By Greg Fry

Kamloops couple caught in the eye of a hurricane

Sep 8, 2017 | 3:36 PM

KAMLOOPS — Heffley Lake resident Bodie Shandro has learned more about hurricanes in the past 72 hours than he ever imagined he would in his entire lifetime.

The owner of ‘Paddle Surfit’ headed down to Florida earlier this month for a tradeshow and brought along his wife Brenda to celebrate the couple’s 30th wedding anniversary. While there news broke of fast approaching Hurricane Irma.

“I brought her to her very first show and into a hurricane,” he told CFJC Today from his Orlando hotel room, where he’s been glued to his TV set watching the news. “While we were in Key West earlier this week we were notified of the evacuations where we had planned to slowly make our way north.”

Shandro said those plans were shattered by the hurricane threat.

“It took us 12 hours to get back to Orlando Four or five times longer than usual. Gas stations were out of fuel, there were fights in lineups. The police were helping out with fuel dispensing. It was pandemonium and chaos.”

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Now that he’s made it to Orlando, he’s managed to book a flight out of at 1:35 p.m. tomorrow and says he’s keeping his fingers crossed it won’t be cancelled. If it is, he’s got another night booked at his hotel as backup.

“If the flight is cancelled we’ll stay at our hotel until Sunday. If we don’t get out we’ll have to hunker down. We’ve stocked up on water and snacks. We’re making the best of it.”