For Tourists, A Snapshot of Anxious Times

After the Quinns of Hanover, Mass., had marveled at the Washington Monument, and wondered at the White House, they planned to go to Arlington National Cemetery yesterday afternoon. But first they stopped at the locked-down Rayburn House Office Building -- where the sound of gunfire had been reported in the morning -- to watch an impressive display of homeland security activity.

Judging by the number of tourists who paused and gawked, such an event might be considered the newest stop on the Washington tour map in this Age of Uncertainty.

Locked-down buildings, anthrax scares, suspicious-package confabs -- these occurrences that may seem routine now to Washingtonians are still large-scale curiosities to out-of-towners.

In summery shirts, shorts and sneakers, the here-for-the-weekend Quinns -- Rob, 40, Kathleen, 39, John 9, and Brendan, 5 -- stood on the grassy West Lawn of the Capitol and took in the swirl of events: scores of uniformed officers scurrying past; the Great Media Swarm moving to and fro; official vehicles, including a Hazardous Materials Response Team vehicle, a hook-and-ladder fire engine, a military-looking bus with tinted windows and an ominous red truck labeled Mass Casualty Unit, lining up on nearby streets.

"It's a little scary," Rob said.

"We could have been in the building," Kathleen said, pointing to the large office complex. They had arranged for a 1 p.m. tour of the Capitol with their congressman, Bill Delahunt. His office was secured by Capitol Police.

There was an interactive quality to the moment. Tourists mingled with reporters and they shared information they had heard from other reporters and camera handlers on Independence Avenue. Maybe it had just been a backfiring automobile. Maybe a fallen piece of construction equipment. Maybe there had been a gunman in the gymnasium. Maybe it was someone in the building's firing range. Maybe someone had been taken out on a gurney.

As it turned out, it was just noise made by construction workers.

All the Quinns knew for sure at lunchtime was that Capitol Police had received a call in the morning about possible gunfire in the garage. The building was closed and, for a while, the Capitol had also been closed. The Capitol eventually reopened, but the Quinns believed they would take their tour another day.

The whole scene made them a little squeamish. "At the White House yesterday," Rob said, "there were helicopters flying all around. It's an eerie feeling."

Nearby, tourmobiles crawling through clogged traffic from monument to memorial paused so that riders could snap photos of the National Museum of the American Indian, a phalanx of police cars, the Botanic Garden, streets cordoned off with yellow police tape and officers in black directing traffic.

Josie Martinez, 61, of Albuquerque led her family along the sidewalk on the west side of the Rayburn Building. They took photos and pointed at media types sprinting across the street. Like the Quinns, Martinez was planning to tour the Capitol. "But I'm told we can't get the tickets," she said. "So we're not going to mess with it."