Mac Morrone’s spring break is going to be fire. The Baltimore eighth grader has a week in Costa Rica. Beaches on the Pacific Coast. A zip line over the jungle. Well, if he makes it there.

Thousands of unpaid airport security workers are calling out sick and quitting because Congress won’t agree on funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The worker shortage has caused security checkpoints to close at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Travelers are swapping horror stories about hourlong waits and lines stretching outside. Worse yet, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County and Howard County schools are beginning spring break Friday afternoon. Baltimore County’s starts next week.

“It just really sucks, the timing,” said Jessica Carr of Northeast Baltimore, who planned a surprise (spoiler alert) trip to Disneyland for her three children. “I would hate for one of their core memories to be, ‘Remember that time we were in the airport for nine hours?’”

Wait times seesawed Thursday from mere minutes to longer than two hours. What’s clear is that U.S. air travel is entirely unpredictable right now. That’s pushing families to extraordinary lengths to ensure they don’t miss their spring break trips.

Friday, like Thursday, started off with a knot of security lines in the Southwest concourses. A Banner reporter who arrived at 3:30 a.m. for a 6 a.m. trip said her sold-out flight was half-full at takeoff, suggesting not everyone made it through the gauntlet in time.

The 14-year-old Mac arrived at BWI by 2:40 a.m. Thursday to meet his travel group. He and his mom figured he should just sleep in his travel clothes.

“Do you think Chick-fil-A in the airport will be open?” he asked his mom.

Money ran out in February for Homeland Security, and Congress has been deadlocked on a new funding plan. President Donald Trump said late Thursday that he would sign an order instructing Homeland Security to pay Transportation Security Administration workers as the impasse continues. The Senate passed a funding deal overnight; it still must clear the House.

On Wednesday, nearly 1 in 3 TSA workers at BWI called out sick, officials said.

“This reckless shutdown has driven nearly 500 TSA officers to quit, while thousands more are forced to call out because they can’t afford gas, childcare, food, or rent,” DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis wrote in an email.

“All this TSA stuff has ratcheted up my nerves,” Colleen Baldwin of Cockeysville said.

She’s flying to England next week with her husband and their two boys to visit friends during spring break.

“My stress level started off at like four or five,” she said. “With this added component, I would say it’s a six or seven.”

Thursday morning, Darren Durlach was flying out of BWI to a bachelor party in Las Vegas. He was pre-cleared for the faster lines but stunned to see others waiting in a line that snaked outside.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “It was like wrapped around itself multiple times through different hallways. It was hard to even find out where it was.”

The airport has been warning travelers about longer wait times, particularly in the mornings, and advising people to arrive at least three hours early. Two of the four security checkpoints were closed around midday Thursday.

Carr’s family was not flying to California for the Disneyland trip until 4 p.m. Still, she was up before sunrise and nervously scrolling through posts about BWI wait times.

She faced a delicate balance in planning the surprise for three children ages 5 to 13. Carr needed to allot enough time to make it through the unpredictable airport lines. But her kids would melt down if they were stuck in the concourse for hours. She said she’d lost faith in the live updates from the airport.

“I wish that they were updating the website correctly. Don’t lie. Don’t make it seem that it’s not so bad,” she said. “Have accurate reporting because, those of us with kids, it’s really shitty to not know what we are signing up for.”

Her family decided to arrive by 1 p.m.

A jubilant Carr later reported: “17 mins start to finish through security and bags checked!”

Similarly, Mac made it to San José, Costa Rica, with his travel group. He breezed through the overnight security line at BWI.

There was just one problem: At 2:40 a.m. Chick-fil-A was closed.

Banner reporter Emily Opilo contributed to this story.