Spring Break
Capitalism in the State Capital
Lily-Hayes Kaufman (OI)*, Contributing Writer
Issue date: 2/2/09 Section: News
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Estimating physical crowd density in a specific location is a complicated and often contested process. In fact, the National Park Service (NPS) has not issued an official crowd count since Congress ordered the cessation of such information in 1995 after the organizers of the Million Man March threatened to sue over a count discrepancy. But, in light of the historic aspect of the Barack Obama Inauguration, the National Park Service is "not contesting" the Washington Post's estimate of 1.8 million attendees at the 2009 Inauguration.
For some DC locals, the crowds and traffic were a nuisance, if not terrifying. In fact, despite additional support called in from police and military volunteers to direct the masses, those who attended the Inauguration observed that management of the crowds was dangerously lacking.
Televised coverage from cameras on scaffolding 40-50 feet above the crowd shows what looked to be an unbroken mass of humanity. But in reality, visuals broadcast from satellite illustrate that actually there were clusters with blank areas in between that with a little TOMing, could have been much more efficiently distributed.
The lucky few - 240,000 few that is - who held coveted tickets to the Inauguration ceremony literally struggled to make their way into the gates to find their seats or designated standing areas.
Color coded maps clearly sectioned off the various viewing zones: Yellow, Purple, etc... However, there was no oversight of the overwhelming crush of people who trampled into a chaotic maze of lines snaking and crisscrossing literally for miles around the mall.
As the clock ticked closer to the time of swearing in, the mass of people remained chaotically stagnant. Those who had not yet made it through those golden gates, past security and onto the lawn panicked at the possibility of being shut out when the gates closed.
These frantic ticket holders could be heard screaming out "Yellow!" "Purple!" "Yellow!" "Purple!" from a sea of lost people desperately trying to find the appropriate entrance gate. In any other context, the similarity to a giant game of Marco-Polo, might have been humorous.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
Fred
posted 2/02/09 @ 1:22 PM EST
"Whereas in the past people might have uniformly populated the mall, Aerial photographs from this year show high density areas of people clustered, no probably crushed, in a circular pattern around the JumboTron's zone of visibility. (Continued…)
Paul Revere
posted 2/02/09 @ 5:03 PM EST
I thought Boston was the state capital.
TOM
posted 2/02/09 @ 7:25 PM EST
"...there were clusters with blank areas in between that with a little TOMing, could have been much more efficiently distributed."
big talk and interesting change of "Technology and Operations Management" into a verb, but unless you were there and saw the layout (like where the streets and media towers were) and know all of the security policies that were in place (like the need to keep streets clear for emergency transportation and the limits set for how many people would safely fit on the Mall), how can you make this claim?
DC-ite
posted 2/04/09 @ 10:26 AM EST
"For some DC locals, the crowds and traffic were a nuisance, if not terrifying."
Terrifying? Really? Source?
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