Eastern Idahoans stranded on East Coast

The waves Super Storm Sandy is making in the East are having a ripple effect on Idaho.

Passengers are stranded at airports all across the country because of Sandy, though Idaho Falls Regional Airport there doesn’t seem to be a major inconvenience.

Chris Hunt of Idaho Falls was in Washington, D.C., for business. He travels to the East Coast four times a year, but he never expected to get caught in the storm. As of Monday evening, Sandy hadn’t done much damage to his area.

“Right now it’s not too bad, it’s windy, 30, 35 mph winds, there’s rain but not super heavy rain,” said Hunt.

He told his family to keep calm.

“My wife and two kids live in Idaho Falls, and we’ve been in contact, and they know that I’m safe,” added Hunt.

It’s not quite so OK for the stock market.

Local financial adviser Joe Haan went to work Monday morning after thinking he’d at least be able to trade electronically.

“I actually got into the office when the stock market opened they were announcing the market was going to close, and then a couple hours later they said it would be closed tomorrow, so it was a little bit of a surprise, actually a big surprise,” said Haan.

It was also a big surprise for his clients, who were planning to invest in the marketMonday morning.

“Today we had three folks who wanted to invest … when we spoke to at the end of last week, and of course they’re not able to invest and in addition the markets will be closedtomorrowso they’ll have to wait until at leastWednesday,” Haan said.

KaLee Kopp, Idaho State University’s marketing director, flew to New York for vacation last week, but she’ll now have to wait until the end of the week to come back home.

“We found out what was happening and tried to get a flight out and they wouldn’t let us and the earliest flight we can get out is Friday,” Kopp said.

Until then she’s stuck on the Upper East Side, luckily with friends, hoping the power doesn’t go out and just waiting for the storm to pass.

Hurricane Sandy could affect 65 million people. New York City transit was shut down and evacuation orders have been given. Up to date information on the tropical storm can be found at localnews8.com/weather/sandy.