About 20 of us made the trek down to the Redwood City courthouse on Tuesday to present our case for damages against SFO airport (and by extension the city of SF who owns and operates it).  You can catch up on the background of this story here and here.

Over the course of two and a half hours in the morning and another couple hours in the afternoon, we presented the context for the complaint (delivered by the awesome Sally Meakin) and a number of simply heart-wrenching stories about how the runway noise has affected people.  We heard about visiting grandchildren waking up in the middle of the night thinking we had an earthquake, we heard about European friends who are reluctant to visit due to the noise and, for me, the most difficult one to listen to was the B'game woman who has decided NOT to have corrective hearing surgery in one ear so that she can sleep on the other side and actually sleep.  I felt so sorry for her, but it actually makes sense.

The judge asked one speaker for a specific example of how the noise affected her. Without hesitation, she described how when she goes out for a walk, other dog-walking neighbors are all wearing headphones to try to block out the noise. Later, when we got more details on SF’s defense dates, the speaker commented, “How can there be a defense? How do you defend something that’s ruining our lives?’

A motion-sensitive alarm device in someone’s driveway that’s worked without a problem for years is now triggered by the roar of the back blast.

We learned a few things along the way.  As we are in small claims court, the only thing Judge Cristina Mazzei can do is award monetary damages.  She cannot order SFO to do (or not do) anything.  Assigning an amount to each claim would be a bit of an art which is why we are asking for a uniform $2,500 each.  The airport will present its defense when all of us are finished.  At the morning break that was set for May 21st in the afternoon, but it is still a bit up in the air.  As I type this in the early afternoon of Mother's Day, the roar is on-going and I'm sure a number of families are choosing not to be outside when they normally would be enjoying a lovely day.