My 5/11 in Washington DC

A dispatch from the front lines of the Capitol under (false alarm) terrorist attack
Friday, May 13, 2005

(printed in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle)

WASHINGTON -- If you live in Washington, D.C., Wednesday looked like your standard spectacular spring day. To me, however, the day carried a tint of unreality long before the echoes of 9/11 reverberated through the Capitol and the White House, sending tens of thousands running down crowded stairwells, across marbled corridors and for several blocks down the streets around Capitol Hill. For Washington residents, what goes on in and around the Capitol on a standard day looks normal. To me, however, Washington remains a slightly unreal place. The "normal" sights on the Hill amaze me every time.

In just a few minutes I had already come across numerous members of Congress, high-powered lobbyists and other every-day Capitol characters. I climbed in an elevator just as a cluster of high-ranking U.S. military men escorted out their ramrod-straight uniformed colleagues from some other country -- a page out of Hollywood Central Casting. And I had just bumped into the former speaker of the House, 60-something Newt Gingrich, tenderly holding hands with his 30-something wife. The merry-go-round was only about to start spinning.

I was standing deep inside the Capitol, on the third floor of the House side, about to enter the House gallery, when I noticed a small commotion. Then the frenzy exploded. "Everybody out of the building!" Then the shout that followed me and 35,000 other people for an interminable few minutes: "Run, run, run!" Remember how after 9/11 everyone said it seemed like a movie? Now it looked as though we might have stepped into the same show. Only this time not as spectators.

I had handed my cell phone to security, so I had no immediate way of finding out what the emergency was. We heard rumors of airplanes and attacks as we ran down the street. We snaked through the crowd, thinking about anthrax and dirty bombs, as we passed groups of school children crying, elderly visitors struggling to keep up and anxious officers speaking into their crackling radios. We made way for motorcades and police cars rushing to safety the chosen few selected to run the post-apocalypse government in case our fearless leaders fail to prevent the doom about which they have so thoroughly warned us.

When it was all over, there were congratulations all around. Yes, everything went according to plan, we were told. Only six minutes to evacuate the U.S. Capitol. Bravo.

Of course, when the evacuation started, the suspicious plane was perhaps one or two minutes away. Maybe six minutes to evacuate is a new record, perhaps impressive, but not good enough.

The American tradition of generous praise and abundant self-congratulation eroded a bit in the aftermath of 9/11. But let's hope this 5/11 is used for more than handing out medals. The evacuation was not an over-reaction. How is it possible that an unidentified plane made it to within three miles of the White House and the U.S. Capitol? How is it possible, that more than three years and billions of dollars after Sept. 11, 2001, an incompetent student pilot can send the government of the United States into a state of chaos, emptying both chambers of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court? And how, how in the world are we to interpret the fact that throughout this potentially catastrophic national emergency, the commander in chief, the self-described "wartime president," was playing on his bicycle on a Wednesday afternoon, and nobody thought he should be even briefly interrupted to learn about the situation?

No, this was clearly not a normal day in Washington. I will remember it, and I am sure so will the jaded Washingtonians who think they have seen it all. What happened on 5/11 should not pass for normal. We cannot wait for another disaster to start the "where-did-we-go-wrong" hearings. If reaction to the violation of restricted airspace went according to plan, then the plan needs revision. We should learn some lessons from this experience.

And just in case the truly important lessons go unlearned, let me pass on a small tidbit I learned watching others suffer through the ordeal: As long as the nation remains under threat, whatever you do, do not wear high heels in Washington.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05133/503714.stm