Mile by mile the rain moved swiftly inland, toward the broad valleys where the clods were dry and the earth lay cracked and men waited for the freeing of the waters.

9

All day the Chief Service Officer at Bay Airport had bent over the weather charts and asked advice of the meteorologist, waited for the latest reports and talked with every pilot who landed. What about cloud conditions over the coastal stations? What about velocities and windshifts at ten thousand feet? Any icing yet?

The 12:45 from Seattle came in ten minutes late. The pilot had fought headwinds all the way, and reported rough air and bad conditions generally over the Siskiyous.

The CSO cancelled the seven o’clock and one A.M. flights for Seattle, and felt easier. It was going to be no night to have planes out feeling their way around Mt. Shasta and fighting turbulence over the Siskiyous with probably every airport south of Seattle reporting low ceiling.

The rain commenced at the airport about two o’clock, but there was a high enough ceiling, and the two-thirty plane from Los Angeles landed a few minutes early. The pilot had had tail-winds, good visibility even over the Tehachapis, and nothing to worry about. Fresno and Bakersfield reported good enough ceilings and only moderate winds. Without qualms, the CSO sent the three-o’clock off to Los Angeles.

But conditions were going to get worse, not better. Minute by minute as he looked from his windows he seemed to see the clouds settling lower and the veil of rain growing thicker. Already under the thick overcast the winter daylight was dim; the night would make no difference to the storm in the upper air, but it would mean lower ceilings over the airports. Word came that the seven-forty-five from Seattle was ordered grounded at Medford. The pilot of the four-fifteen transcontinental reported by radio that he was flying by instrument, over the Sierras at twelve-thousand feet through clear air with cloud strata above and below him.

The CSO called the Ticket Office. “Tell them we expect the five-o’clock for Los Angeles to be O.K. I’m going to let the five-thirty transcontinental start, if nothing happens between now and then, and I don’t think it will. Don’t promise anything on six-thirty and eight for Los Angeles. I still expect to get the nine o’clock transcontinental off all right, but we may have to skip Reno and make it non-stop to Salt Lake. And that finishes off tonight.” The CSO looked over the field. The lights had come on already. The great transcontinental plane from Salt Lake City was coming in for a landing.