Go Home Already: Shouts and Murmurs
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Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
DCist's Amanda Mattos reports from the "orange" ticketholders entrance at the Swearing-In Ceremony, which is near C street at the entrance to the Rayburn HOB. She says she was shuffled into a long, winding line that was supposedly leading to the security entrance, but when she actually reached the gate, there was nobody monitoring the entrance to the security tent, and it seemed like people could have cut to the front of the line without anyone stopping them -- except, as it turned out, the angry mob. A family did try to cut in line, and Amanda says the crowd responded by calling them "Bush"! Apparently shouting "Bush!" is the official insult of Inauguration Day.
Once Amanda reached the security line, things started moving quickly, and she says it appeared as though everyone had planned ahead regarding restricted items, no one she saw ran into any problems passing through security. She has since reached her seats, only to be confronted with the crushing reality that being a ticket holder doesn't mean she has a good view: her seats are directly behind huge erected stands that will block her view of the ceremony.
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I have friends that have waited for nearly three hours at the blue gate. Apparently the screening gates are broken and they are not letting anyone in. The orange section screening is working fine.
I waited 4.5 hours in line for purple in the 3rd Street tunnel, got out of the tunnel only to be told that purple gate was closed, luckily i live a few blocks away and i came home but i'm really pissed.
Was in Purple Ticket line beginning at 6AM and didn't get in the ceremony. The security line naturally funneled into a bottleneck that was a dead end. This led to backing up people in some tunnel that was filled with 15-20K people. There will be lots of pissed off purple ticket holders. Senator Feinstein is not a popular lady right now.
Purple had major problems, rumor in the line was lines didn't open until 11 and closed at noon. Does anyone know what happened?
just got back. Blue entrance was a zoo. Couldn't have been handled worse. There was literally one cop at the beginning of the disneyland-esque zig zag doing nothing to control the crowds. As you got closer, the pushing started. I arrived at the gate at 0815 didnt get in till 1100. All the true blue areas were occupied, had adecent view, but regret not showing up earlier (metro as a nightmare, but that is another story). There were some shenanigans involving jumping fences, posting up on port-a potty's and there was not a cop in sight to keep the peace.
The Blue line was absurd. Those who did what they were supposed to, waited patiently and resisted the temptation to join in on the anarchy by cutting in line were not able to make it in on time. It's inconceivable to me that they anticipated this crowd but still decided that opening the gates at 8:00 AM would leave enough time for hundreds of thousands of people to pass through security by the time the program started. I just can't believe it. I'm so disappointed and have lost significant faith in the organization of the administration. For a president that has so many expectations fairly or not heaped upon him this was a not a good way to start. We had time to plan for this major event. What happens in the event of the unexpected? Any ideas for how to pursue recourse?
i was pleased to see that there was one cop monitoring the blue line but when i returned home dejected and down-hearted, there were no fewer than 7 national guardsmen guarding my inane capitol hill street to watch me take my dog for a walk.
I also live on the hill, i had a couple of national guardsmen ask me what was wrong (as i was crying on my walk home) and i said i had waited for 4.5 hours in a tunnel to get turned away and they told me that was insane and how sorry they were that they were just standing around
i'm with you on this one....the blue line was just a mess. i also left disappointed after having been waiting since 7. after deciding that i wouldn't get in around 11...i made a mad dash to anywhere i could see a screen so not to miss the entire thing. definitely a major problem for me and the thousands of others who were left out of history...sadly, obama's hope of having a weekend free of any negativity or false starts ended up with a few mixups and plenty of false hopes for some.
We had a similar experience at Blue. No plan. No officials. No cops. No volunteers. Plenty of rumors about opening times, closing times, broken metal detectors, failed generators, etc. After three hours of initially orderly lines that dissolved into a mob, we bailed back into the tunnel heading North to home in Columbia Heights. Thanks to a passing cab driver, we made it to the house in time to see the swearing in.
I have to give huge credit to the crowd. It would have been easy to turn that scene real ugly. Everyone stayed cool, upbeat, and calm. Thanks, Blue Gaters.
Blue was a mess. Got in 'line' at 9:45 AM and made it in two hours later, just in time, thank God. I know their job was ridiculous today, but the Capitol Police should've planned for this a bit better. The metal detectors were useless-- all that was really needed was a bag check for the suprisingly few people who brought bags. That would've kept the flow of people going without requiring cumbersome and dangerous barriers.
I was in the purple line, and also did not get into the ceremony- at 11:15 or so, when it was obvious that we weren't going to be let in, we ran to Union Station to watch it on TV (without sound, but the crowd was still struck silent through the whole thing).
Before the line really broke down into complete chaos, my friend heard from people in the front of the line that the security guys meant to work the Purple Gate didn't show up for work this morning. Actually. So, the few security people on hand attempted to herd the purple line to the silver gate (hence the similar problems for Silver reported in the Post).
As people above have said, the crowd was generally amiable if dejected- but the complete lack of crowd control or any official presence at all was unbelievable. People were literally collapsing around us- I remember five incidents- and nearly every time, the only way those people were helped was from doctors who were also waiting in the crowd. It was really disgraceful, and I'm lucky I got to see it at all.
Purple line badness. I don't know what was going on, but there were three different cops telling us to go three different directions to get in. I was there before 7 and got in, but there were people there at 4:30 who did not get in and people who showed up at 9 and got in (because they came from a different way).
After 3 hours of searching, I found the Purple Gate around 6:30 a.m. There was a noticeable and well formed line, but there was a bottleneck at the intersection of First and D Streets. Because of that bottleneck, we reached crush capacity by 7 a.m. By 9 a.m., there was no movement, and there were no officers around giving information or directions. Two people fainted and one needed an ambulance. At 10 a.m. and knowing that the gates would be closing soon, I pushed and shoved my way to the front of the line. Once I got to the ticket check point, the security screening took less then a minute to get through.
Once on the grounds, there was plenty of room; I suppose because many of my fellow Purple Ticketers never made it in. After living the chaos of today, I am concerned in this government's ability to fix the economy!
We were staying st a friends house at 2nd and D SE so we headed into the blue queue of death around 8:30. There were almost no cops or volunteers to be seen and the ones we did ask for help either straight up said they didn't know where the lines were or just gave us misinformation (like getting on the the orange queue). We herded up on one apparent group of blue ticket holders for about an hour and realized it was literally heading into an 8 foot fence. We decided to plow though to another apparent blue queue which ended up orienting and heading in the complete opposite direction. Finally we got about 25 yards away from the actual screening gate and realized absolutely no one was going through. There were 6 of us so we argued whether or not to leave for a while until all of a sudden a lot of shoving started and people started chanting "LET US IN! LET US IN!" At that point, we all bolted back to the house as to avoid getting caught in an all out riot.
Also, at one point some guy behind me with a Jersey accent called his representative and left him/her a hilarious shouting rant on their voice mail.
Amazing time, all around.
Purple line badness. I don't know what was going on, but there were three different cops telling us to go three different directions to get in. I was there before 7 and got in, but there were people there at 4:30 who did not get in and people who showed up at 9 and got in (because they came from a different way).
I got to the silver ticket gate at 3rd and Independence at about 8 AM, and followed the line about seven long blocks to the end, where it circled back around to 6th and Independence. Fortunately, those of us at the end of the line were waved through to another security entrance, and we got in right away. I feel really sorry for the people who waited in the original line. I have a feeling that most of them never made it in.
What a terrible experience. My dad came in from Missouri to see this inauguration and after getting blue tickets, we thought we were in for the experience of a lifetime. Instead, we waited in line for 2.5 hours at the blue gate in a massive crowd only to have the gates shut on us. There were at least a thousand people around me who didn't get in either. Is there anyone we can write to about this?? This was a complete disaster and someone should be held accountable.
Obviously, this is all Bush's fault. Somehow.
What an awful mess I'm hearing from the early crowd. I wish I could say I understood how you felt. It seems like the latecomer crowd had the better experience: easy entrance, easy exit, although they did sacrifice being within eyesight of the swearing in.
I left Foggy Bottom at about 11:00 and getting as far as the Washington Monument at about 11:10-11:15. The sidewalk that encompasses the Monument was backed up as we tried moving closer to the screen, so we pushed back the way we came til we were about 100 yards or so East of 17th Street and had ample space around us to watch comfortably. Exit was a bit maddening, as we had to listen to Jesus preachers on bull horns while we were temporarily trapped within the fenced confines of 17th and Constitution. Upon a few enterprising individuals moving one of the fences near the corner open from the inside, the bottleneck relaxed as we poured out onto the intersection.
From there, we shot up behind the OAS bulding through their courtyard, West on C, North on Virginia Ave, West on E, North on 20th, through Foggy to lunch at Cafe Asia. Either 18th or 19th was closed, I can't remember, leaving the other North/South road crammed and slow-moving. However, thinking Cafe Asia was a good hide-out from the tourists, we made it in narrowly before the crowd found out our spot and many others on I Street. Luckily, we were seated immediately upstairs and were able to watch the luncheon on the restaurant's projector tuned to CNN.
We had silver tickets. Got in line at 8:45. Never got quite to where we were supposed to be, but were not in a bad location, so I'm not really complaining.
From my perspective, though, it looked like they just didn't let people in ... until - I think - people actually broke the gate down at Maryland and 3rd. But by that time, we had a decent viewing area, so we didn't try to rush in.
There could have certainly been better communication, though.
he Nation's Capital will celebrate the effective, efficient security measures of the recent Inauguration festivities at the National Bollard Festival.