Inauguration - crowds and cold and ceremony

Nearly three weeks later, I figure I better put up my recollections of inauguration day.

Our alarms were set at 6:15 a.m., with the aim of leaving the house by 7. Our No. 1 priority was to make it to the Mall for Obama's swearing-in and speech. Since anything within reasonable eyeshot of the Capitol platform was reserved for ticket holders, we were hoping just to be a part of the crowd, hopefully with a view of one of the 20+ JumboTrons set up on the Mall.

Information had been disseminated in the days before Jan. 20 on possible avenues to reach the Mall area, but all of it came with a caveat: No one knows exactly how things will work out. With crowds of up to 2 million expected to descend on downtown, any hiccup would turn into a jam - and possible hiccups were everywhere.

We had a Plan A, B and C - which may have been our first mistake.

Plan A was to try the Metro. There was some worry the cars would be so packed we wouldn't actual be able to get on. I felt it was worth heading into the station near our house in the morning and try to get on a train. As it turned out, we were worrying about the wrong thing.
Plan B was to try and take a bus down Georgia Ave. toward downtown and see how far we could get, then walk the rest of the way to the Mall. We preferred the Metro to the bus primarily because the parade route was set up north of the Mall, and the parade route was generally closed to all pedestrian traffic (security checkpoints were set up for people wanting to watch the parade). Instead, we were hoping a Metro trip to L'Enfant Station, south of the Mall, would leave us a more open route to the Mall, avoiding security checkpoints. Again, as it turned out, our plan didn't quite take all the factors into account.
Plan C was to ride bikes downtown. This was generally agreed to be by far the best way to get there, except for the fact it was below freezing that day. It would not, however, be nearly as fun to get back. It's downhill all the way from our house to the Mall, which means uphill all the way back. We also had a possible spot to watch the parade after the speech, and bikes would impede that process.

The speech was open for the public to watch from the three miles of the Mall (mostly the mile and a half between the Capitol and the Washington monument. The parade would happen afterward - scheduled for 2:30 p.m. (swearing-in at noon) but the parade was likely to run late.

My sister came down to stay with us from Baltimore, and a friend of hers came up from Atlanta. The friend knew people with connections to a downtown law firm, and we ended up with invites to watch the parade from the firm's offices on Pennsylvania Avenue, just past the White House at the end of the parade. We weren't sure if the crowds would actually allow us to make both, but we were going to try.

Just before 7 we headed to the Metro station, and easily got on a near-empty train. We felt this was a good sign - even though the train filled up as we approached downtown, it wasn't any more full than a rush hour train. As we passed the Chinatown station, we looked outside at the packed platforms and were momentarily glad we'd decided to head to L'Enfant. Until we got off at L'Enfant and realized we couldn't move from the platform to, well, anywhere.

After making a quick decision that getting back on a train was unlikely to help, we started to make our way into the packed throngs attempting to leave the station. It didn't take long to get within eyesight of the fare gates, but we couldn't move toward them. After a short wait, a Metro employee spoke over the PA system, letting us know the escalators were overloaded and they could only let a certain number of people out at a time. This was the first and last time of the day when someone actually gave helpful information to a crowd.

An hour later, as we finally made our way out of the station, we were caught up in a mass of people making their way a few blocks away toward 12th Street to take them to a Mall - it looked like what would normally be an on-ramp was completely clogged with people. We hopped out of the crowd and up a staircase onto an almost deserted L'Enfant Plaza (filled with what must have been frustrated vendors who had to watch everyone walk underneath them, as most tourists had no idea this route was an option). We made it to Independence on the backside of the Smithsonian Castle, and had to make a decision - walk East, toward the Capitol and try to set up in front of the Hirshhorn, but risk finding an already-packed Mall with no place for us, or rejoin the herd of people moving West, further away and possibly nowhere near a Jumbotron screen. Originally, we'd hoped to set up on the Washington Monument grounds, thinking it would be easier to gain a spot there, so we headed East. When we got to the first possible entry point, at 12th Street, we found our way blocked by barricades and police, so we kept moving east. Problem was, this funneled us into a long stretch with no possible outlet, caught in between the two USDA buildings. As we closed in on 14th Street, the crowd simply stopped moving. We were about 20 yards away from 14th, an opening to the Mall, for about 45 minutes. No one in the crowd had any idea why they weren't moving, but clearly no one was. We lucked out - next to us was a guy who pulled out a portable radio. We quickly heard the Mall was completely closed to pedestrians between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, which explained why no one was moving.

No one, that is, except for a small number of people who had decided to simply ignore the barricades and jump over - the other side was relatively deserted, as there was about half a block between us and the real crowds. After learning the Mall was closed, we decided to try and make our way toward the Lincoln Memorial, fighting our way across Independence away from the Mall, where the people thinned out slightly. But only a few yards along, it seemed clear the mass of people would make it difficult to go anywhere - east or west - so we joined the barricade jumpers, hopping onto an empty stretch of ground behind the line of port-a-johns that lined the Mall (seriously - they were another barricade for almost the entire mile-plus length). We squeezed through a gap in the toilet sentries and found ourselves in the midst of an even denser mass of people. We were still on the South side of the Mall, south of Jefferson and in between 15th and 14th - about 500 feet southeast of the Washington Monument.

I caught a glimpse of one of the last Jumbotrons and wormed through the crowd until I couldn't go any farther. I could just see the picture through gaps in the heads in front of me - I realized the three girls with me had only a view of the people directly in front of them. It didn't take long for my sister and her friend to feel a little claustrophobic and decide to move back for a little space. Kirsten and I stayed where we were, even though we were packed in close enough that for a few brief moments it was literally hard to breathe, and for the full hour and a half or so we waited in these spots until Obama's speech I had a hard time moving my hands above my waist (I was carrying a bag with food and water that ended up only cutting off circulation to my hand until well after the speech).

Despite all this, I still had a view of the screen for the ceremony and speech (not as good a view as the few people who decided to climb a tree, but those spots were taken by the time we got there - it can't have been comfortable for those who stayed in the branches for a few hours to watch). We also had a great view of the crowds around the Washington Monument - clearly we wouldn't have gotten a spot there.

The ceremony and speech, I'm sure, were the same as they would have been to anyone watching on TV, although our sound had no commentators - just the open microphones as they showed pictures of dignitaries walking through the Capitol, with the occasionally announcement as someone official took their seat for the ceremony.


Immediately after the ceremony, the crowd had nearly as much trouble dispersing as it did gathering. The screens all carried announcements that the northern exits from the Mall were closed, and pointed people to 14th Street for a Southern exit, but 14th street was still barricaded, and people were being channeled into small passageways along the sidewalks, which made for a frustrated group of people who were ready to no longer be a group.

We decided to head against the traffic and go up to the Washington Monument for a better vantage point. The crowd had thinned by the time we started to make our way to the law office for the parade. Ever since getting out of the train station, I hadn't had cell service - I saw reports later saying officials had actually jammed the signals for security.

Leaving the Mall, we ended up having no problems. We found our way north onto 18th Street, which I had heard was jammed, but it was steadily moving. Cell service was restored when we were about a block from the law offices, and I got a text from my sister letting me know she had just gotten there.

We arrived at the law offices around 2 p.m. and were ushered into the 10th floor conference room (clients were being hosted on the 2nd floor - the 10th floor seemed to be mostly family).

There we finally had a chance to thaw out (it was in the high 20s that day, with a small wind - although we didn't notice the wind until we were out of the crowd - being packed in does have small advantages), grab some food and settle in. We watched inauguration coverage on a TV on the back wall, including images of the Obamas walking in the parade, until they made the final turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue and we could just watch them walking along. From our vantage point, we saw them reach the end of hte route, and then we later watched them walk from the White House into the presidential review stand. We hung around for a while before making our way back home - this time the Metro presented no problems.