ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – The federal government will shut down at midnight if lawmakers fail to get an agreement on a spending bill.
So what impact will that have? It will affect nearly one million undocumented immigrants who are a part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival's Program, also known as DACA. More than one million active-duty military personnel will be expected to work without pay. And more than 400 national parks would be forced to close.
One of the parks is the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, known as the fort.
As the clock continues to countdown, federal employees at national parks all across the U.S. wait to find out whether they will be going to work Saturday, and tourists wait to see whether they will be allowed in the park.
Right now, it's not looking good.
On a mild winter day in St. Augustine, thousands of tourists are visiting the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the U.S. It's also a national park that threatens to close should the federal government shut down.
"The fort itself will be closed, as will the visitor center at Fort Matanzas. But we, as a national park service, are trying to make our parks as assessable during a shutdown as possible," public information officer Steven Roberts said.
So if the fort is closed, the grounds around the fort will remain open to the public. But that's not enough for tourists, such as Christine Wanta, who came here from Orlando.
"It's one thing to shut the government down, but to be able to close down our national monuments, that's a hard thing to take," Wanta said.
Wanta said that's because she remembers what happened in 2013 when there was a government shutdown.
"I was here with my younger daughter and it was our first time coming to St. Augustine and we couldn't get into the fort here," Wanta said. "That was like, oh, my gosh. What happened? This our government. This is our national resources and we can't get to enjoy them."
Some tourists from Norway have been monitoring news reports and decided to see the fort before the government deadline.
"I saw information about the shutdown on television last night," said Karl Rosnaes, a tourist from Norway. "It doesn't seem good for you to have a shutdown of all the national parks."
Closing the park not only impacts tourism; it also means employees don't get paid while the parks remain closed.