Capital City Caught Up In a Mad Dash for Safety

At the White House, the evacuation interrupted a tour by hundreds of students from Spring Ridge Elementary School in Frederick, causing children and parents to sprint for Freedom Plaza. "We were in the line for the first room, and they told us to turn around and head back out," said parent Hilda Closs. "Then the Secret Service yelled, 'Run!' "

There were some glitches during the mass escape. Some congressional staff members complained of not being alerted quickly enough on their BlackBerry or other hand-held communicators. Several Senate staff members said they were urged by Capitol Police to keep walking past the park where they had been told to gather in practice drills. A Congress Daily reporter working in the basement press office in the White House said he didn't learn of the alert until he heard another reporter panicking.

But for the most part, people interviewed after the evacuations said they thought the operation went smoothly. Some said it was noticeably better than the evacuation of the Capitol in June, when a plane carrying Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) to Washington for former president Ronald Reagan's funeral strayed into restricted airspace.

"It was more orderly this time," said Nelson Kearney, a Capitol utility engineer who was at a first-floor candy shop when he heard police ordering everyone out. "People know the routes. They know the exits to take."

The panic subsided as word spread that the plane was being diverted from Washington, even before police gave the all-clear at 12:43. The Capitol's alarms, which sound like the beep of an alarm clock amplified to rock concert levels, could still be heard as people went back to their lunch-hour routines, sipping iced tea at a Capitol Hill steakhouse, munching on fruit while sitting on concrete ledges in the sunshine.

This was Washington, a capital city that has grown accustomed to evacuations the way Floridians tolerate hurricane warnings or Californians shrug off tremors. "This is the reality of life in a post-9/11 world," said Lisalyn R. Jacobs, who was at a Capitol news conference on the underrepresentation of women in the sciences when she heard shouts in the hall.

Gainer said it took five to six minutes to get everyone out of the Capitol building. He said about 35,000 people in all were evacuated from the Capitol and nearby buildings.

Everyone's nerves were momentarily rattled, including his. "Do I have heartburn right now?" Gainer said shortly after the incident. "Yes, I do."