Thursday, August 10, 2006
Long Wait, Armed Guards in U.S.
Airports
By NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ
The Associated
Press
CHICAGO (AP) -- Long lines of irritated travelers snaked
through U.S. airports Thursday as people waited hours to reach security
checkpoints, then had to dump their water bottles, suntan lotion and even
toothpaste following the discovery of a terror plot in Britain.
Guards
with rifles stood watch in several U.S. airports, and the governors of
California, New York and Massachusetts sent National Guard troops to bolster
security.
The hours-old ban on all liquids and gels from carry-on luggage
left travelers Thursday with little option but to throw away bags of makeup,
perfume and bottles of liquor and wine. Baby formula and medicines were exempt
but had to be inspected.
"They're ridiculous, but that's part of the
price you pay for traveling during a time like this," Julius Ibraheem, 26, a
college counselor from Chicago, said as he stared at the long lines leading
toward the checkpoints at O'Hare Airport.
At Baltimore/Washington
Airport, security workers opened every carry-on bag that passed through one
terminal, and all the morning flights there were delayed.
"It's better
alive than dead," said Bob Chambers, whose flight from Baltimore to Detroit for
business meeting was delayed more than an hour. "It's inconvenient, but we'll
make it."
The plot targeted flights from Britain to the United States,
particularly to New York, Washington and California on United Airlines, American
Airlines and Continental Airlines Inc., a counterterrorism official said
Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
situation.
U.S. authorities raised the terrorism threat level to "red"
for flights from Britain, the first time the highest threat had been invoked
since the system was created. All other flights were under an "orange" alert -
one step below red. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plot
appeared engineered by al-Qaida, the group blamed for sending hijacked planes
into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Despite the frenzy
of attention in Britain and the U.S., passengers arriving on a flight from
London's Heathrow Airport to Washington's Dulles around 1 p.m. Thursday were
unfazed, though about two hours late.
"It was really calm, everyone was
calm," said Jim McConnell of Charlottesville, Va., who had been on the United
Airlines flight. "I think people have grown to accept the state of the
world."
Tempers were more heated in the long checkpoint lines that ran in
switchbacks across San Francisco's United Airlines terminal. Red plastic bins
quickly filled up with confiscated water bottles, and confused travelers pushed
and elbowed one another.
Kathy McMahon, 49, of Mill Valley, Calif., was
frantically helping her daughter stuff sunscreen, makeup, contact lens solution
and other liquids into every corner of her half-dozen suitcases to be checked as
she headed off to college.
"I think it's ridiculous," McMahon said. "But
we'll do it anyway. What are you going to do?"
At Kennedy Airport in New
York, Sonia Gomes De Mesquita, 40, waited nervously to board a British Airways
flight home to London. Her family had urged her not to fly.
"You wake up
and what are you going to do?" she said. "The flight is today."
She said
she checked all her belongings rather than risk having something confiscated. "I
even checked in my book."
At Newark Airport in New Jersey, the security
checkpoint line for Terminal B, home to most international flights, stretched
the entire length of the terminal - roughly six football fields - and was barely
moving.
Andra Racibarskas, of Chatham, was trying to get to Michigan to
pick up her daughter from camp.
"Checking in was very easy. It took one
minute curbside. It took one minute to get my boarding pass," she said. "This
line is at least four hours long."
As the morning went on and more
passengers became aware of the ban, the long wait in security lines at Atlanta's
airport dropped from what at one point became a two-hour delay, airport
spokeswoman Felicia Browder said.
Some passengers gave banned items away.
Airport officials in Manchester, N.H., officials offered padded envelopes and
paid the postage to mail items home.
At the Burlington International
Airport in Vermont, travelers weren't happy to be leaving behind souvenir maple
syrup jugs. In New Orleans, half-used bottles of hot sauce lay in garbage bins.
Bottles of wine sat in the trash in San Francisco, south of California's wine
country.
Rather than packing toiletries in carry-ons, airport officials
asked passengers to put them in checked baggage, which is screened by equipment
that can detect explosives, said Phil Orlandella, spokesman for Boston's Logan
International Airport.
In Atlanta, Brenda Lee was annoyed with the
airport lines and having to remove items from her luggage. The 52-year-old real
estate appraiser from Snellville, Ga., had to throw away her shampoo, but she
said she was keeping her contact lens solution.
"I'm not sure it does
what they want it to do," she said. "It's all for security, but some things go
beyond security."
Laura Yeager left four bottles of Gucci and Cartier
perfume for the hotel maid before heading to the Atlanta airport for her flight
back to Philadelphia. She still had to give up her lip gloss at the security
checkpoint.
She just shrugged and tossed it. "It's better to feel safe.
We thought it was going to be a lot worse."
Chicago aviation commissioner
Nuria Fernandez said the tighter restriction will remain in place for at least
12 to 72 hours and possibly longer.
At Boston's Logan Airport, Gov. Mitt
Romney said additional screening stations were being set up at the airline gates
and security was being tightened on the roads outside the airport. The exact
number of National Guard troops was still being determined, but "it will
certainly be in the hundreds," he said.
California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger said he was sending bomb-sniffing dogs with the California
National Guard and Highway Patrol to help with airport security.
In New
York, Gov. George Pataki said he was increasing the National Guard presence,
though New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he didn't think it would be
necessary. "The nature of this plot doesn't lend itself to the high-profile
police presence" that followed the London subway bombings, Bloomberg
said.
Extra police and dog units were sent out overnight at Dallas-Fort
Worth International Airport, where American Airlines is based, to patrol
terminals and parking garages, airport spokesman Ken Capps said.
American
canceled three London-bound morning flights from Chicago, Boston and New York to
accommodate delays at London's Heathrow airport, spokesman John Hotard said. To
balance the cancellations, the airline also dropped three afternoon or evening
flights from London to U.S. cities, Hotard said.
The remaining 13 flights
in each direction were expected to run from 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours late. The
cancellations were due to scheduling delays and not because of direct threats to
the flights, Hotard said.
Industry analysts said the immediate impact for
airlines would be the cost of canceled flights, but in the long run, all
airlines would face higher security costs.
In line at Los Angeles
Airport, Minneapolis-bound passenger Sunita Reddy, 25, applied a few final dabs
of lotion to her hands and face, then dropped the tubes into a large blue trash
bin, resigned to the changing state of air travel security.
"I think it's
OK," she said. "It's for the public good."
Stricter Security Measures at O'Hare Intl.
Travelers at
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport are being greeted by long lines and trash
bins filled with items passengers are discarding after hearing about tightened
security.
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