ST. LOUIS -- Ratcheting up security in response to the FBI's latest terrorism warning this week, Lambert Airport authorities have begun stopping and inspecting cars before they enter the site's hourly parking garages.
Security guards previously had only stopped sport utility vehicles, vans and trucks with camper shells -- vehicles that have not been allowed in Lambert's hourly parking garages for the past six weeks, airport Police Chief Paul Mason said.
'Increased vigilance'
"When we got the latest FBI alert, we notified everybody to be on increased vigilance," Mason told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story Friday, four days after the FBI asked Americans and law enforcers to be on the highest alert for possible attacks this week domestically and abroad.
Mason could not immediately say how long the cars would be stopped and subjected to the brief visual inspections, which generally include a glance in the front and back seats.
Some security measures quietly will be put in place and shifted throughout the airport, as needed.
"Based on what we are hearing, we are going to (go) up and down and maybe move some things around," Mason said.
Working extra shifts
Lambert and other airports have beefed up security noticeably since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In St. Louis, Mason said, airport police have been working extra shifts, armed National Guard soldiers have been called in temporarily, and law enforcers are enforcing parking restrictions near airline terminals.
On Thursday, many motorists who parked in the garage across from the airport's Main Terminal said they welcomed the additional scrutiny.
Frank Jones of Eureka in suburban St. Louis said the officer asked to look in his trunk before letting his four-door car pass into the garage.
Needed 'for a long time'
"I think the security should have been tighter for a long time," Jones said.
Mason said the airport had taken other security steps since Monday's alert but acknowledged that "most of what we have done is kind of behind the scenes."
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