Tweed-New Haven Airport: Your Vitals are in…and looking healthy!

Tweed-New Haven Airport continues to spark community and regional discussion. One component of this discussion involves news stories on flooding, fog, rain, flight delays, diversions and much more. Sounds Biblical if you ask me!

These apocalyptic stories are spurred by community members ( their numbers ranging between a dozen to 10,000) who reside near Tweed-New Haven Airport. To say this gaggle of airport opponents has raised arms against Tweed-New Haven Airport would be an understatement. This isn’t what’s alarming (at least not anymore) however. It’s that the local media uses them as a source of “news” for the aforementioned reasons of travel troubles.

But are these so-called stories “newsworthy”? Are these stories vetted in anyway by media agencies so as to compare anti-airport opinion with perspective and therefore community relevance? In our opinion, the answer across the board is, “Nahhh”!

As a disclaimer, we are not touting the following provided data as research nor studies in anyway. We are not Scientists, Meteorologists, Hydrologists, Engineers or Lawyers. Simply, as community members with myriad interests in Tweed-New Haven Airport,we are responding to the cacophony of comments and assertions made by the aforementioned posse of experts who have taken up cause against Tweed and its betterment.

When it rains, it pours. But does it flood?

One assertion made against Tweed is, “every time it rains, Tweed floods”. As non-experts, we cannot confirm nor deny that statement. What we can do however, is provide actual data on rainfall and compare it to media coverage (or lack thereof) of Tweed airport flooding. Is there a frequent correlation between rainfall and Tweed flooding? If so, is that correlation signifcant?

We share four (4) months of rainfall data (January 1, 2024 to April 30, 2024) attained from the National Weather Service. We then did a www.Google.com search for stories covering flooding at Tweed-New Haven Airport during the same time period. Guess how many news stories we found on flooding at Tweed? Zero. Does Tweed-New Haven Airport flood every time it rains? Is this frequent? You decide. We’re four plus months in to the year folks. Where are this years’ stories?

Of note, we also included specific news stories covering actual flooding events at Tweed in years past (2019). With these stories, we included rainfall data (see OpEd header) for the same month as well so that you might see a correlation between the amount of rain and HVN flooding occurrences. We think doing this characterizes the frequency of flooding at Tweed more clearly.

⬆️ From 2019 to 2023 Tweed’s Passenger Infrastructure was inundated with water 4 times according to the news archives that we could find. Is this a problem? Certainly.

Should AVPorts be gathering all the airplanes to load upon the Ark though? We think not. When you correlate these archived events with rain data for the given months…because you can if you try (and we did)…you might find that Tweed wasn’t the only place to flood nor is it time to gather up all the animals. Basically, Tweed floods when everyone else does.

In regards to summarizing the “flooding story” at Tweed, the numbers and archived stories just don’t seem to support the epic saga of Tweed “always flooding when it rains”. Maybe the region needs real news 🗞?

We hate to state the obvious.
An Airport Passenger Terminal that sits atop a creek, on occasion, floods. So do many other elements of our infrastructure. Your house maybe? What a revelation! Thank the high heavens that 10,000 Hawks and local Media have joined forces to inform us of this unique peril. But wait, it gets worse…

The above battle cry of airport foes proclaims failure and, “what is Tweed doing about it”?

Insert pregnant pause.

Here is what they’re doing about it…

Tweed is planning on relocating it’s Terminal and Passenger Infrastructure to another airport property location…away from the creek…away from tidal flow…and elevating it no less. This project will also include infrastructure such as retention ponds, culverts and other engineered drainage technologies. Makes us wonder, is East Haven doing that for its flood prone neighborhoods?

None of us opining here are engineers nor qualified to say the addition of the new terminal will or will not lead to “East Haven flooding” as is often the cry. As citizens, we acknowledge that alteration of permeable surfaces at the project site does change the water retention characteristics of the area…but how much of an area? Will East Haven Flood? Will Noah come for the residents of East Haven because of the new Terminal?

Only Engineers and Hydrologists can provide an educated opinion. We think that’s why they are involved in projects like this by the way! This said, we have reasonable confidence that creation of water management infrastructure and related techniques will make this a non issue. Further, the restoration of various non-permeable surfaces to permeable surfaces…which are planned as EA Tweed improvements…will further negate or minimize potential impacts.

The story of diversions.
Speaking of real news, what about those flight diversions? Are Tweed’s opponents and the local Press on to the “story of the century” with frequent diversions? Well, according to our capture of actual data, maybe not. Never mind the national data on monthly and yearly airline flight diversions that we provide. We also provided a three (3) month snapshot (January 1, 2024 to March 30, 2024) of flight and diversion data specific to Tweed. And guess what we found? Hold on to your 🥱 hats Ladies and Gentleman…take a look below 👇.

Forgive our technical ineptitude: Four months of AVELO Arrivals into HVN is copious data. This, to the tune of 753 INBOUND FLIGHTS, January 2024 to April 2024. Therefore, all the data could not be included in this OpEd due purely to technical limitations. We posted a SAMPLE OF THE DATA. If you like however, we can email 📧 you the actual data.

In this time frame, 3 Flights Diverted from Tweed to other airports. This data was attained from www.flightaware.com

Included also is FAA data of Avelo’s On-time Arrival & Departure Information.

The point to all this?

When it comes to the Press, we don’t think Tweed-New Haven Airport gets a fair shake. The data that we have provided (and will continue to do so) in this Op Ed is in direct response to the HVN community discussion and is just that fair shake. Thanks East Haven Patch!

We believe that the local media is too eager to cater to the biased emotions of Tweed-New Haven Airport opponents and their exhaustive attempt to control the narrative around this important regional asset…all for their personal gain and not the environment at all. This is very unfortunate for the cause of environmentalism and wanted to opine accordingly.

Claire Carrano, Tommy Flood, Ralph Pickup, Andrea Mascaro, Henry Tichy, Lewis Langella, Vincent Perrelli, Peggy Carnine Hackett, Howard Scholl, Michael T. Giordano, T. Lorenti

Tweed New Haven for Everyone, The Tweed Fam.

We are a collective voice of those who wish to see an improved Tweed-New Haven Airport. We are local residents (past and present), we are frequent flyers and not-so frequent flyers. We have friends and families who live within reach of air travel made possible by HVN. We are aviation professionals. Above all…

To achieve this goal, we have come together so as to weigh-in with our perspective on numerous matters related to HVN.✈️