The alarms have been sounded: prepare for long security lines at the airport if you’re traveling soon. A partial government shutdown is impacting airport workers, and the influx of spring break travelers is causing a big mess at airports across the United States. The crunch was on full disp lay at airports in New Orleans and Houston over the weekend, when TSA wait times were reported to be more than 3 hours at times. A big reason for these delays is a shortage of TSA workers. Congress was unable to agree on Department of Homeland Security funding, largely in response to the actions of ICE. Funding expired on Feb. 13 and triggered a partial shutdown of DHS, including the Transportation Security Administration. TSA workers have been working without pay while a funding bill is stalled. How are tri-state airports impacted? Airports in the New York area have largely been spared the sudden spike in travelers. As of Monday afternoon, LaGuardia was reporting TSA wait times under 10 minutes at all three of its terminals. Check estimated wait times here. The same could be said at Newark, where wait times were in the single digits at the start of the work week. Track real-time info here. The worst times were at JFK around lunchtime. The longest wait times for general TSA security lines rose to a whopping 13 minutes. Click here to find the latest times. ...read more read less