ST. GEORGE, Utah — The TSA agents at St. George Regional Airport in southern Utah are the last line of defense against anything nefarious getting onto a flight.
Right now, those agents are not getting paid, but help is arriving.
"The TSA agents… I've already reached out to them, and they're welcome anytime to come here and receive a meal from us for free," said Jeff Germain, co-owner of Touch of Tuscany.
Germain, along with business partner Mindy Hendleman, opened the steakhouse and bar in Hurricane just a week ago. He has more than three decades of experience operating restaurants in St. George and Salt Lake City, and providing food to those in need isn’t anything new for him.
He said he learned it from his father, who served as a commander in the military.
"My father always told me, if you have it, try to give it, and I've always been that way," he shared.
TSA agents in Salt Lake City claim shutdown stress forced them to leave jobs they loved:
But Germain isn’t the only one trying to take care of the airport’s unpaid TSA employees.
Airport officials said those in the local community have been reaching out and arriving at the terminal with gift cards in hand. Those gas, grocery and meal cards are needed after the agents received only partial paychecks late last month, and have since gone without pay as funding for the Department of Homeland Security continues to be shut down.
While larger airports have seen a large number of TSA workers call out or resign entirely, that hasn't happened in St. George, and from what we could see Thursday, the TSA line was fully staffed.
However, for smaller airports like St. George, losing agents would be catastrophic, and the airport would have to close entirely.
TSA warns some small US airports could close amid shutdown:
"Without them showing up, people don't get to go see loved ones, they don't get to go on vacation, they don't get to do business," said Dustin Warren, St. George Regional Airport General Manager. "We have a fantastic group of people here that want to do their job and do it right. And the fact that they're still here and not getting paid is a testament to the kind of people they are.
In the last few days, Warren says the airport has been working with the Utah Food Bank to provide a free mobile food pantry for it's agents. With no end in sight for the funding impasse, those employees are going to have to rely on generosity for at least a little longer.
