An apparently well-kept secret about the city’s plan for dealing with a terrorist assault was revealed right after the Capitol was evacuated last week, as Sen. Robert Byrd stood outside watching the commotion–alone and without security.
There is no detailed plan.
As Capitol Police heard a boom and began shooing lawmakers, staff, press and tourists across the east lawn of the Capitol grounds, Byrd (D-W.Va.), who as president pro tempore of the Senate is third in the line of succession to the presidency, and other top officials were essentially by themselves.
It was not until 10:25 a.m., 35 minutes after the Capitol was evacuated, that Byrd’s white Cadillac pulled up with a security detail. Even then, Byrd did not get into the car right away, and nobody told him otherwise.
His sluggishness was in line with a city that has no coordinated, written and practiced plan for reacting to such an event. There is no single document with instructions. Even the city’s Emergency Alert System, formerly known as the Emergency Broadcast System, which is regularly tested on local radio, was never used.
Similarly, phones at key city government offices went dead and cell phone networks were jammed, thousands forced to evacuate buildings had no idea if there were escape routes, local police were not informed that the federal government was shutting down, Capitol Hill maps with escape plans were outdated, and rumors about other bombings were not quickly knocked down through a coordinated communications system.
Call for improvement
“One got the sense that we, the city, didn’t really have a plan nor did we communicate very well with the federal government,” Jack Evans, a City Council member, said Monday. “In the days and weeks ahead, we need to focus on this and be better prepared. I would have expected us, as Washington, to have been better at this.”
For sure, the city and federal government have responded well to natural calamities and isolated incidents, such as hurricanes and well-publicized protests at meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Moreover, as recently as July both the city and federal government focused on the possibility of terrorism, staging a test exercise in which fake terrorists released supposed poison gas at hot dog stands near the White House and the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History on the Mall.
After that test, it was clear that in the event of an attack, a system had to be in place to disseminate news and detail the best routes out of the city. The Emergency Alert System would be an important medium for such news.
But when Tuesday’s attacks played out, rumors about bombings elsewhere in the city were rampant and not quickly contradicted. Mayor Anthony Williams did not surface for a press conference until 1 p.m., hours after thousands had streamed to their homes.
“You do have to laugh when they do all this testing [on the Emergency Alert System] and nothing happens,” Evans said.
Government confusion
There was other, internal confusion. The main city government building was ordered to be evacuated by one official, but that decision was rescinded by another.
The city was not informed that the federal government had closed some streets, while the police department was not informed that the federal Office of Personnel Management had directed 180,000 federal workers to go home. The city’s health department did not have an emergency communications system to contact hospitals about the availability of beds and other resources.
The response was not bumbling in every way. For example, the city handled well the challenge of traffic, which was aggravated by the closing of several bridges across the Potomac River.
Police Chief Charles Ramsey also noted that a new communications command center, which includes law-enforcement officials from the city, National Park Service, Secret Service and Justice Department, among others, is operational.
But huge problems persist, and some clearly relate to the ambiguities in the city’s limited home rule and its dependence on federal government.
For example, Williams’ spokesman, Tony Bullock, said the federal government initially treated the city as if it were ineligible for U.S. funds for emergency planning, because it is not a state.
“We are not a target [of terrorists], but a bull’s-eye,” he said.
