On Inauguration Day, the city will be honeycombed with communication command centers staffed with officials from the Secret Service, FBI, police and fire departments, intelligence agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.
Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department is working with 99 federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies to double its force of 4,100 officers. The FBI will have 600 agents on duty, a 20 percent increase from the 2005 inauguration. All 1,600 Capitol Police officers will be on duty.
Chemical, Biological
The U.S. Army will have a brigade at Fort Stewart, Georgia, ready to respond to a chemical and biological attack. Within 48 hours, hundreds of planes and helicopters could fly to the Washington region if needed.
Even the ceremonial guards at the inauguration are prepared to change out of their dress uniforms to help out in the event of a security lapse.
The effort will even include inspectors, behavioral experts, air marshals and canine teams from the Transportation Security Administration, who are usually deployed at airports. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is sending bomb experts and dog handlers.
Helping to monitor crowds will be 94 surveillance cameras spread throughout the city as well those in subway stations and in helicopters.
Anyone wishing to stand along the route of the inauguration parade will have to go through some type of screening, including metal detectors.
On Inauguration Day, two bridges connecting Washington to Virginia will be closed to all traffic except tour buses, emergency vehicles and pedestrians. Vehicles also will be restricted within a seven-block section west of the White House.
Parade-Route Balconies
Security officials are taking special care with buildings near the festivities. Parking garages in some will be shut down the day before. Guests attending the Air Transport Association’s party at its Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters -- along the parade route -- will have to be pre-cleared because the building has balconies.
The scale of the overkill for the inauguration begins to reveal the extent that the government fears the people and the lengths it can go to shut down the government if necessary.
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