The people at the airport apparently were content to blame the power failures and no one wanted to risk their livelihood to do anything proactive. Its sad that we have sunk to this level.
Ok, I thought that I was really failing to communicate here, because you seemed to be still missing the point up until your last two scentences.
So, let's extend and revise my comments further:
"The airline and airport management, the TSA, the feds and everyone in authority need to think out of the box."