Post-Fireworks Egress Gets a Glowing Review

Officials Say Test of Evacuation Plan Is a Success

People take cover at the Lincoln Memorial as ominous skies portend the strong storms that dampened Fourth of July celebrations. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)

D.C. officials gave themselves an A-minus for swiftly clearing throngs of people after Tuesday night's Independence Day fireworks on the Mall, saying they easily passed a test of the evacuation plan they would use in an emergency.

This is the second year that officials tested their ability to move people out of the city in a hurry. They kept traffic lights on green, used police officers at intersections and coordinated the flow with Maryland and Virginia officials.

The fireworks crowd, estimated at hundreds of thousands, was smaller than the number of people who would be fleeing downtown in the event of an actual crisis during weekday hours; the weekday population of downtown workers and residents is estimated at 900,000. But because so many people left the Mall at the same time, the Fourth of July event provided an opportunity to see how effectively crowds can be moved, officials said.

After last year's test, some changes were made for Operation Fast Forward II. This time, agencies from Maryland and Virginia joined the exercise. In the District, authorities kept roads around the Mall closed for 30 minutes after the fireworks ended to allow pedestrians to walk to cars and Metrorail stations before vehicles were back on the streets.

"Last year, we had vehicle traffic and pedestrian traffic mixing," said U.S. Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford. "That was the wrong thing to do."

Douglas Noble, chief traffic engineer for the D.C. Department of Transportation, gave the operation a grade of A-minus. His agency retimed 98 traffic signals so they stayed green for extended periods -- 200 seconds on a 240-second cycle -- and did other fine-tuning.

"This is a test, an exercise," Noble said. "The point is not to get it right but to learn from it and apply what we learn for emergencies and the next time we have special events."

D.C. police increased patrols and positioned officers at eight critical intersections to keep traffic flowing smoothly.

Chief Charles H. Ramsey said the evening tested the city's capability but did not take into account the panic factor in an emergency.

"During an actual event, things will be more chaotic because of the possibility of panic and the fact that we won't be able to preposition resources because the event was unexpected," Ramsey said. "But it is important to test our ability to move vehicle and pedestrian traffic as efficiently as possible."

Roads around the Mall were closed from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m., and the Mall was evacuated for about an hour at 5:30 p.m. because of severe storms with thunder and lightning. Officials ushered people from the Mall into Smithsonian buildings and other nearby shelters to protect them from possible falling trees, projectile trash cans and other dangers, said Sgt. Scott Fear, Park Police spokesman.

"The feedback was excellent on how fast we got the Mall cleared out," Fear said.

The city's transportation department had about 20 people in the field Tuesday night walking and driving different routes away from the Mall to see which avenues were moving and which had kinks.

Transportation authorities in Maryland and Virginia said they timed lights to help cars move back to the suburbs. "The movement of traffic went extremely well," said Ryan Hall, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Authorities will work together on a report in the next few weeks that will discuss what went right and wrong.

Yesterday, Pettiford offered one suggestion: "Any announcement we make should be bilingual," the Park Police chief said. "I looked at the population going through the crowd, and there's a need for that."