Residents fleeing the Texas Coast ahead of Hurricane Rita jammed Houston's two major airports, stretching an already thin supply of screeners and finding no way out without a ticket.
Richard Fernandez, a spokesman for the City of Houston Aviation Department, said Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports were overrun by people who didn't have confirmed reservations and were hoping to get on a flight.
"That is not going to happen," he said.
Adding to the problems, many Transportation Security Administration employees didn't show up for work, slowing down the processing of passengers through security checkpoints, Fernandez said.
Carrie Harmon, a spokeswoman for the TSA, said a little less than half of the 430 security screeners who work at Hobby and Bush Intercontinental skipped work because they live in areas under mandatory evacuations.
"We started planning for that and we supplemented our work force with screeners from other airports," she said.
About 150 screeners from other Texas cities, including Austin, San Antonio and Dallas, were flown in Thursday morning to make up for the missing work force. The additional screeners sped up the flow of passengers by Thursday afternoon, Harmon said.
More screeners were set to come in Friday morning, she said.
"We're encouraging passengers to be patient. We are doing everything we can to cover the staffing shortfalls," she said.
While airlines experienced some delays on Thursday, there were no cancellations of flights, said David Messing, a spokesman for Houston-based Continental Airlines.
"It's been very, very busy and all flights are completely sold out," Messing said. "If you don't have a ticket, you're better off making other arrangements."
Flights from both airports were expected to stop by noon Friday, said John Clabes, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Continental, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines expected flights to resume Sunday, depending on the weather.
"We're just sitting here, we're afraid to do anything else," said Mary Jane Bryer of Eastport, Pennsylvania, who along with a friend was hoping to catch a flight out of Bush Intercontinental before the noon deadline. "If it's canceled, I guess I'll just sit here and cry like a baby."
While commercial flights will stop, the airports will remain open.
"The airports will never close," Fernandez said. "They are vital to the recovery efforts, moving people, equipment in and out," he said.
But, he said, the airports are not designated storm shelters and people without flight reservations should not come to the airport.
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