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Orlando International Airport will be open Monday

Published  September 2, 2019 5:12pm EDT
Florida
FOX 35 Orlando

ORLANDO, Fla. (FOX 35 ORLANDO) - With Hurricane Dorian projected to track north, Orlando International Airport officials are watching the storm closely.  While the airport has been open for business on Monday, officials now say it will cease operations at 12:00 a.m. on Tuesday. 

Initially, OIA was going to shut down on Sunday.  Travelers were happy to learn that they reversed that decision.

"That makes me happy," said traveler Claire Burch, "I hope it doesn't hit us, but we do live in the coastal area so we're taking extra precautions."

Burch, who lives in St. Augustine, said she was taking no chances. "I'm hopeful it won't his St. Augustine, but we've had bad experiences in the past with Irma and Matthew, so we decided to evacuate."

Now, people have an extra day to catch those flights. Airport officials said they made the decision after closely tracking Dorian's path and consulting with the FAA and Air Traffic Control. They warn though that Dorian continues to be a powerful and unpredictable storm, and they'll be closely watching weather conditions to see if they need to make any adjustments to their plans. Visitors like Michael Corso said that was wise.

"You can't really track these things till they get closer to the coast so it didn't really impact our stay here too much," Corso said.

The Sanford airport will close at 11 p.m. Monday. Melbourne's airport will be open Monday until 12 p.m. The Daytona Beach airport will close at  6 p.m. on Monday. Many travelers say they were leaving anyway, just in case.

"We are terrified! We live in Brazil," said Lais Cassaro, Visiting from Brazil, "we don't have these things there."

Airport officials said that even though they were open for business it's possible that individual airlines could have their own delays or cancellations because of the storm. They strongly suggested contacting your airline if you have a flight Monday to get the latest details.

HOW YOU CAN PREPARE FOR DORIAN

You can find a list of locations where you can stock up on sandbags HERE.

Build a hurricane kit HERE.

For the latest on Dorian, visit ORLANDOHURRICANE.com.

You can also monitor the tropics with the Fox 35 Weather App.