When Bush Is in Crawford, Select Staffers Are in Trailers

President Bush clears brush -- a favorite pastime away from the White House -- at his Texas ranch in 2002. (By Eric Draper -- White House Via Associated Press)

CRAWFORD, Tex., May 20 -- White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin barely turned his head as a couple of Secret Service pilots sprinted from their trailer to a Black Hawk helicopter parked nearby. Within moments they were airborne, most likely to warn away an unsuspecting pilot who had strayed into the restricted airspace surrounding President Bush's ranch.

Whatever it was, the pilots were back minutes later, unflustered. "It is kind of like being in a big fire station," Hagin observed after the apparent false alarm.

Such is life on the 11-acre staff encampment set up to support the president when he is in Crawford. The encampment is a cluster of double-wide mobile homes, adjacent to the president's 1,600-acre ranch, where a handful of traveling White House staffers, Secret Service agents and communications staffers both work and sleep during Bush's stays here.

Most members of the president's large entourage of personal, military, security and press aides stay in hotels about 20 miles away, but a skeleton crew is always close by, providing a kind of mini-West Wing for the president while he is here -- which he is often.

Since becoming president, Bush has made 64 visits here, spending all or part of 413 days of his presidency at his ranch, according to the White House. Bush has taken his share of criticism for that. He was enjoying a month-long stretch at his ranch in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina struck, devastating the Gulf Coast and exposing his administration to crippling criticism for its poor response to the storm.

Although Bush participated in meetings about the looming hurricane, issued dire warnings about its potential danger and eventually cut short his time here as its fury became clear, he was still blamed for being "on vacation" while New Orleans drowned.

Bush's aides bristle at such talk. They say that, while the president clearly cherishes his time on the ranch, mountain-biking and clearing brush, being here still hardly amounts to vacation, at least in the usual sense of the word.

The president takes part in his daily briefings and reviews and signs piles of documents most days. Most days, he takes the short ride to a carpeted conference room in a trailer at the staff compound for regular videoconferences, both with other members of his administration and world leaders. Other times, he works secure telephones from his office in his house.

Also, Bush regularly hosts foreign dignitaries at his ranch, which he sees as a valuable diplomatic tool. On Sunday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer arrived for two days of meetings with Bush that began with a tour of the ranch. De Hoop Scheffer is the 17th foreign leader to visit Bush at his ranch during his presidency.

The pace here is slower and things are more informal than in Washington, but being on the ranch offers little respite for the president's closest staff members, who try to ensure that he does not miss a beat just because they are away from the White House.

While here, Hagin shares a five-bedroom trailer with aides from the National Security Council, the staff secretary's office (where lawyers vet every document that goes before him) and aides to both the president and first lady.

The trailers are adjacent to small tornado bunkers to protect staffers in the case of serious storms. The trailers are also outfitted with secure phones, two-way radios and backup generators, to ensure constant communication that is needed for the president to operate.

Much of the communication gear was updated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which was part of a Defense Department-led process that aides said began six months earlier. Previously, Hagin said, "communications were not consistent and not reliable enough."

"One of our roles here is to be prepared for any eventuality that the president could deal with," Hagin said. "The other challenge was to do it with a small footprint" so as not to totally interfere with the president's time on the ranch, he said.