Travelers cutting vacations short to leave Hawaii before hurricane arrives

LOS ANGELES, CA (FOX 11) - As a life threatening hurricane approaches the Hawaiian islands, tourists and locals are fleeing to the mainland, with many of them landing at LAX on Wednesday.

"I had to pack my stuff within like 10 minutes and jump on that plane but I'm really relieved to get out of there," said Kelsey Brown.

Brown is a meteorologist for the US Air Force stationed at Pearl Harbor, and told FOX 11 she got out just in time.

"As far as like stores, everything was completely wiped out, we had like no water, there was no soup at all, the only things we really got was some canned vegetables and yeah that's about it," she said. "Gas stations were crazy you couldn't get any gas, lines were like miles down the road, just chaotic."

Brown was able to get a first class ticket back to LAX for $1,022 and arrived Wednesday afternoon, much to the delight of her worried mother.

"It feels good, she's my baby, I'm happy that she's home," said Ally Wanagitis.

Peter and Teresa Koral had a similar idea, they cut their Oahu vacation short to get out of the storm's way.

"We have a house in Cabo so we know what hurricanes do, so we wanted to get out of there before it came in," Peter said.

"Last night it seemed like everybody hit the stores, generators were gone, shelves were cleared out," Teresa said.

There was also one family who came to LAX all the way from Germany for a dream trip to Hawaii, a trip that won't be happening.

"We came to Hawaiian airlines and want to cancel it because the hurricane, and they won't cancel it, we want to get the money back for our flight," the mother told FOX 11.

She said Hawaiian offered to reschedule the flights for September, but they will be back in Germany by then. She said their $1,700 spent on tickets is now down the drain.

There were also some travelers flying to Hawaii on Wednesday night.

One of them was Oahu resident Henry McNamara.

"Not too concerned yet tonight cause I'll probably get in there safe, but definitely in the coming days it'll definitely be a dangerous hurricane that's coming pretty close, the forecasts are a little bit scary," he said.

And then there was Rebecca Romero, flying to Hawaii Wednesday night with a friend for a vacation.

"I'm feeling really excited to take a vacation to Hawaii, all paid by my parents, a little terrified flying into Honolulu now that I know there's a hurricane, but hey it's a free vacation so I'll take my chances," she said.