By Lani Hanson
For the Herald

ALBERT LEA — Hurricane Sandy has left an Albert Lea High School student stranded in Washington, D.C.

Sophomore Taylor Willis was with her mother, Tammy, who participated in the Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday.

“When we started the marathon, it was windy,” Tammy said. “A few hours later the wind started to pick up, and it just got stronger from there on.”

The Willises planned to return to Minnesota before the storm hit.

“All the news channels at first were saying something different,” Taylor said. “Some were saying it was supposed to hit Wednesday, some were saying Tuesday. And they weren’t exactly sure where it was supposed to hit the coast. So we kind of didn’t really know what was going to happen until Monday when it actually hit.”

When they realized it was quickly approaching, Tammy called the airline to get a late-night flight home, but all flights had already been canceled. The flight had been rescheduled to Wednesday afternoon.

“That’s when we got ready for it,” Taylor said. “The worst of it hit in New York and New Jersey, which is farther north, so we didn’t get hit with what everyone is seeing on the news; it was just really rainy and windy.”

Most of the D.C. area is shut down; even the federal government was closed on Monday. The main form of public transportation in the city — an underground train called the Metro — was also closed as it runs under the Potomac River, which flooded.

“All the stores were closed so we couldn’t really go anywhere,” Taylor said. “We stayed in our hotel all day yesterday, but we did go outside for like five minutes because I wanted to see how windy it was. It was really windy!”

The Willises have spent most of their time in the hotel, playing cards, reading and — in Taylor’s case — working on homework. But as far as they know, their flight is still scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

“We won’t know probably until [today] if we’ll get out of here,” Tammy said. “We’re just kind of stuck.”

—The Ahlahasa is the Albert Lea High School student newspaper.