Post by canhauler on Nov 28, 2008 14:39:20 GMT -5
www.charleston.net/news/2008/nov/27/got_your_twic_time_running_out63209/
Got your TWIC? Time Running Out
By Allyson Bird
The Post and Courier
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Brad Nettles
The Post and Courier
Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. driver John Parks shows his Transportation Worker Identification Credential to South Carolina Port Service Officer Harriett Parson on Wednesday as he entered the Columbus Street Terminal.
Port service Officer Harriett Parson asked everyone driving into the State Ports Authority's Columbus Street Terminal on Wednesday the same question: Do you have TWIC?
And though every worker who needs access to port facilities must have the federal Transportation Worker Identification Credential by Monday, Parson heard varied responses on the final business day before that deadline.
"I've enrolled," said Alex Armstrong, as he leaned out of a blue tractor-trailer. "I just haven't picked it up."
You won't get into the terminal without it, Parson warned.
After a string of similar stories, she smiled when John Parks pulled up and flashed his shiny white badge.
"You'll be coming on Monday," she told him.
The Port of Charleston launched its TWIC campaign a year ago and originally planned to require the IDs beginning in September. Early estimates said as many as 15,000 people might need the card locally, but as of Nov. 14, fewer than 8,200 people had enrolled. Of those, only 5,400 people had activated cards.
But port officials, after sampling people passing through their terminal gates, estimate that 90 percent of workers who need a TWIC have applied and that 75 percent have it in-hand by now.
Cautiously optimistic, they won't speculate on the number of people who might show up unprepared when maritime operations resume Monday. But ports authority Police Chief Lindy Rinaldi said officers will make sure those people don't stall or interrupt business on the waterfront.
Meeting drivers outside each terminal, port police will divert anyone who doesn't have an ID and "keep commerce flowing," she said.
The Transportation Security Administration rolled out the TWIC program, which was required under the Maritime Transportation Security Act and will be enforced by the U.S. Coast Guard with spot checks and annual reviews. The cards costs $132.50 each, and their purpose is to make maritime vessels and facilities more secure by limiting access to authorized individuals whose backgrounds have been checked out.
Early problems with the process included long waiting periods, trouble reading work-worn fingerprints and malfunctioning ID-making machines.
Rinaldi said the fingerprint hang-up persisted throughout the process and that some activated TWICs wound up being sent to the wrong enrollment centers.
"You're notified your card is ready and you go and wait several hours to get it, and it's not there," she said. "Then some research is done and you find out it's at another center in another state."
Rinaldi said local workers also had to contend with changing enrollment locations, some of which did not offer parking for port tractor-trailers.
To offset some of those problems, port police will accept confirmation notices through Dec. 22 from workers who have activated cards but haven't yet picked them up. A notice of enrollment will not afford that same access.
"Just because you're enrolled doesn't mean you've passed the background check," said SPA spokesman Byron Miller.
Police will ask workers who come unprepared to call their employers and ask if a TWIC-carrying co-worker can serve as an escort.
Port officials said out-of-state truckers pose the greatest potential problem as the deadline approaches. Charleston falls into the country's second wave of TWIC enforcement, with a national deadline set for April.
Police began making "trial checks" locally in July and August, when Charleston learned of its Dec. 1 deadline. Officials also reminded workers with mailings and yellow signs at the terminals.
"Some people who still don't have it today still think there's going to be another delay," Rinaldi said. "We're saying (to them), 'Sir, don't come in Monday.' "
Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or abird@postandcourier.com.