SCHOOLCHILDREN who were stranded in New York as Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the US are due to arrive back in the UK tomorrow.
Forty-five pupils and six members of staff from Friesland School, Sandiacre, a specialist performing arts college, flew out for a five-day trip to the Big Apple on Friday to experience a Broadway show.
The Year 9 and 10 pupils had been due to arrive home in the UK on Tuesday but were unable to leave their Manhattan hotel as flights were grounded.
Friesland School head teacher Peter Monk said: "They had a traumatic night in the storm but they were safe in their hotel. They weren't in the areas affected by floods but they were in the hotel for 30 hours before they managed to get out.
"They had a great sense of what the hurricane was like outside and they could hear and see it."
Mr Monk said when the wind died down they switched to another hotel as the one they were staying in lost power.
Former Radcliffe-on-Trent man Ian Hunt, 45, who now lives on the east coast of the US, also witnessed the hurricane but it had lost strength by the time it hit his town, Marblehead, north of Boston.
Mr Hunt, who has been in the US for seven years and works for a biotech/pharmaceutical company, said: "We were very lucky. I think, since the storm picked up speed and hit land quicker than expected we were spared.... New York and New Jersey really got slammed.
"We were expecting the storm to be pretty bad. All the schools in the state were closed and most folks stayed at home – offices were all closed.
"When it was supposed to hit bad, it blew itself out. Still, quite scary looking out of the window to see the trees bend so much."
