The Summit Nightmare That Wasn't

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By Alan Sipress and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 24, 1999; Page A1

It was so quiet you could hear the lilting of birds on city streets, so still that the siren sounds of distant motorcades drifted for blocks through the canyons of deserted office buildings.

Street vendors slumped over newspapers rather than try to hawk their T-shirts, flowers and neckties. Parking attendants could almost hear the minutes ticking toward quitting time in empty, echoing garages.

NATO's 50th anniversary summit opened more with a murmur than a shout yesterday as thousands of foreign dignitaries and reporters came to town – and much of working Washington stayed home. Schools were closed, streets were empty, and even anti-war protesters had trouble mustering a quorum.

What little public action there was took place mostly within the barricaded confines of the Federal Triangle area, where NATO's 19 presidents and prime ministers celebrated 50 years of mutual defense and vowed to fight Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic until he cracks.

"This fight is a fight for humanity, and for all of us," Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen told his NATO colleagues and 800 dignitaries inside the ornate Andrew Mellon Auditorium after a dozen trumpets blared a fanfare. Czech President Vaclav Havel urged battle "against the forces of evil."

In Lafayette Square, several hundred ethnic Albanians chanted "Bomb, NATO, Bomb!" and "NATO In, Serbia Out!" as they demanded a ground war to roust Serbian-led troops from Kosovo. In the lee of the Washington Monument, perhaps 100 protesters gathered to oppose the war.

D.C. police, who canceled leave for all officers, reported no notable summit-related troubles. With more than 100,000 government workers taking a paid holiday, patrol officers found themselves with little to do.

How slow was it? The first stop yesterday for Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and Executive Assistant Chief Terrance W. Gainer was Union Station. They were due at a reception at the British Embassy later and realized their shoes needed a shine.

The drama soon intensified, such as it was. At 8:55 a.m., police raced to the U.S. attorney's office at 555 Fourth St. NW. Someone had spotted a package, deemed it suspicious and decided to be safe instead of sorry. The mysterious box turned out to contain . . . cereal.

Outside the Beltway, commuters endured the normal delays and frustrations, including tie-ups at the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and south of the Springfield interchange. But the traditional choke points into the District, including the 14th Street and Roosevelt bridges as well as New York, Connecticut and New Hampshire avenues, were as desolate as a Sunday morning.

"Everybody is moving from the suburbs to suburbs, but nobody is coming into the city. It's just amazing how light the city is," said Steve Kuciemba, general manager of the SmarTraveler traffic service. "It's normal from the Beltway out and absolutely abnormal from the Beltway in."

Kuciemba suspended vacation leave for his staff, and they hunkered down yesterday morning in the company's D.C. control center, monitoring a bank of 28 television screens that delivered live pictures of the region's roads and the barren in-bound bridges. "It's phenomenal," he said.

Months of plotting and planning and high-powered strategy sessions had given way to the final hours of mobilization. Police and transportation officials mustered their emergency forces, activated special command posts and sounded the alarm about the catastrophe that could ensue when the country's second-worst traffic collided with world's most powerful military alliance.

And then, suddenly, nothing happened.

So much nothing that the silence on the streets spooked Terrie Long.

"It's eerie. I don't like it," said Long, a gold-jacketed guide for the downtown Golden Triangle, casting a glance at the empty intersection of Connecticut Avenue and K Street. "There's no hustle and bustle, no honking and beeping, no arguing and fighting, no bike couriers almost hitting the pedestrians, nothing. It's just weird."

It had taken the might of NATO to impose peace on Washington's troubled commute. The gargantuan gridlock prophesied by some officials had failed to materialize as the intense publicity urging drivers to stay off city streets combined with the closings of D.C. schools, federal agencies and local government offices to transform downtown into a ghost town. At least one of every six people who work in the city had the day off.

In Virginia, the state transportation department stashed movable message signs near several exits on Interstate 395 in case motorists had to be detoured out of tortuous backups. They remained unmoved. Maryland highway officials sent their employees home Thursday evening with tow trucks, arrow signs and other emergency equipment in case of a traffic crisis. The equipment stayed home.

And in the District, city police deployed about 100 trainees to help direct the traffic predicted to swamp the streets. Their hands were limp by their sides.

"We're here, and nobody else," said Donald Cavanaugh, a security guard at the vacated Department of Veterans Affairs.

Metro activated its special command center. Beginning at daybreak, a dozen managers outfitted with telephones and police scanners monitored video screens displaying the busiest stations, and more than 100 other employees were called in on overtime.

Expecting that thousands of commuters would abandon their cars and try the trains, the agency also dispatched 120 orange-vested workers to guide the uninitiated, helping those rookies who fumbled with Farecards or stood perplexed before the route maps of Metro's many-colored web.

There weren't many. Ridership was merely two-thirds its normal Friday level. And despite warnings of delays and detours, commuterless buses zipped along careless boulevards.

Metro's overflow parking lot at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium closed at midday. Not a single one of its 1,000 spaces had been used. Even in Metro's regular lots, where available spaces typically evaporate with first light, only half the 20,000 spots were taken.

On such a pleasant morning, Virginia State Police suggested that many suburban commuters had cut short their workweek so they could do likewise to their lawns. Others grabbed the chance of a three-day holiday weekend, arranging an early getaway on Thursday evening, traffic experts said.

Ross Tierno was one of the few office workers bent on braving downtown. Rather than gamble on the traffic, he thought he'd wrestle the crowds on Metro. When he arrived aboard an uncrowded train at McPherson Square, he emerged onto a platform vacant but for a few tourists in shorts. When he ascended into the light, he saw a sight he'd never expected: a deserted street. Pigeons outnumbered pedestrians. A vendor with no customers was clipping his nails.

"Look at the city! Holy mackerel!," Tierno exclaimed, marveling at how he could cross the street against the light without a care. "This is wild. I've never seen it like this. It's like the twilight zone. ... It was all much ado about nothing."

Many of those who remained in town toured the Mall, though even visits to the monuments were down. "We're walking in the middle of the streets," said Tom Wiley, visiting from Pennsylvania. "It's wonderful."

Tour buses also cruised largely unencumbered, making record time to destinations like Arlington Cemetery, said Donna Dobbins, a Maryland teacher who has been taking her class on this annual trip for 14 years. And at the National Gallery, where lines to see the paintings of John Singer Sargent have rivaled backups along the Beltway, crowds were light. "It was the only day we'd ever get into the Sargent exhibit," said Jane Quenk.

Along a three-block stretch of F Street NW, the business receipts at several shops and restaurants were off by as much as half. Some had closed entirely. What's a Bagel hung a sign on the front door: "Due to NATO Summit, we will be closed." Down the street, Timothy's World Coffee hastily shut before noon.

"We really thought that we were going to be busy, that NATO would bring business to the restaurant. It hasn't," said Carlos Mendes, who usually feeds 70 lunchtime patrons. "The government and the press put too much pressure on people not to come into the city . . . I wish somebody would pay for the expenses – maybe the government or whoever invited them here."

Abraham Tangara was more reconciled to watching his business wither. "You just have to bear it," said Tangara, poised behind an L Street stand heavy with tulips, carnations and mixed bouquets. Too heavy. He didn't sell a single bloom all morning.

And on 13th Street NW, business was a bust at For Eyes Optical. There weren't many walk-ins, said assistant manager Barbara Starks, "except for the Secret Service guy with the broken glasses."