Stuck in Rhodes

[TooTrusting]

I was just east of Gennadi, 5 minutes away, at Atlantica Dreams resort (Tui). All day yesterday there was a steady stream of evacuated guests from other hotels arriving.
The fire seemed to die down at around 3pm. But by 7 it was raging again.
We were told one of us needed to stay up all night to listen gif the evacuation siren.
There were hundreds of evacuees there by then.
Just before 10pm we were evacuated. We walked to the road where there was a coach and some cattle trucks. It was chaos and hard not to be separated from my DCs (23, 19, 17 & 17). We had no idea where we were going. I had to calm and keep company 2 distraught children (circa 14 and 8) who had got separated from their parents. I lost a shoe and one DC their phone. We had to jettison the one small cabin size suitcase we had brought our essentials in.
Our truck broke down and we walked about a mile, again not knowing where we were going, and were eventually directed onto Gennadi beach. There were around 2000 people there all crammed together. Small boats, capacity around 10, went back and forth between ferry boats and the shore. There was no Dunkirk spirit. People were tired, upset and frightened. Some had not slept for 2 nights.

It took 4 hours until we finally managed to get on one at around 2. It was bedlam with everyone shoving and barging. I was separated from the DCs several times. Nobody knew where we were going.

We were on the ferry around 4 hours before arriving in Rhodes Town at c6.30am. We sailed through ash clouds and people had towels tied round their faces. People were taken off in different buses. We ended up in a school with 150 others. But there was nothing there for us, no beds, mats, washing facilities or food and it was boiling hot.
There was no list so the authorities have no idea who has gone where. It is a total lie for Tui to say they have re accommodated everyone. They have not. They have no idea where I am and until their phone lines open I cannot contact them either. The only info we have been given is an FCO number for advice on travel and consular assistance (which we don't need).
Luckily I have 24 hour insurance access and when I'd re charged my phone was able to establish I am covered (was worried it would be an "act of God"). I have booked a hotel for 1 night, after a long search. I've just arrived - it's chaos with everyone sleeping on the floor.
Just before we left the school a band of volunteers arrived laden with food and one of them thinks our hotel may have been burned down and we are unlikely to get back to try to retrieve our stuff. She says Gennadi is mostly gone.

We leave on Wednesday. We can't check in here til 2 and need to go and buy clothes and essentials. All we have is what we are standing in.

Also, there was a recent thread on here about holidays in Cornwall, and all the Cornish residents said that they hated tourism and wanted holiday makers banned!

The others thing that came to mind where are the central updates from the government they said they setup some disaster group but should they not have a Twitter official page not that I use that or some link where it's official and confirmed!

I don't want to read BBC, DM, MIRROR, SKY, RANDOM GREEK PAGE

My family live right in the middle of lindos village during holiday times (own a bar), rhodes town in winter. They have been worried for a few days now and my cousins and uncles have been out on the boats rescuing. Its all very sad. They really count on tourism to keep things going and I'm praying everything is okay. I know everyone will be helping everyone as much as possible! Op I'm really happy you're safe! So sorry it turned out like this for you.

And probably drive them around in an SUV!!! 🙄

Well exactly. But it’s much more satisfying to criticism someone else. Obvs

I agree, the more of us that do the small things the more it becomes the norm which others follow by default, and then expect big companies to also live via the same ethos.
That's how small things turn viral and become large collective efforts.

@SmartHome

"the only way to bring down average temp is to massively and globally reduce emissions on a large scale, which is something that only governments can do. "

+++

So as individuals we can crack on driving fuel guzzling SUVs, fly whenever wherever we wish / afford to, complain about wi d farms, solar farms etc etc.

Because reducing emissions to combat climate change is nothing that individuals can do to help on, it's only something Governments can do.

Inducements and incentives would be a good idea. That and huge investment in public transport to make it half the price of driving to a destination.

These things will not happen though, so a bit of cardboard in the recycling is not going to cut it in comparison to the wanton spewing of emissions all day every day by individuals and corporations. It is disheartening.

Although a large number of people have had their holidays ruined and some have lost their luggage, it is worth putting it into perspective that at least they haven't lost their homes like many Corfu families have:

hellas.postsen.com/local/amp/430607

I don't think that report refers to Corfu, just that the newspaper/media outlet is called Corfu News. I think it's about the Athens region, which is also suffering very badly from massively high temperatures and wildfires.

I wonder whether they go on holiday themselves, and if so where.

It sounds horrifying OP, I really hope everything goes well for you over the next few days until you can return home.

Hear hear!

And these trolls invariably have several children themselves, eat meat, drive a car. It's nasty and uncalled for, as will as completely inappropriate given the timing.

Indeed. I've been vegetarian for 40 years so unless you too have been vegetarian for as long then your carbon footprint is way, way higher than mine, even if you cycle everywhere and have a weekend in a caravan somewhere local.

Convincing people to eat less meat would have a much larger effect on global emissions than not going on holiday once or twice a year. And the SUV argument that is always wheeled out makes me laugh too. A new or nearly new hybrid SUV (as they virtually all are now) has almost half the emissions profile of a 10 year old small family car.

OP just to say nothing you wrote sounded trivialising or spoilt to me. I've been in a couple of tight spots traveling in Africa and ime it's not easy to keep a cool head in the kind of situation you describe. Hats off for looking out for the lost children.

Sorry about your laptop, hope it really was only work stuff. Good luck finding clean clothing and getting home.

Totally inappropriate timing to start lecturing and hijacking someone’s concerned thread.

I still get amaze by the inability of so many on MN to read the room

I've been vegetarian for 59 years, only flown twice in my life, do not drive, travel everywhere on foot or bicycle, and the train for very occasional longer trips, my carbon footprint is smaller than my foot footprint

So you've only been out of the UK or Europe twice? That's really sad.

Or have children? Overpopulation is the number 1 cause. Me putting some recycling in the correct bin won’t change shit.

I hope you get the opportunity to get your possessions back (I don't see why not if the road is passable and your hotel is safe) saves part of the insurance claim and helps the planet if you don't need to buy new clothes etc. If the worse happens I'd like to think the stuff that does get left behind helps a local family. Thanks for your perspective and wishing you a safe journey home, what an adventure x

You have missed out on so much.

This thread isn't the place but it's been derailed so let me just say this - there are people who don't care about the climate and will never care no matter how much you preach at them. Then there are those who never fail to seize the opportunity to virtue signal and lecture people. Newsflash guys your preaching is never going to win you friends or influence people.

Then there's the rest of us doing our bit in our own way without shouting about it. Nothing will stop me using my tumble dryer but I am literally anal about recycling. I drive but not a gas guzzler (and there are plenty of older non-hybrid suvs!!) I have children - well let's face it, we will need them to support an ageing population in the future. My garden is a sanctuary for birds, bees and other insects.

The world I grew up in was far more eco-friendly. Your milk was in bottles which you returned. You didn't get handed a ream of plastic bags, you carried your own reuseable ones. Your fruit and veg if you had a bag for it, was paper. Yada yada yada. Cloth nappies.

And after all that - this tragedy is nothing to do with climate change. It seems it was arson so all your posturing and preaching is utterly irrelevant. So take your stupid arguments somewhere that people want to argue with you, and leave the rest of us to follow the OP's fascinating first hand account of the terrible situation in Rhodes!

That was 1 flight out and 1 flight back, so only the once.
Is it sad?
I'm not sad about it

Well I for one have no idea how big or small my carbon foorptint is and neither do I care.

I have had as many children as I wanted and eat (lots of) free range grass fed meat and will go abroad as much as I can. I had too many years being poor and doing nothing when you so called eco warriors were probably living it up.

Firstly I'm sorry you are going through this, and thank you for helping the children that got stranded. That once happened to me and I'm eternally grateful to the family that tried to calm their fears.

Secondly, and as this is AMA I'm asking, if you had booked a hire car do you think you would have been able to drive away safely?

Thing is, they will need the tourists to help restore their economy for those who haven't lost their buildings/shops/hotels/bars etc