Tim Grey’s Blog

For the last few days I’ve been speaking at the FOTOfusion event in West Palm Beach, Florida. To take advantage of the great weather in sunny Florida, I rented a road bike while I was here, and went cycling for a couple hours each day. Unfortunately, during one of those rides I lost the little bag that contained my hotel room key, my driver’s license, both of my debit cards, and about $60 in cash. Oh, boy. I knew this was going to be interesting.

Getting a replacement key to my hotel room was easy. The incredible staff at the Hyatt Place Hotel in West Palm Beach had already proven to be very friendly and helpful, and I had enough interactions with them over the prior few days that they knew who I was. I was off to a good start.

Fortunately my bank had a branch just a block away from the hotel, so I headed over to see about getting a temporary debit card (having already called to report the cards lost). The staff at the bank was very helpful, but their computer systems and odd cross-state rules made things difficult. I spent over an hour and a half at the bank, answering a series of questions to prove I was who I said I was, watching them struggle with their internal systems, only to ultimately find out they couldn’t issue a replacement card on the spot. Fortunately, after considerable effort, I was able to get enough cash to cover my needs for my remaining time in West Palm Beach.

There was now just one more hurdle to overcome: getting onto my flight without any form of legitimate identification.

I arrived at the airport four hours before my flight, anticipating the worst and wanting to ensure I had plenty of time to deal with whatever challenges awaited me. I went to the airline check-in counter to check my bag, and let the airline representative know I lost my wallet and didn’t have any identification. She asked if I had a voter’s registration card (does anyone actually carry that around with them?), a library card (I get all my books through Amazon, opting for the Kindle version I can read on my iPhone whenever possible), or anything. Nope. Nothing. Except for a photo of my passport on my laptop. She asked to see that, and checked my bag for me.

She told me it would be up to TSA whether they’d let me through security. I had already done my homework, and so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. But naturally I was still a bit nervous at this point.

Next stop, security screening. Fortunately, I happened to time things perfectly, and there was no line at all. I went to the first TSA officer who was there to check ID, provided my boarding pass, and told her I didn’t have identification because I had lost my wallet. She called a supervisor, who sent me to another officer for a special check to confirm I was who I said I was. He again asked if I had anything else, such as a social security card, library card, voter’s registration card, or anything. Not a darn thing.

So, I had to fill out a form with my vital information, and the officer, who was exceedingly polite and understanding, made a phone call for my screening. It took a total of about five minutes, with him asking me for a previous address, any professional licenses or certification, and a variety of other questions about my background that would help establish that I either really was me, or had done a phenomenal job memorizing all the details of my life. Before too long he told me I was all set, and could go through security. Well, “extra” security, of course.

I had, naturally, experienced “secondary” security on plenty of occasions in the past, so I knew what to expect here. My bag and various other possessions were swabbed to check for explosive residue, everything got a good once-over, and I got patted down (though the officer patting me down didn’t venture too far into the territory used by the “underwear bomber” in the attempted Christmas Day attack, which while perhaps a little uncomfortable would have at least made me feel they were actually being thorough).

All told, the extra questioning and screening took no more than ten minutes compared to what I would normally experience. It was frankly no big deal, and I was impressed overall with the way things were handled by TSA (especially Daniel, thank you very much).

So, what could have easily turned into a big nightmare was actually no big deal. Much better than my recent experience at Newark Liberty International Airport due to the security scare there. Of course, I’m writing this from Palm Beach International Airport, having gotten through security, but I’m not on the flight to Atlanta yet, and then I still have a connecting flight to Seattle. So there’s still potential for things to go horribly wrong, but so far it has been smooth sailing. Surprisingly smooth sailing based on my prior experience with TSA.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Travel. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.