In an ordinary year, a presidential inauguration would bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to the nation’s capital. In an ordinary year, there would be viewing stands and a parade along Pennsylvania Avenue, vendors on every corner, entire families clogging the National Mall, and tourists taking group photos in the middle of downtown sidewalks, making it hard for locals to navigate the city. There would be celebrations, both official and impromptu.

But this is no ordinary year, and locals are navigating massive street and bridge closures, buttressed by a military presence unlike anything the city has seen since the Civil War. And of course … we’re still in a pandemic.

President-elect Joe Biden’s inaugural committee spokesperson Matt Hill made it very clear in a phone call earlier this month: “Stay home,” he said when discussing the planned events. “In terms of, ‘where people can go see it’ — no, they can tune in online. It’s for the best of [the] public health.”

Many D.C. residents have taken that directive to heart. Some have even fled the city altogether.

Becca AbuRakia-Einhorn, a 32-year-old who works at Gallaudet University, left the city on Monday, headed for a yurt on a goat farm in the Shenandoah Valley.

She booked the trip for herself, her husband, and their 17-month-old last month.

“Everyone was bracing for violence on Election Day and on [January] 6th,” AbuRakia-Einhorn said. “And so, in December, I was thinking about this week and just thinking, ‘It’s just better to be gone and not be in the city.’”

In the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection, tens of thousands of armed troops have landed in the city, confirming her suspicions.

“Emotionally, I think this has been a tense place to be in the last couple weeks,” she said. “I think that the saga of transitioning from president number 45 to 46 has gone on a very long time, and I don’t need to tune in on Wednesday to witness it. Wednesday doesn’t prove that there has been a peaceful transition of power. We’ve lost that.”

Other locals have taken a different approach to observing Wednesday’s muted, albeit long list of events.

Penn Quarter resident Tamara Vance originally planned to stay home for Inauguration Day — then she changed her mind.

“Now that I see everything that’s going on, I’m ready for the world on the outside,” she said while walking along a National Guard barrier near the U.S. Navy Memorial over the weekend. “If I can get close and just get a glimpse, that would just be a blessing for me and for my grandmother… a woman of color that thought, ‘Girl, that will never happen,’” she said, referring to Kamala Harris’s swearing in as the first Black and Asian vice president. “And, it is.”

As a self-proclaimed optimist, Vance said her family members on the West Coast rely on her for hope. Following the Jan. 6 riots, she went live on Facebook at the Capitol grounds, offering prayers and words of encouragement.

But as far as getting close to the ceremony is concerned, only a few hundred socially distanced guests will even be allowed onstage when Biden and Harris take their oaths.

In a normal year, members of Congress have gotten tens of thousands of tickets to distribute. This year, they were granted just one guest ticket each, amounting to a total of just over a thousand attendees.

D.C.Mayor Muriel Bowser was invited and plans to attend, according to her deputy mayor John Falcicchio, who said that plan is contingent on the security situation. D.C. councilmembers — who normally have a prime viewing stand of the parade at the John A. Wilson Building — plan to watch virtually.

On Wednesday, the city’s government operations will largely come to a halt with COVID-19 testing sites, public libraries, meal distribution services, and other operations closing for the day.

With approximately 4.6 square miles of downtown D.C. in a heightened security zone and difficult to navigate, many Washingtonians are planning watch parties at home. Some plan to take advantage of the various takeout deals from local restaurants or participate in the virtual celebrations organized by Biden’s inaugural committee.

Allie Alvis, of Capitol Hill, will be enjoying an unusual new Inauguration Day tradition.

“My best friend actually made us an Advent calendar type thing, a countdown to Biden,” Alvis said. “And it’s a little envelope of chocolate every day until the 20th. We’ve been saving those chocolates and maybe we will eat them while watching the inauguration.”

But she is prepared for the day to take a turn. During the Capitol insurrection, police found a pipe bomb up the block from her apartment. Accordingly, she and her partner plan to close their blinds, hunker down, and pack a go-bag just in case they need to leave quickly.

“I thought living smack dab on the top of the Hill would be great to be in the middle of things,” she said. “I just didn’t realize those things would be a pandemic and a semi-militarized zone.”

Alvis said the rainbow flag and Black Lives Matter sign in her window could make her apartment a target to Trump supporters.

While they’ve been more discreet this week than they were the week of the MAGA rally earlier this month, some number of Trump supporters have made their way to the city.

Candice Rock, 52, drove in Sunday from Michigan with her adult son. She said she regretted not being able to attend the pro-Trump rally two weeks prior that resulted in a breach of the U.S. Capitol, motivated by baseless claims of a stolen election.

“I was kind of glad in a way that it happened because I feel like we’re close to our revolutionary war,” she said. “The thing about the Republican party is…we’re law and order citizens, but there’s a time where we’re gonna crack. You can’t steal an election from people. There’s a point where….people are gonna start getting violent because they’re so angry.”

On Wednesday, Rock and her son plan to get as close to the Capitol as possible to show support for Trump, although the exiting president is reportedly leaving Washington the morning Biden is sworn in.

But for the most part, Washingtonians — who normally have prime access to inauguration festivities — planned to be glued to their TVs like the rest of the country

While she worked as a volunteer at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, Silver Spring resident Joyce Gilgore said she would be watching from home with a special homecooked meal—decked out in pearls and Chuck Taylors, in honor of our incoming vice president.

“The inauguration for me is an opportunity for us to be hopeful and to think about positive changes and take the time to figure out how we’re going to make that happen,” she said.

Speaking at BLM Plaza on Monday, Jared Sands said “We’re not going to be driven out of our homes by white supremacists in 2021.” His wife, Alex, added: “We’re not going to leave, there’s no point. There’s nowhere to go … I mean there is a pandemic.” They plan to stay at their home in Petworth, watching “12 straight hours of cable TV.”

Even AbuRakia-Einhorn, at the Shenandoah goat farm retreat, said that while she and her husband will try their best to stay offline, she’s anticipating violence of some kind, given the chaos that kicked off the New Year.

“I’ll bet something will happen Wednesday,” she said, “and we’ll get sucked into our phones anyway.”

Reporting contributed by Margaret Barthel, Martin Austermuhle, Ruth Tam, Jenny Gathright, and Dominique Maria Bonessi.