Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning Volume 3 Number 4

Developing an evacuation plan for the Obama presidential inauguration Darrell L. Darnell and Jodi Stern Received: 24th June, 2009 2720 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, S.E., 2nd Floor, Washington, DC 20032, USA Tel: ⫹1 202 727 6161; Fax: ⫹1 202 715 7288; E-mail: [email protected]

Darrell L. Darnell has been the Director of the District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA) since 2007. He is responsible for carrying out the agency’s mission to reduce the loss of life and property and protect citizens and institutions from all hazards by operating and maintaining a comprehensive all-hazard, communitybased, state-of-the-art emergency management infrastructure. Mr Darnell has served as an adjunct professor in the School of Business and Management at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland, and at the University of Maryland, University College — Asian Division. He was a 2006 senior fellow at the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute and a 2006 Founders Award recipient from the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Jodi Stern is a Senior Law and Policy Analyst with the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security. Her current assignment is with HSEMA where she was brought on board to help plan the 56th presidential inauguration and now serves as an emergency planner. In this role, Ms. Stern develops plans to prepare and respond to all-hazard events. She has also worked on issues including continuity of operations, special needs, a legal bench book, and pandemic influenza. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 282–290 䉷 Henry Stewart Publications, 1749-9216

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ABSTRACT When the data came in for the expected crowd

estimates at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration and predictions pointed upwards of 2 million visitors arriving in the District of Columbia (District) on 20th January, 2009, it quickly became apparent that the current District evacuation plan would not be able to support the influx of visitors congregating on the National Mall. The District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA) called for the development of a new evacuation plan. With a limited amount of time remaining, the District faced many barriers in the planning process, but managed to overcome numerous obstacles and developed a functional and effective evacuation plan while identifying ways to improve planning efforts in the future. Keywords: emergency planning, evacuation plan, coordination, incorporating the private sector, resources BACKGROUND Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration was declared a National Special Security Event (NSSE), meaning that the US Secret Service (USSS) was in charge of overseeing the development and implementation of the operational plan for the event. Following the National Response Framework’s (NRF) precept that ‘incidents are generally handled at the lowest jurisdictional level possible’, and serving

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as the host to week-long events, the District of Columbia worked in close coordination with the USSS to ensure that plans were carried out to maintain a safe and successful series of events.1 The DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA) served as the lead coordinating agency for the District of Columbia Presidential Inauguration Committee and was supported by the jurisdictions comprising the National Capital Region and other federal agencies. (The National Capital Region includes the District of Columbia, Maryland (Montgomery County and Prince George’s County), Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon and Prince William Counties), and all cities in Maryland or Virginia in the geographic area bounded by the outer boundaries of the combined area of the counties listed above.) In order to meet the needs of the unprecedented number of visitors coming to the District, collaboration occurred among local, state and federal jurisdictions, along with private and non-profit sectors. Although evacuation plans had already been developed in the District and the region, through some degree of collaboration, the plans did not account for many of the factors and assumptions associated with an event of this magnitude, nor did they require such extensive collaboration with many of the partners drawn into the planning efforts for this event. DESCRIPTION Emergency planning for large-scale events is a process that comes naturally to the District. Frequent planning efforts, such as the Fourth of July celebration, attract as many as 400,000 visitors to the District over the course of the day. Approximately 150,000 to 300,000 visitors come to the National Mall and the Capitol to observe the fireworks display. The

District is even accustomed to handling events designated as NSSE, including the inaugural events that take place every four years. As common as planning is in the District, the presidential inauguration mandated the implementation of new planning approaches. The NSSE designation combined with the media’s wild estimations that ‘District and federal officials were preparing for as many as 4 million people’,2 forced emergency planners to make sound planning assumptions, develop plans to support those numbers, and work diligently across more jurisdictional lines and levels of government than normal to ensure that plans would be effective. The evacuation plan proved to be one of the most challenging aspects of the planning process. Many gaps surfaced throughout the development of evacuation plans, including time limitations, coordination among the levels of government, integration of plans, and coordination with the private sector. As a result, the District’s planning efforts were redirected. The remainder of this paper will demonstrate how these gaps developed and explain corrective actions on how to avoid these issues in the future. IDENTIFYING THE GAPS AND CORRECTIVE ACTIONS Time limitations on planning and exercise On 20th January, 2009, the District of Columbia hosted a record-breaking 1.8 million people in the nation’s capital to witness Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. However, events were not limited to the 20th. The week from 17th January through the 21st carried an NSSE designation and events included the whistle-stop tour, the opening and swearing-in ceremonies, the inaugural parade,

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ten official inaugural balls, and the national prayer breakfast. Planning for the week-long events began months before the actual events and required coordination and planning among federal and local jurisdictions, as well as private and nonprofit sectors. Approximately two months prior to the events, as crowd estimates rose to an unprecedented 2 million people, HSEMA recognised the need to develop an event-specific evacuation plan from the National Mall. Additionally, street and bridge closures, including the 14th Street Bridge leading into Virginia, and security barriers blocked many of the traditional walk-out routes publicised in District plans and familiar to District residents, thus making the existing evacuation plan non-viable. HSEMA quickly redirected much of its planning efforts to support the primary lead, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), in developing an evacuation plan. An evacuation subcommittee was formed to support DDOT. This subcommittee resembled the 11 other subcommittees that were formed by the District four months earlier to handle the various other aspects of the inauguration, such as the health and medical subcommittee and the communications subcommittee. Weekly meetings took place, which meant that Maryland and Virginia, integral members to the subcommittee, were required to take additional time to commute to the meetings from outside of the District while planning for their own jurisdiction. Near the end stages of the development of the evacuation plan, the evacuation subcommittee realised that the new plan presented two problems. The plan needed to address the evacuation and mass care of the anticipated 2 million visitors from the National Mall and Capitol grounds to safety on not only 20th January, 2009, but also during the opening ceremonies

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on 18th January, 2009. Emergency planners anticipated 500,000 visitors would gather at the Lincoln Memorial for the 18th January opening ceremonies. The ceremonial events attracted high-profile entertainers from a variety of entertainment genres scheduled to perform on a temporary stage erected on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Due to the event location and crowd estimates, the evacuation subcommittee concluded that this called for a slightly modified evacuation plan. The plan also needed to identify open access roads capable of supporting individuals walking away from the National Mall, and identify transfer points and shelters where individuals could remain until it was safe to return home. Both of these issues were able to be resolved within just a few days through the development of a sub-plan. DDOT identified open access roads from the Lincoln Memorial during the opening ceremony held on 18th January, and several private and quasi-private venues, as discussed below, were brought into the planning process and designated as transfer points. The Saturday before the inaugural events, HSEMA organised a sandbox exercise for the members of the subcommittee. Any remaining issues were fleshed out and the exercise proved to be helpful in completing the plan. However, this meant that the plan was not finalised until a week and a half prior to the events and the Metropolitan Police Department, the DC National Guard and volunteers would not receive the necessary training until days before the actual events were to take place. Additionally, pamphlets for visitors and signs posted around the event area mapping out the evacuation routes were unavailable until a few days prior to the events. The sentiment of many of the individuals who were charged with carrying

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out the plan was that time constraints prohibited them from fully learning the evacuation routes to implement the plan as intended. During an incident, the individuals carrying out the plan would have experienced difficulty pointing visitors in the correct direction. Therefore, visitors with no concept of the District’s layout or the accompanying security boundaries for the event would have been overwhelmed, potentially creating an even more severe situation. The expanding needs of the plans were time-consuming and if the District had the foresight to develop the evacuation subcommittee when the other subcommittees were implemented in August 2009, then there would have been sufficient time to develop, exercise and train on the evacuation plans. More time was needed in order to ensure that the plans were of the highest calibre, and public safety officials understood the plans and could implement them if needed. Coordination with all levels of government to integrate plans Enhancing the effectiveness of the evacuation plan was also dependent upon coordination among all levels of government and integration of the many plans being developed for the inauguration. The unique structure of the inauguration required involvement by multiple jurisdictions, including the District, Maryland, Virginia, the Federal Government and the private sector. While each level of government was responsible for different planning efforts that coincided with that jurisdiction’s mission, it was important for all emergency planners to keep apprised of current planning efforts and changes taking place throughout the region. Aspects of one plan by any level of government were certain to influence the development of another working group’s plan. Without coordination between the jurisdictions and

integration of plans that frequently overlapped, emergency planners ran the risk of drafting conflicting plans. In an attempt to avoid developing an evacuation plan that ran contrary to other efforts, HSEMA requested all stakeholders participate on the evacuation planning subcommittee along with the appropriate District agencies. However, HSEMA encountered difficulty in bringing all appropriate stakeholders together at the subcommittee meetings. Maryland, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the United States Park Police (USPP), and several smaller federal agencies actively participated in the meetings. Virginia did not participate in the evacuation planning efforts until the near completion of the plan and HSEMA experienced difficulty in incorporating federal government agencies that had more pertinent information. Three problems stemmed from the insufficient coordination with Virginia and the Federal Government. The first issue was that Virginia was initially preoccupied by its own planning efforts and did not become fully involved until HSEMA advised that Virginia played a critical part in the plan, and that the evacuation plan developed by the subcommittee directed a large portion of visitors to walk over the 14th Street Bridge into Virginia. Virginia, however, was not on board with the District directing people into its jurisdiction and did not have a plan for how to handle the influx of individuals. A representative from Virginia was then brought into the evacuation planning efforts, but much of the planning had already been accomplished. To complicate matters further, a second issue became apparent that involved the Federal Government. The lack of a reliable estimate of the expected crowd forced the USSS and Metropolitan Police Department to revise the security boundaries surrounding the National Mall

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and a decision was made to close off the 14th Street Bridge to pedestrians — the same bridge that was intended to be used for directing visitors away from the Mall. The secure boundary maps were finalised late into the inauguration planning, making it difficult to identify the open access roads that visitors would be able to take to move away from the Mall if an incident occurred. The third problem revolved around the integration of the USPP’s independent evacuation plan. USPP’s jurisdiction encompassed the National Mall grounds and it was therefore up to USPP to clear the Mall. Once the National Mall was cleared, the District would have jurisdiction. In order to create a seamless response effort in an evacuation, the USPP’s plan needed to be coordinated with the District’s plan to identify which directions the visitors would initially be advised to travel in in an emergency. The plan was received late into the development of the evacuation plan and was a crucial component of the District’s evacuation plan. This meant that the District’s evacuation plan was continuously being revised to accommodate changes to other plans when they became available, causing a delay in the finalisation of the document. The complications encountered during the development phases of the evacuation plan demonstrate the need to ensure that all stakeholders are represented in a planning effort and that plans are not created in a stovepipe, but rather, are integrated to ensure that the factors and assumptions taken into account for one plan do not conflict with another plan being developed. Plans should be shared across jurisdictions to the maximum extent possible, and planning workgroups should better coordinate with all levels of government that share a role in a particular planning effort.

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Incorporating the private sector into planning efforts In order to move visitors from the National Mall to safety, the District needed access to large venues near the Mall that complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 and were also easily navigable to visitors. The venues were to serve as transfer points; merely a location where individuals would remain until they were informed that it was safe to return to their hotels, transportation or homes. If warranted, the venues could also be opened as emergency shelters. Additionally, the venues were places for individuals with special needs to go if they could not walk a longer distance outside of the District. The District has minimal public venues capable of accommodating large numbers of individuals and meeting the above criteria. However, the District does have multiple private venues with such capabilities. The District has four, privately-owned and quasi-governmental venues located within a short walking distance from the National Mall: The George Washington University, Charles E. Smith Center; The Verizon Center; The Kennedy Center; and The Walter E. Washington Convention Center. These venues are all capable of holding large numbers of people and can accommodate individuals with special needs. Additionally, each of the above venues has capacity to store resources, such as blankets, water and meals-readyto-eat (MREs), in preparation for an emergency. The Smith Center is located just a few blocks away from the White House and the National Mall. The university is privately owned and the 30-year-old Smith Center with a capacity for 5,000 people is used for intercollegiate athletics and recreational activities.3 The George Washington University has a longstanding relationship with the District, holding

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community events and supporting the first-responder community by providing meals to responders in the field for largescale events. The Verizon Center, another privatelyowned venue, is located several blocks from the White House. It was opened by Irene and Abe Pollin in December 1997 to serve as the home to the Washington Wizards.4 The facility holds up to 20,000 5 people. The Pollins maintain a strong commitment to social responsibility.6 The Kennedy Center receives government funding in memory of John F. Kennedy to support the maintenance and operation of the federal facility, but uses private contributions and profits from ticket sales to support its artistic programmes and educational initiatives.7 The venue opened to the public in September 1971 and has a capacity to hold over 7,000 individuals.8 Finally, the Walter E. Washington Convention Center is operated by the Washington Convention Center Authority, which is both a corporate body and an independent authority of the District government pursuant to the Washington Convention Authority Act 1994.9 The Convention Center is located a short distance from the National Mall and is able to hold 24,600 individuals. The Convention Center has been pre-designated as a super-shelter for catastrophic events. HSEMA coordinated with each of the above venues to serve as transfer points in the event of an evacuation from the National Mall. Individuals would evacuate from the National Mall to these venues and stay at the venues until being advised that it was safe to return to their hotel, transportation or home. Oftentimes, government agencies experience difficulty seeking assistance from private entities. It can be difficult for the government to provide reimbursements to

private entities for use of their facilities, including additional infrastructure costs and security measures. The process is often lengthy and complicated and does not always result in the venues receiving reimbursement. Government agencies also have difficulty partnering with private entities if relationships have not been established and nurtured over time. The District is fortunate in that the above private or quasi-governmental entities recognise that they would be called upon to help and offer whatever resources they could in an emergency situation. Additionally, each of the four venues holds a strong, longstanding commitment to the community it serves and has a desire to help plan and prepare for large-scale events. For example, John Petrie, formerly the Assistant Vice President for Public Safety and Management at George Washington University, has played a significant role in the past with respect to emergency planning due to the university’s close proximity to many high-profile events and the impact that traffic and increased visitor numbers have on the university. The inauguration proved no different. Mr Petrie joined the planning process early on and served as a member of the DC Presidential Inaugural Committee, the District government’s coordinating body for the inauguration, in order to handle issues that arose and could potentially impact the university and surrounding community. Mr Petrie also represents the DC Consortium of Universities, an organisation comprised of 13 universities and two colleges. As their representative, he was able to serve as a liaison and communicate information between HSEMA and the local colleges and universities. The Consortium of Universities has a designated station in HSEMA’s emergency operations centre, ensuring direct coordination during major events.

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HSEMA wanted to get buy-in from the venues to participate in the emergency preparedness efforts for the inauguration. Providing an explanation of planning efforts and insight into how the venue can support those efforts proved helpful in bringing private entities onboard to support the inauguration. HSEMA not only engaged in several phone conversations with each of the venues to work out the details of how they would function as a transfer point, but personally met with a point of contact from each venue and provided a briefing on what the venue’s role and responsibility would be in the emergency preparedness efforts. HSEMA’s coordination and outreach between the American Red Cross, FEMA, and the private and quasi-governmental venues resulted in supplies, including blankets, water and MREs, being stored at the Convention Center, George Washington University and the Kennedy Center. And although these Red Cross trailers arrived at the Convention Center too early on 17th January, HSEMA was able to work with the Convention Center to pre-stage the trailers with limited disruption to the preparations that were taking place for the inaugural balls scheduled to take place at the venue that evening. Although the venues were successfully brought onboard with the planning, the District recognised that, given the desire of the private and quasi-private venues to participate in the planning efforts, they should have been brought into the planning process earlier. George Washington University was able to provide insight into planning efforts and assist in the use of the Smith Center as a transfer point. Although the District has maintained close contact and positive relations with the other venues, those venues expressed the desire to be made aware of their potential use as a transfer point earlier on and to be able to participate in

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the planning process. These privatelyowned and quasi-governmental venues wanted to be a part of the process rather than merely incorporated into a plan and informed of their role at a much later time or during an incident. Additionally, no memorandums of understanding (MOUs) exist between the District government and the private entities. Establishing MOUs would serve to strengthen the relationship between the government and private entities by keeping the District apprised of the capabilities and resources available from the private venues while simultaneously allowing the District to outline its needs in the event of an emergency. In addition, use of the facilities would be secured in times of need. Overall, working with the private sector and maintaining relationships with those venues has proven beneficial to the District. HSEMA is able to contact those venues with a simple phone call or e-mail to discuss how they can be used, and the venues are capable of working with the District and providing insight into what resources and space they are able to provide in an emergency. Bringing these entities into the planning process early on will also allow for the venues and their resources to be used to their maximum potential, and ultimately minimise threats and increase public safety for large-scale events. Resource insufficiencies In establishing transfer points, the evacuation subcommittee determined that the transfer points should contain pre-staged supplies in case individuals were required to stay at the transfer points longer than anticipated. The District (through Essential Support Function #6: Mass Care and Housing) had neither the funding nor the resources to support this effort. Furthermore, there was concern that individuals

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with special needs would use the transfer points and require additional resources in an emergency. The evacuation subcommittee identified water, cots, blankets and MREs as the necessary supplies to support the transfer points. FEMA, on the other hand, had the resources available, but could not provide them without the District’s request and approval for a Presidential declaration. The lack of available resources for the transfer points was one of the reasons that the District requested a Presidential predeclaration through FEMA. The District had not requested a Presidential declaration since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Following the protocols, HSEMA worked with FEMA Region III to procure approval for a pre-declaration seeking assistance under Section V of the Stafford Act 1988 for protective measures.10 Once authorised, this enabled the District to receive resources via direct assistance from FEMA in order to save lives and protect public health and safety.11 FEMA supplied water, cots, blankets and MREs from its warehouses and worked with the Red Cross to stock Red Cross trailers that would be pre-staged at some of the transfer points. At the end of the event, FEMA collected the unused supplies to return to its warehouses. HSEMA collaborated with FEMA to bridge the resource gap and ensure that the resources were available at the transfer points. MOVING FORWARD The inauguration was not the end of the District’s planning efforts. Immediately after the inauguration, HSEMA initiated planning for the SunTrust National Marathon, International Monetary Fund/World Bank Annual Spring Meeting, and the Annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Many of the lessons learned during the inauguration were used in planning for

these events. The relationships that were developed through the inauguration planning process transcended the inauguration and transferred into efforts post-inauguration. Meetings were held for each of these events and participants came from various levels of government and jurisdictions, including the private sector. A new understanding for all stakeholders to share and coordinate efforts was apparent at the meetings. Additionally, this autumn, HSEMA will be leading the District in the planning for the FEMA Gap Analysis using a pandemic influenza scenario. In order to complete the pandemic influenza planning for the upcoming exercise, HSEMA has decided to employ a similar approach as used during the inauguration. Subcommittees will be formed in order to ensure that all aspects of the plan are covered. The 56th presidential inauguration changed the way HSEMA and the District approach emergency planning. The lessons derived from the planning process have served HSEMA and the District well in developing more holistic and effective plans. The continued use of the planning processes implemented during the inauguration proves that the processes used were successful in coordinating and integrating plans, developing strong relationships across jurisdictions and with the private sector, and even making the District more aware of the need to start planning well in advance of an event. The lessons learned are not only applicable to developing specific plans like an evacuation plan, but they are also best practices for how emergency planners should approach planning generally.

REFERENCES (1) US Department of Homeland Security (2008) ‘National Response Framework’, Government Printing Office,

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Washington, DC. (2) Stewart, N. and Ruane, M. E. (2008) ‘Can Mall be filled for an inauguration? 4 million may try it’, Washington Post, 18th November, p. A01. (3) George Washington University Athletics, available at: http://www.gwsports.com/studentath-ctr/gewa-baskbl-facility.html (accessed 22nd June, 2009). (4) Verizon Center, available at: http://www.verizoncenter.com/about/ pollins.shtml (accessed 22nd June, 2009). (5) Ibid. (6) Ibid.

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(7) Kennedy Center, available at: http://www.kennedy-center.org /about/history.html (accessed 22nd June, 2009). (8) Ibid. (9) Walter E. Washington Convention Center, available at: http://www.dcconvention.com/ about.aspx (accessed 22nd June, 2009). (10) FEMA (2009) ‘President announces declaration for the District of Columbia’, press release, 13th January, available at: http://www.fema.gov/ news/newsrelease.fema?id=47284 (accessed 22nd June, 2009). (11) Ibid.