Passports taking longer than ever to get. Here’s how SC residents can speed things up

The one thing Karen Portz-Clayton was not worried about regarding her 10th anniversary trip to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic was her passport.

That changed after her husband Boris Clayton received his new passport two weeks ago..

The Simpsonville residents both applied at the post office May 3, well within the 10 to 13 weeks the State Department says it takes to process an application now.

The problem is the huge number of applications, which the State Department ascribes to a renewed interest in international travel after the COVID pandemic waned.

The agency said it receives 400,000 applications a week.

For Portz-Clayton, the situation turned her into a sleuth.

She called all sorts of phone numbers listed for passport inquiries. No answer or non-working. She finally got someone on the phone. Wrong department. They didn’t know anything about it.

Her daughter, who works at a bank, suggested she try to track down who cashed the money order. She had to pay $17 per money order for the trace since she couldn’t tell which was her husband’s and which was hers.

Then, desperate, she turned to Facebook.

“Good information,” she said, including going to the passport office in Atlanta and contacting a congressman for expedited processing.

Kevin Bishop, spokesman for Sen. Lindsay Graham, said passport issues have been one of the biggest issues of the past year.

“We’re happy to help or to be a sounding board,” he said.

Heather Smith, spokeswoman for Rep. William Timmons, said it can take two to three weeks for her office to “get the passport pulled, processed, and out to the constituent.”

If travel is imminent, she said her office “can get it turned around fairly quickly, usually within 1-2 weeks.”

The State Department says people traveling within two weeks may call the National Passport Information Center to make an appointment at a passport center or agency.

No walk-ins. Appointments limited, the State Department says. Atlanta is the closest office to Columbia. They offer two types of appointments: Life-or-Death Emergency Service and Urgent Travel Service.

You can only make an appointment by calling 1-877-487-2778. And you might have to go to another office, say Washington D,C, or Miami (next closest).

This is the first major vacation Portz-Clayton and her husband have taken. They didn’t go on a honeymoon 10 years ago because they are a blended family and at the time their children were 16, 15, 14 and 13.

And it’s her first trip out of the country.

Then on Friday, Portz-Clayton checked her mail. Nestled among the credit card come ons, a letter from a Realtor and mailers was her passport.

“It showed status not available the whole time but it still came,” she said.

She’s ecstatic. And relieved,. Earlier this week she was thinking of canceling the reservation to be sure she got her money back

Those clear Punta Cana waters and white sand beaches are calling her and her husband.