You and your little ones can follow his progress as he enters our region by dialing (609) 485-6000. Special evening reports will be updated at 6:30, 7:30, and then finally at 8:30 p.m. (EST) courtesy of the FAA.
The NORAD site is fabulous. Just before this posted, there were videos of Santa taking off from the North Pole, then cruising across the Pacific Ocean, Auckland, New Zealand, Sydney then Darwin, Australia, Mt. Fuji, Japan, and the Great Wall of China on his way across the globe.
With many enjoyable holiday projects being nixed this year because of budget constraints and privacy concerns, it is nice to hear of some programs that are going strong. One is the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) annual Santa tracking public service. This year, Santa’s tracking will be taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook and other social media.
Children and Santa followers can track Santa through mobile devices and on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, TroopTube.mil and others. Users should type @noradsanta into the search function to find Santa’s location throughout the day.
The NORAD Tracks Santa Web site, www.noradsanta.org, is now live and visitors will find holiday games and activities that change every day. The Web site is available in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese.
Today, Dec. 24, get ready for something special. The NoradSanta site will stream videos, captured by “Santa Cams,” from cities all along Santa’s journey.
Starting at midnight (Mountain Standard Time, which is 2 a.m. on the East Coast), Web site visitors can watch Santa prepare his sleigh, check his list, and get ready for his journey. As soon as Santa takes off from the North Pole, children can track him with up-to-the-minute Google Maps and Google Earth reports.
Ho ho ho. A fun FAQ section provides a story about Santa.
Santa maintains a long list of children who have been good throughout the year. His list gets bigger each year by virtue of the world’s increasing population.
As a result, Santa has had to deliver more toys in the same amount of time. If one were to assume he works in the realm of standard time, he would have to limit his stay to about two to three ten-thousandths of a second per home!
And if anyone wonders why NORAD is spending time and money tracking Santa, the website has a clear explanation.
For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s Christmas Eve flight.
The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.
In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.
Between our airline delays, added baggage fees, changing contracts of carriage, deteriorating air traffic control systems, new whole-body scanners, shrinking frequent flier mile benefits and more, tracking Santa helps add a bit of good Christmas spirit to these hectic days.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
