Police and Fire-EMS support Greyhound passengers who were stranded in Roanoke

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Last weekend a group of passengers on a Greyhound bus was stranded in Roanoke for 24 hours. Over the last few days, a number of people around the country reached out to WDBJ7 sharing that they’ve had similar experiences with Greyhound.

15 passengers were stranded on a Greyhound Bus with no power for 24 hours beginning a little after noon Friday and into Saturday, when their next scheduled driver did not show up. Roanoke City Police said they got a call from the passengers around 1:30 a.m. who advised police they had been stranded and were cold with no power.

“We then went into trying to contact Greyhound with their 800 number and tried to reach out to somebody. We were unable to. At that point I made the decision to bring them right here to the police department to get them out of the cold; it was 35 degrees and freezing rain,” said Roanoke Police Lt. Michael Thompson.

Thompson says he contacted Trevor Shannon with Roanoke Fire-EMS and the two departments worked together to help the passengers and give them a place to sleep at the police department.

“I went to Grandin 7-Eleven and got pizzas for them; it was about 3 o’clock in the morning and they were hungry. Mr. Shannon and the Fire Department brought over cots and blankets and we also arranged for the Red Cross to bring them breakfast at 8 o’clock in the morning,” said Thompson.

Thompson said the unfortunate incident during the bitter cold serves as an important reminder for people to be prepared when traveling during the winter.

“People should always have a contingency plan in place in case something like that happens. If they do get stranded, by all means call for help immediately and reach out to any resources. It’s kind of hard to get resources at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning, but the quicker they find out that things aren’t going the way they’re supposed to, they can reach out,” he said.

The Roanoke City Police Department said it has been in communication with Greyhound about ways to work together to prevent a situation like this from happening again.

Over the last few days, WDBJ7 received numerous emails from former Greyhound passengers around the nation who shared similar stories about being stranded by the bus company in Albuquerque, Denver, Delaware, and Louisiana.

WDBJ7 reached out to Greyhound to request an interview about these problems. While the company declined to partake in an interview, a Greyhound spokesperson provided the following statement:

“Our company is deeply committed to delivering high-quality service and ensuring our passengers have a positive experience on every journey.

Intercity bus travel, like air travel, is not immune to unexpected challenges such as mechanical delays or crew timeouts. We sincerely apologize for the significant inconvenience caused in this instance and want to assure our passengers that situations like this are not reflective of the standard of service we strive to provide.

We thoroughly investigate incidents like these to identify improvements, enhance service, and prevent recurrence. Our focus remains on providing reliable, affordable, and accessible travel options for all of our customers.

Greyhound provides long-distance transportation to tens of thousands of customers each month, with the vast majority of trips being incident-free. We are proud to have delivered this essential service to communities across the U.S. for over a century.”