Travelers Are Left High and Dry in California Airports : Storm: Hawaii-bound passengers are stuck in Los Angeles and San Francisco after airlines cancel flights. Travel may resume today.

Travelers found themselves stranded Friday night at airports in Los Angeles and San Francisco as airlines canceled flights to Hawaii because of Hurricane Iniki.

While a few planes left the mainland for Honolulu on Friday morning, United, American, Hawaiian and Northwest airlines all canceled their afternoon and evening flights to the islands.

John Waidly, a resident of Oahu, sat quietly on a bench at Los Angeles International Airport, his hands clasped in front of him. He had been trying to get home after a weeklong conference at Lake Arrowhead.

“I’m worried about my wife and my 6-year-old and my 4-year-old,” he told the Associated Press. “I just talked to them on the phone. Frankly, I’d give anything to be with them.”

Collette Farkas and Michael Wills, who were standing a few yards from Waidly, said they had been planning to be wed today on a beach in Kauai. Now, they said, they were being told by United that because of canceled flights and heavy demand for flights that had been delayed, they couldn’t be guaranteed a place on a plane until Thursday.

Farkas said that with the minister lined up, the blood tests completed, the flowers ordered and a beachfront condominium reserved, “the only thing we had left to do was get a license.” And get there.

Fred and Dona Johnson of Baltimore said they were angry because United hadn’t warned them that they might be stranded.

She said that when their plane made a stopover in Chicago, they asked about the hurricane and were told there were no delays.

“My son’s in school in Illinois,” she said. “We could have stayed there.”

Brian Groom, his mother and aunt were on their way to Honolulu to celebrate his daughter’s first birthday, which is today.

Groom said that not only won’t they get there, a check with the booked-up hotels near LAX indicated that they would probably have to spend the night in an airport waiting room.

On the other hand, several weary travelers said they had been given “distressed passenger” vouchers for discounted rooms at nearby motels.

Linda Pescan of Villa Park took a philosophical view.

“It’s an act of God,” she said. “So what can you do?”

And Waidley shook his head in disbelief at the tourists who were angry. He said it was beyond him why anyone would want to vacation in a disaster area.

“Tourists don’t make sense,” he said.

Airport officials said the first flights to the islands probably will not begin until sometime this morning, at the earliest.

One of the last people to leave Hawaii on a flight to the mainland on Friday was Andrea Schwartz, who said she got the last seat on a United jet that took off from Honolulu for LAX at 8:45 a.m., Hawaiian time.

“People were lined up to buy tickets, but there were no tickets,” she said. “They were sold out.”

More than 100 travelers on the waiting list behind her were left on the ground, Schwartz said.

“Most people were in a panic,” she said.

Schwartz said some of those left behind in Honolulu were so anxious that they were trying to charter an aircraft to fly them to the mainland, but there were few available planes capable of making the long flight.

Schwartz, the owner of an art gallery in San Francisco, said she grew up in Galveston, Tex., where there were “some pretty scary hurricanes.”

In Galveston, she said, you could always flee inland. On the Hawaiian Islands, there’s no place to go.