Federal Shutdown a Passport to Bedlam : Government: As agencies try to decide which services will continue, citizens flood offices to finish business.

As the U.S. government began to grind into low gear Monday in anticipation of a widespread shutdown, it was, ironically, the citizens who planned on leaving the country who most acutely felt their government’s absence.

Around Los Angeles and the nation, would-be travelers like Sally Metry of Tarzana crowded offices, waiting up to five hours in a desperate attempt to get their passports before the government went on hiatus.

“The people are paying the price,” Metry fumed while waiting in line in the Reseda post office. “We have to pay for this, and the passport lines are . . . three hours waiting. I think [the shutdown] is mean. It’s not right and it’s downright dirty, to put it plainly.”

Muhammed Arshad of Van Nuys came to Reseda for his passport after waiting two hours at the Wilshire Boulevard passport office in West Los Angeles, which was inundated with hundreds of people.

“I waited in Wilshire two hours outside, only to find that there was a three-hour wait inside. The line was three miles long.”

Much like the politics that spawned it, the federal government’s shutdown today will be a hurly-burly affair. Closures will be uncertain, even haphazard, with some federal agencies sliding quietly into furloughs and voice-mail mode, while others remain nearly oblivious to the standoff between the President and Congress.

The lack of continuing appropriations legislation from Washington required all but “essential” federal employees to be furloughed at midnight Monday. That will leave air traffic controllers, mail carriers, Amtrak employees, FBI agents and many others on the job. But some government bureaucrats still were debating late Monday about who among them is truly essential.

The confusion extended even to the Federal Information Center in Cumberland, Md., where an “information specialist” proclaimed that her office would be closed today. A short time later, her supervisor disagreed. “We will be open,” Stephen Smith said. “The choice was left to us, and we think there will be a need for our services.”

In the Santa Monica Mountains, 77 employees of the National Park Service were told to report to work today and expect to be told by 11 a.m. whether they will finish the day, said spokeswoman Jean Bray.

If the agency is shut down, several popular mountain parks will be closed indefinitely, including Franklin Canyon Ranch, Rocky Oaks, Palo Comado and Cheseboro Canyon, Lower Zuma Canyon, Peter Strauss Ranch and Paramount Ranch. In addition, educational programs at local schools and at Rancho Sierra Vista-Satwiwa will be canceled, Bray said.

At the Navy-Marine Corps Recruiting Center in Encino, Lt. Col. Bill Simmons said the 24 Marines there would report to work “continuing resolution or not.”

His concern is payroll.

“It’s not serious yet,” Simmons said. “But it will be serious from a morale perspective when we miss a paycheck,” which could occur Dec. 1.

At the Van Nuys Federal Building, employees were tight-lipped about the impact of the shutdown, except for Defense Department mechanical engineer Bill Weeks, who will retire Wednesday.

Although the Defense Department is not slated for a shutdown, Weeks said his friends with the Internal Revenue Service are worried.

“Somebody has to be affected,” Weeks said during a cigarette break outside the building. “I don’t know who it will be this time, but it’s usually the IRS.”

Elsewhere, the National Park Service prepared to reduce staffing to minimal levels, to shut down popular nature walks and lectures and to close some park sites, including Joshua Tree National Monument.

In Yosemite, rangers will disappear from entry gates and interpretive centers, but campers and other visitors will be free to continue their trips as planned. That means visitors can zip through the front gate without paying the normal $5 fee, although rangers will still patrol to see that camping fees of $3 to $14 are paid. Cabins and other facilities run by the Yosemite Concession Services Corp. will also remain open.

With just 200 of the normal contingent of 586 employees expected to remain on duty today, “it will be a lot more difficult to get information about hiking trails or historic sites,” said Kris Fister, a park ranger at Yosemite.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles planned to keep all but a few dozen of its 400 employees on the job, to keep the federal court system operating at normal capacity.

One courthouse employee in Los Angeles joked: “I was hoping that they would say I was non-essential, so that I could get the day off.”

National forests will be open today because their parent agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will spend surplus funds.

Those looking for a silver lining in the closures won’t find it in the nation’s pocketbook. A congressional study after a massive closure nearly a decade ago found that the government lost $62 million a day--in salaries, administrative costs and lost productivity--when it shut non-essential services.

With bureaucrats left largely to determine their own essential status, it was perhaps not surprising that a wide range of services will remain in force today. The Department of Agriculture will inspect meat and poultry. The U.S. Customs Service will process travelers. Federal Aviation Administration inspectors will check on planes.

But, less obviously, the National Transportation Safety Board decided to keep on employees for hearings.

But many other workers were unsettled about the prospect of the shutdown, despite the early end to four previous federal shutdowns and the fact that workers were paid each time.

“This is very stressful for a lot of people,” said Felicia Marcus, southwest regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency.

“There is the personal worry about it, but also people are dedicated to public health and safety and they are being told they are not going to be able to do their job. That is distressing.”

Times staff writers Aaron Curtiss, Colleen Krueger, Antonio Olivo and correspondent Kate Folmar contributed to this story.