Susan Durisek’s blog

Want to know what today’s Inauguration was like for two eye-witnesses?  Today was a day like no other.  Despite the late-night partying at the Bluegrass Ball, I managed to wake up at 5 a.m. because I very much wanted to see this historic inauguration ceremony.  Thanks to incessant hinting about wanting tickets to witness the swearing-in in-person, Jenny Inman, a commodities broker from Owensboro, who is President of Kentucky Women in Ag this year, took pity on Sharon Bale and me, and had her husband ask their new Member of Congress Brett Guthrie if there were any to spare.  The ‘Luck of Kentucky’ was with us, because Guthrie, new to the Hill as of two weeks ago, found some at the last minute, so we were set to claim our patch of standing space just outside the Reflecting Pool on the Mall in front of the Capitol Building. 

We made it to the Metro subway in the dark at about 6 a.m., armed with warm jackets, good walking shoes and cameras; we’d limited our coffee drinking to avoid rest room emergencies, and the excitement of the day was enough of a wake-up call.  The  Metro cars were jam-packed with people pressed closer than I remember Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing.  A disembodied voice from the speaker kept repeating something like “Please do not overcrowd cars; other trains will be following shortly,” but nobody was willing to trust that information.  We held our wallets and breaths, waiting for our stop at Union Station.  Later we learned that over one million people were expected to ride the trains, setting a record ridership.

Emerging from Union Station, we were within 3 blocks of the Capitol, and a breathtaking view of thousands of visitors already milling around the area.  That’s also when the trouble began.  Signs pointed us toward different entry points to the Mall, sorted by colors on tickets: purple, silver, orange.  Lines of people already were standing on sidewalks waiting for their turns to pass through security checkpoints which were out of sight, stretching blocks away.  Vendors hawking Obama-stuff and hand warmers, security police and portable toilets lent a festive air to the scene.  We began searching for our line, only to encounter masses of people jamming streets,  and conflicting information about how to get where we needed to go.  Somewhere near 1st and D, there were so many people that nobody could move.  For an hour and a half, we stood immoblilzed in the street, in a mass human beings pressed, pushing, determined to get to a place they could see the Inauguration, somewhere, but unable to move.  Squashed, even having the air knowcked out of me a couple times, it was a dangerous situation. and I began to think I was stuck in a model of what hell would be like.   Buildings in this area have no spaces in between, so this solid pack of people was simply trapped. No doors opened, no authorities appeared, chanting started about moving barriers, and someone called for a doctor.  Shrubbery was totally trampled, small trees climbed by scouts who gave reports of movement, mostly lack thereof on the street corners.ahead.   We learned from a friend via cell-phone that at 10:30 a.m., the space on the Mall was getting full according to TV news, and we were unlikely to get in.   After about another half-hour, traffic control officers opened a closed road, and we were able to climb over concrete barriers and escape the crowd, single file, but in the direction away from the Mall.  Instead of fighting the crowd, we adopted “Change we can count on” as a more reasonable motto, and took the Metro, at that point fairly empty in the Inaugural lull, back toward our hotel.   On Connecticut Avenue, we found a comfortable, sunny Italian restaurant with a big-screen TV. where we enjoyed the swearing-in in style with a crowd of friendly folks who maintained plenty of personal space around them.  I’m happy to say I was there, and the Inauguration ceremony was moving.