Stories from Sea-Tac lines

Passengers stuck in security lines at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport greeted the delays and missed flights with quiet resignation.

"I was in the military. I'm used to long lines," said Leis Kvalheim, who was headed home to Las Vegas and expected he would miss his flight. "If I miss my flight, I'll get another."

Heather Lear, 19, was returning to Gainsville, Fla., after scattering her grandmother's ashes on Mount Rainier. For the past nine years, Lear had been visiting her grandparents, who had a cabin near the mountain.

By mid-morning, she had long missed her flight and had lost her 87-year-old grandfather, who was traveling to Florida with her. The last she heard from him, "he was in a parking garage somewhere in line. When I talked to him last he just said, 'sweetheart, I'll see you on the plane.'("

Vicky Lamontagne, traveling with her mother, Colette, to their home in Quebec City, Canada, said it took her a hour and a half to check her luggage before she joined the security line. But she said she wasn't worried about missing her flight.

Halfway up the line, Anne Anderson stood with her daughter, Maddy, who was going to Spokane to visit her father. She, too, wasn't worried about missing her flight.

"They're doing a good job of being nice," she said of the airport workers who handed out bottles of water to those waiting in line. "Do you have beer?" Anderson joked.

Imelda and John Dulcich left their Newcastle home early for the airport because of the terror alert. They were picking up Imelda's 13- and 14-year-old children who were due at 10:25 a.m. from Atlanta.

When they arrived at 7:45 a.m., the security lines looped through the main terminal twice, out to the parking garage.

"We were told it would take six hours to get through the line," Imelda Dulcich said. "There was a spirit of hilarity around us. We took turns getting out of line and walking to the front to see how things were progressing."

An express lane opened shortly after 10 a.m., she said. Because she carried only her identification and a pass to get her children, she was able to get through security in time to meet her children's plane.

Rouha Rose, from Normandy Park, was heading to San Francisco for a conference. She had spent several hours in line and knew nothing about the new security rules when she arrived at Sea-Tac.

"This is just the age we're in," she said.

Along the lines, cell phones rang and a voice rose above the clatter: "You'll never get me on an airplane again."