Runways remained closed all morning Saturday at South Carolina's busiest airport days after a snowstorm blew into the state, vexing passengers trying to leave a coastal area unaccustomed to snow.
The U.S. Air Force issued a statement saying it expected to open a single runway by noon at Charleston International Airport. Earlier in the day, an airport statement said officials were unable to predict when conditions will be safe for aircraft to take off and land. The airport website said all but a handful of its Saturday flights were already cancelled.
The storm blew in Wednesday, dumping 5.3 inches (13.5 centimeters) of snow on the airport, its third-highest snow total since 1938. The airport boards more passengers than any other in South Carolina.
Large airports serving Greenville, Myrtle Beach and Columbia are open. But Charleston airport CEO Paul Campbell has said his airport doesn't have much equipment for removing snow and ice because the coastal area normally sees so little frozen precipitation.
The airport shares its runways with the adjacent Joint Base Charleston, where the Air Force said it hired three plows to clear a runway, even as ice and moisture remained. Temperatures were hovering around freezing Saturday.
"We are cautiously optimistic, however, the remaining ice will melt on Saturday from the sun's convection heating," an Air Force statement said.
Base leaders said late Saturday morning that they expected to open a runway around noon, but civilian officials didn't immediately say how quickly passenger flights could resume. The airport's website showed that dozens of Saturday departures and arrivals had already been canceled.
Passengers expressed frustration.
A couple who runs a British restaurant was stuck in Charleston for at least two extra nights on a trip to sample Southern fare, missing out on the food in Savannah, Georgia.
Gareth Rees manages the Fat Bear in London, where his American wife is the head chef. He said by phone Saturday morning that he was beginning to doubt they could still make a flight to New York later in the day.
"It's absolutely baffling when you have the major international airport for a state of millions of people," said Rees, a native of Britain. "To be so woefully unprepared — it's shambolic. I've never seen anything like it."
Charleston resident Allie Watters, 24, feared that she wouldn't make it to a weekend getaway in New York, where flights were landing Saturday despite much more snow up north from the storm. Her 8 a.m. flight was pushed back by six hours, then she received conflicting information about whether it had been canceled. She said in a phone interview that she was awaiting final word from Delta.
"It's really odd because the interstate and the highways are completely fine, so I don't understand why the runways are still not opened," said Watters, who kept her suitcase packed just in case she can make the trip.
"It's a crazy situation that it's been closed for so long," she added. "I know Columbia and Myrtle Beach have equipment for snow, so it seems unreasonable for Charleston not to have it."