to heavy winds. I had a two-hour buffer between the time that my plane was scheduled to land and the time of my business review meeting. I needed to make this meeting.

So, the flight took off a bit delayed. But as we were ascending, the worst turbulence that I can ever remember began. The plane didn’t even feel like it was going straight. It felt like it was going sideways to the left for a few minutes, then sideways to the right, then as though it were tumbling down but trying to lift itself up all at the same time. None of the feelings made sense. I was sitting at the front of the plane and looked back to see people’s facial expressions. For the most part in First Class, people were fairly nonchalant or passed out. But the people in the front of Coach looked disturbed. A colleague who sat back there told me that at least 2-3 people were yelling at the back of the plane, and several others had their eyes closed and their hands together as though in prayer. Let’s all just brace ourselves.

It lasted for over 15 minutes. Even the flight attendants were not allowed to get out of their seats. At least we finally got to a clear, smooth path. We didn’t die. It’s all good news.