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22–481 2005

HEARING ON THE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS 

OF THE HOUSE AND THE EVACUATION OF 

MAY 11, 2005 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

Hearing Held in Washington, DC, June 9, 2005 

( 

Printed for the Use of the Committee on House Administration 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

BOB NEY, Ohio, Chairman 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

CANDICE MILLER, Michigan 

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California 

THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York 

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD, 

California, Ranking Minority Member 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

PAUL VINOVICH, Staff Director 

GEORGE SHEVLIN, Minority Staff Director 

(1) 

HEARING ON THE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS OF THE HOUSE AND THE EVACUATION OF MAY 11, 2005 

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2005 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:44 a.m., in room 1310, 

Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert W. Ney (Chairman 

of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Ney, Ehlers, Doolittle, MillenderMcDonald and Lofgren. 

Staff Present: Paul Vinovich, Staff Director; David Duncan, Deputy Staff Director; Bryan Dorsey, Professional Staff Member; Alec 

Hoppes, Professional Staff Member; George Shevlin, Minority Staff 

Director; Sterling Spriggs, Minority Director of Technology; Michael Harrison, Minority Professional Staff Member; and Matt 

Pinkus, Minority Professional Staff Member. 

The CHAIRMAN. The Committee will come to order. We are running about 12 minutes late due to the Rayburn fire this morning, 

and it took a little bit longer to set up the television here in Longworth. 

The Committee is meeting to examine emergency preparedness 

in the House and the evacuation of May 11, 2005. And we can talk 

about the Rayburn evacuation this morning, too. I happened to 

have been at my desk this morning at 5:10 in the morning. I had 

decided to get an early start so I could beat the 8:30 rush; and, of 

course, I ended up talking with Congressman McNulty and Congressman Hayworth in front of Longworth at 5:37 a.m. this morning. But I think we can look back over today at some point in time 

and find a few things that went right or wrong this morning. 

I would like to welcome everyone here today to the Committee’s 

oversight hearing on the security and emergency preparedness efforts in the House of Representatives. In our first panel, we will 

hear from people responsible for life safety here. They are three 

people who are no strangers to anyone on our campus. We have 

Bill Livingood, our House Sergeant at Arms; Terrance, we call him 

Terry, Chief Terry Gainer, Chief of the Capitol Police; and our 

House Chief Administrative Officer Jay Eagen. Welcome to all 

three. 

Our second panel will consist of individuals with expertise in 

emergency preparedness, threat assessment, evacuation procedures, and movement of large crowds. 

2 

Before we really get started with the hearing, I want to say a few 

things about the recent evacuation on May 11. In the event of a 

threat from an incoming aircraft, the police have mere minutes to 

assess the nature of the threat, make the decision to evacuate and, 

if they do decide to evacuate, get everyone out and away from the 

buildings quickly and safely. There is little or no margin for error. 

And I think that, overall, the United States Capitol Police did a superb job of evacuating the tens of thousands of people from the 

Capitol and the House and Senate office buildings in a quick and 

efficient manner. 

And I also want to give credit to all the staff, visitors, and Members of the House, who did a wonderful job of evacuating in what 

was perceived to be a true emergency situation leaving. In fact, I 

was talking with Congressman McNulty today about how well it 

went in the sense that individuals were not hurt, and that people 

returned in a safe and efficient manner so we could resume the 

work of Congress. Overall, I think it went quite well. 

Remember September 11, 2001, and the relatively ad hoc way 

these buildings were emptied. The bravery and professionalism of 

the Capitol Police on September 11th was exemplary, but it was 

clear to everybody that there was a real need to revamp and improve our preparedness training communication procedures. I can 

still recall quite clearly Jay Eagen had gotten a group together, 

and got one of his famous boards where he puts things up and 

down the categories—I say this flatteringly, as he is a very detailed 

person. And it was a combination of, at that time, Leader Gephardt, Speaker Hastert, the staffs, Appropriations, House Administration, Sergeant at Arms, the chief of police. Everybody under the 

sun that had a part of this gathered together because we faced a 

whole different world than we ever had to think about before. 

And so the witnesses on the first panel and the organizations 

they lead have worked tirelessly since 9/11 to make these improvements, and we have come a long way. The Capitol Police are highly 

dedicated, highly trained, first responders. 

At the direction of this Committee, the Chief and the Capitol Police Board have worked to ensure effective and redundant command-and-control functions. They have drilled countless threat scenarios and conducted quarterly drills of the House’s evacuation 

plans. The Department has worked closely with other local and 

Federal agencies to share intelligence information, to monitor air 

and vehicular traffic, and to coordinate security for large events 

such as the Presidential inauguration. This coordinated information sharing is in direct response to the threat environment we live 

in, and is crucial to our preparedness efforts. 

The Committee has authorized deployment of a multilayered 

emergency communication system that is controlled by the CAO 

and Capitol Police, and utilizes e-mail, telephone, and portable annunciator announcements in addition to our audible evacuation 

alarms. These systems provide us with important capabilities to 

communicate with Members, staff, and visitors during emergencies. 

The hearing today will provide an opportunity, I believe—this is 

why we are here—for the Committee to examine past and current 

efforts to improve the House’s emergency preparedness, but also to 

3 

provide an opportunity to identify areas in need of further improvement. 

Our second panel will offer insight into technologies and best 

practices for emergency preparedness, and suggestions on how to 

apply these technologies and best practices to help us achieve our 

collective responsibility for life, safety of visitors, Members and 

staff. 

Again, I want to recognize and thank all those who work day and 

night to make this campus safe. We all hope that our emergency 

plans never need to be implemented, but this Committee takes its 

oversight responsibility very seriously, and we wish to ensure that 

our plans and systems are adequate to respond to any emergency. 

I want to thank the members of this Committee, both sides of the 

aisle, and the staff, both sides of the aisle, for the countless hours 

they have put in especially since 9/11 up until today. 

I did also want to mention that due to the nature of today’s subject matter, I found it appropriate to conduct the first part of the 

hearing in open format. If questions are asked by Members of the 

panelists that you feel are sensitive, I don’t want to just rush off 

into an executive type of session; we can defer that until later. I 

want to keep as much of this open to the public. I think the public 

and the media would understand there are certain parts we don’t 

want to discuss because it jeopardizes their safety as well as the 

visitors and the staff to the Capitol. So I would ask for your understanding and cooperation when that point in time comes. 

Further, I would ask Members and witnesses to be mindful in 

the first portion of our hearing to reserve any comments or questions with respect to any specific process or procedure which may 

involve sensitive law enforcement information. We will discuss that 

in a closed part of our hearing. 

And let me just conclude by saying that my boss, Speaker 

Hastert and his staff, have said it, if not once, 100 times, that 

there has to be security and safety, but the building has to remain 

open to the public. Since 9/11 he has done that, working at that 

time, of course, with Leader Gephardt and now Leader Pelosi, and 

that has been the objective of the Speaker, and it has been carried 

out. But that doesn’t mean it is not done without a lot of work. 

Right before I move on to our Ranking Member, I do want to say 

this, too. Another reason for the hearing today, too, is there has 

been questions raised. The emergency instructions that we received, were those carried out, was the trigger pulled in the right 

way on those instructions. In other words, the plane was small, 

could have bounced off the Dome, we all heard those things. And 

I think those things, frankly, need to be addressed as they have 

been raised in the media. 

And, with that, I will yield to the Ranking Member and welcome 

her here today. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And 

again, let me echo what you said about the quick response of all 

of those who were involved in May 11. I tell you, that date, 11, 

seems to be sticking with us for some reason; 9/11, May 11. But 

indeed we want to applaud our Chief, Chief Gainer, Sergeant at 

Arms Livingood for their expedience in which they evacuated the 

staff. There are some things, of course—and Members as well and 

4 

others, tourists and all who were here. So I echo those sentiments 

of the Chairman. 

And, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for convening this hearing. 

I would like to also thank again Chief Gainer and Assistant 

Chief Rohan as well as Sergeant at Arms Livingood for this morning. It seems like they are getting up now earlier than ever before 

to tackle those things that are just so prevalent among us in this 

environment. And so the work that you did in Rayburn, I applaud 

you. I got an early call this morning from my staff, and they 

thought they were going to be late coming in to work, and I had 

to tell them they are due right on in now. So it was great. But 

thank you so much for the work that you all have done, and thank 

you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing. 

I certainly believe that we need to conduct an after-action review 

of events surrounding the May 11, 2005, evacuation of the Capitol 

complex. Numerous public comments and private ones from many 

of our House colleagues, from our staffs, and from others have 

made it clear that we need to examine thoroughly what happened 

all around this Hill and the complex when that unknown light aircraft intruded into the restricted airspace over Washington with 

unknown intentions. I am sure that many things went right, and 

we know that, during this incident. I am also sure that there are 

many things that we can improve upon in the event of a future 

such urgency. But let us hope that there is no such urgency ever, 

but let us also resolve to learn from this experience as we discharge our responsibilities in this committee. 

It is important to note that this committee has no jurisdiction 

over the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, or any other department or agency that Congress may have entrusted with the duty 

to defend the skies over Washington, including the Capitol. That 

duty, which belongs to the executive branch, is within the jurisdiction of other committees. We are here to evaluate the emergency 

response to the agencies under our jurisdiction, including the Capitol Police, the Library of Congress, and, of course, the House itself. 

And along those lines, Mr. Chairman, I am disappointed that 

neither the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Operation nor any of their subordinates were able to appear and share the benefits of this insight since the insight of that 

particular person, that personnel, since this work goes to the essence of what this hearing is all about. So, Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest that we should have another hearing, even a 

field hearing if necessary, to have the committee review the 

OEPPO’s important work. 

In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, as you talked about the oversight very seriously that we have, I want to reference a letter of 

November 18, 2004, before I became the Ranking Member, that 

talked about the responsibilities of this committee with reference 

to receiving and considering all legislative proposals pertaining to 

the Capitol Police and Police Board, and would like to again reiterate what that letter said, though my signature was not on it; that 

that is our jurisdiction and oversight, and that requests for legislative provisions fall within our panel of jurisdiction. Certainly those 

5 

provisions are our responsibility and must be submitted for our 

consideration, and I just wanted to note that for the record. 

The rules of the House of Representatives require that committee 

meetings be open to the public, but permit panels to close their 

meetings when sensitive matters will be discussed, and only then 

by a recorded vote is stuff taken in private. While I am generally 

reluctant to supporting conducting the people’s business outside of 

the public’s view, in this case I go along with my Chairman, and 

I believe it is within the purview of this committee that, given the 

sensitivity of the nature of the information, that therefore I support 

a motion to close this hearing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady, and I do want to stress 

that we will only do that if necessary. We are going to try to keep 

as much open. I appreciate the gentlelady for her support. 

The gentleman from California. Do you have a statement. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I have no opening statement. I look forward to 

hearing the witnesses’ statements, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And we will go right to the panel. 

I just did want to mention, because I had a note here on my 

Blackberry, that an issue—I have not read the full article, but a 

Homeland Security official confirmed that Secretary Chertoff has 

launched a review of the Cessna incident because that deals with 

us, what happened here with the evacuation, characterizing this as 

a fairly routine effort to examine what can be improved next time. 

And one of the issues being explored is whether the evacuation 

should have been called in the first place. Of course, that deals 

with the decision to evacuate as opposed to the evacuation itself. 

We had absolutely no choice but to respond. I want to make that 

clear for the record. But, again, they go into some situations about 

people standing out, or whether that plane could have crashed into 

the Dome without any problems. So I just thought I would mention 

that, as it was in the report. 

And with that we will start with the Sergeant at Arms 

Livingood. 

STATEMENTS OF WILSON LIVINGOOD, SERGEANT AT ARMS, 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; TERRANCE GAINER, 

CHIEF, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE; AND JAMES M. EAGEN, III, 

CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

STATEMENT OF WILSON LIVINGOOD 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Millender-McDonald and members of the committee. I am honored 

to appear before you today to discuss our progress in emergency 

preparedness since September 11, 2001. 

Before I begin, I want to take a moment to thank the members 

of the committee for your ongoing support of our emergency planning efforts and security as well as the support that you have 

shown time after time for the men and women of the U.S. Capitol 

Police. It is both valued and appreciated by all. 

I would like to start by just mentioning this morning, this early 

morning, we had a small fire in the roof area of the Rayburn House 

Office Building. 

6 

The CHAIRMAN. I would note, outside 2438, my office. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. I would like to thank the D.C. Fire Department 

and the U.S. Capitol Police for their quick professional response 

and actions taken. It was outstanding. 

You may recall that 1 year ago this afternoon during preparations for the lying-in-state ceremony for President Reagan, the 

presence of an unidentified aircraft inside the flight restricted zone 

led the Capitol Police command staff to order the evacuation of the 

entire Capitol complex. This incident was our first full-campus 

evacuation since September 11th, 2001. On May 11, 2005, it was 

again necessary to evacuate the Capitol complex because of an aircraft. 

These events, though 11 months apart, are not rare. Several statistics from the TSA, Transportation Security Administration, regarding aircraft incursions in the national capital region lend some 

valuable perspective. Since January 2003, there have been over 50 

penetrations of actual prohibited space, the area that includes the 

Capitol and the White House. In some of the further areas there 

have been a lot more. But I wanted to mention particularly the 

area surrounding the Capitol and the White House. 

Just a few years ago the very idea of an airplane being used in 

an attack here in the United States on the Capitol or elsewhere 

was something one read about in the pages of a Tom Clancy novel. 

Sadly, this is no longer true. To people around the world, the Capitol, perhaps more than any other building, represents the United 

States of America and the democratic principles at the heart of our 

form of elected government. Yet it is this very symbolism that 

makes the Capitol and Congress such tempting targets for those 

who wish to strike a blow against our form of government. 

Since September 11, 2001, I, along with those sitting beside me 

at this table, as well as our colleagues on the Senate side, have 

been diligently involved in both the risk assessment and risk management necessitated by this new threat environment. Our goals 

have been to plan and to prepare, refine our procedures, and investigate every possible method to best manage the potential threats. 

We have made considerable progress and continue to make considerable progress. Areas we have already focused on include improved coordination of security efforts between the House and the 

Senate. An example is the Emergency Measures Task Force. This 

joint group composed of representatives from all essential offices 

involved in emergency planning and the Capitol Police meet biweekly. 

Threat and vulnerability assessments have been made of the 

Capitol complex. Several studies have been completed or are under 

way. A thorough threat assessment of the entire complex completed 

by an outside contractor was done with the assistance of Federal 

law enforcement experts. We have commissioned an independent 

review of the evacuation planning for the Capitol and all House office buildings. That is just completed. A study is under way examining the consequences of an aircraft hitting the Capitol or an office 

building, and whether we should shelter in place or evacuate. We 

feel that there are a lot of experts out there that have comments 

either way, and that we are not structural engineers, and that we 

need a thorough review of that before we make a determination 

7 

what our policies will be instead of shooting from the hip or off the 

top of our head. So we have a commission to study which will consist of evacuation experts and structural engineers and aircraft 

people that know certain aspects of the airplanes. 

A study is ongoing to review the evacuation procedures when we 

are outside the building. What do we do when we go outside the 

buildings? A study is on to see what our policy will be. 

We have been testing and improving the alarms, annunciators, 

and have a new public address system started which will be completed at the end of this year. We have created an individual office 

emergency coordinator for each Member office, committee, and support office. We have continued office emergency coordinator training, covering evacuation procedures and the use of quick hoods. We 

have developed an evacuation and shelter-in-place procedure. We 

have deployed over 20,000 quick hoods along with ongoing training 

for Members and staff. We have established decontamination procedures. We have had enhancements to our chem-biological response 

capability. We have had enhancements to explosive protection and 

response. We have developed a program for Member briefing centers as well as contingency planning for continuity of government. 

However, the complexity of the security situation we encounter 

on Capitol Hill requires us to move forward. The security of the 

Capitol complex is difficult because the interdependency of buildings, the enormous number of visitors to the campus, the openness 

of the institution, and the changing nature of Congress and staff. 

In addition, the density of the development around the Capitol and 

the variety of emergency situations that may arise adds to the complexity. 

The national importance of the Capitol Hill complex demands an 

effective and comprehensive security approach to ensure success. 

Emergency management, including preparedness, response, and recovery of all essential functions, are a vital component of a comprehensive program to ensure Capitol complex and the campus security. We are addressing all these components with the development of a proposed emergency management architect to ensure 

agency coordination and a computer-aided evacuation modeling 

that will enable us to test, evaluate, and monitor evacuation performance. 

Mr. CHAIRMAN, I would like to submit the rest of my testimony 

for the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. I thank you again for taking the time to focus 

on this vital issue of emergency preparedness. I will be happy to 

answer any questions you may have at any time. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank the Sergeant-at-Arms for your 

testimony. 

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The CHAIRMAN. And we will move on to Mr. Eagen, the CAO of 

the House. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES M. EAGEN III 

Mr. EAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Millender-McDonald, Mr. Doolittle. I am honored to be here with 

Mr. Livingood and Chief Gainer. 

It never fails to strike me that in a situation like today or what 

we faced on May 11, that as we are quickly exiting the buildings, 

the Capitol Police are still standing by their posts as we pass by, 

ushering us out of the building. And I for one would like to thank 

the Chief and his troops for their support in those kinds of circumstances. 

The CAO’s role relative to the Capitol Police and the Sergeant 

at Arms is more of a secondary and supporting role. Two elements 

that I would like to overview for you today: First, how did we support the incident on May 11? And, secondly, what is the broader 

business continuity and disaster recovery program that the CAO is 

undertaking on behalf of the House? 

With regard to May 11, our primary roles were two functions: 

one, to send additional communication messages to the House campus about the event; and, secondly, to work with our child care center to evacuate the children that reside in the House Child Care 

Center. We received notification of the air con red condition from 

the Capitol Police command center at 12:04 p.m. on May 11, and 

at 12:06 p.m. our emergency communication center sent out a 

House alert message. To be clear, that House alert message is not 

the annunciators, it is not the sirens in the buildings. Those are 

issued directly by the Capitol Police command center. Our messages are secondary messages that go out simultaneously to an allcampus e-mail, to Blackberry, and to text messaging for those cell 

phone devices that support that kind of communication. 

After the incident had resolved itself, we then sent a closing message out, and in this case that occurred at 12:42 p.m. on May 11. 

Our second action on May 11 was with regard to the House Child 

Care Center. When the notification goes out with regard to the sirens and the annunciators, we have a methodology where the children are moved from the center to two buses that have been acquired by the House, and they are taken off campus to predetermined relocation centers. In this particular situation, the threat resolved itself so quickly that the children did not have to go all the 

way to the location, but were called back once the threat had been 

stood down and came back to campus. I thought that it was a very 

successful relocation for our children in that no one was hurt, and 

we were able to notify the parents through multiple communications methods of where their children were going and that they 

were safe. 

I would now like to move on to the second aspect of the CAO’s 

work, and that is a broader characterization of disaster recovery 

and business continuity. We have had a very broad program that 

was established in the wake of 9/11 and anthrax in the House in 

2001. It was broken basically into four components: communications, continuity of operations, technology capabilities, and mail, secure mail and digital mail. 

14 

In the area of communications, we have adopted an anywhere, 

anytime philosophy that relies on in-depth communications capabilities to try to reach Members wherever they are at whatever 

time they need to be reached, and to create methods for Members 

and staff to be able to communicate with one another. In that regard, we established the emergency communications center, which 

is up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and primarily uses this House 

alert system with the earlier capabilities that I referenced. We also 

can use the House floor paging notification methodology to reach 

Members in certain circumstances. We have a dialogic phone calling service that we can do under certain circumstances, and we 

have distributed government emergency telephone systems, GETS, 

cards that allow Members and certain key staff to use the public 

phone grid in a special emergency situation if the phone grid is 

overtaxed. 

We have also established some significant remote access capabilities for the House campus, meaning that if we were to lose access 

to these buildings, we have established dial-in and broadband connections that will allow up to 5,000 simultaneous users to come 

back into the House campus using laptops and home computers to 

keep contact with their computer systems here in the House. 

In the area of continuity of operations, we have established an 

overall House emergency operations plan that is documented and 

drilled and exercised and practiced so that our people know how to 

use it if such a circumstance dictates. 

With regard to technology, our primary accomplishment has been 

the creation of an alternative computer facility. Prior to 9/11 and 

anthrax, the House had a single point of failure in that all of our 

major computer assets were located in one building here on the 

House campus. That was known to be a weakness, and we have 

since, working with the Senate and other legislative branch agencies, constructed a new facility, fitted it out with equipment, staffed 

it, and are now standing up various kinds of enhanced redundancy 

capabilities to protect the House data and computing systems capabilities. 

We have also established additional voice and data capabilities. 

For example, in a circumstance where the House were to be evacuated for an extended period of time, we can literally with the flick 

of a switch transfer all of the incoming phone calls from the Washington campus to the district office phone numbers of the Members 

so that they can continue operations. 

We have also established two mobile capabilities, a mobile broadcast capability where we now have a van and a supporting truck 

that can follow the House and broadcast the House’s proceedings 

wherever the House determines it needs to do business. That can 

be done with a satellite linkup so that we can connect to C–SPAN 

or other network interests that want to receive the House proceedings over the air. 

We also have acquired two mobile communications trucks that, 

between them, are able to support 1,000 laptop computers and 

1,000 telephones so that the business operations of the House can 

be supported at alternative locations. 

Finally, in the area of mail, we have had to reinvent the entire 

House mail system since 9/11 and anthrax. At that time the mail 

15 

system was conducted on campus in a House office building. After 

the anthrax experience, we determined that it was no longer viable 

to have that kind of a security-threatened operation within the 

House buildings. We have acquired an off-campus mail facility, and 

the Postal Service has stood up an irradiation methodology to attempt to cleanse the mail. We do additional testing and screening 

of the mail to make sure that either real or hoax-type threats are 

not reaching the Members’ offices to distract the business of the 

House of Representatives. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today, and I am happy to 

answer any questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank you for your testimony. 

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The CHAIRMAN. Chief Gainer. 

STATEMENT OF TERRANCE GAINER 

Chief GAINER. Yes. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Madam 

Ranking Member. I appreciate the opportunity to address you 

today. And I apologize for not having my blouse and coat and tie 

on, but I morphed right from that last incident to this one; I didn’t 

have a chance to really catch my breath. 

I would ask leave to submit my entire testimony, and would just 

like to hit a few highlights in context of what we were doing since 

9/11. And when I use the word ‘‘we’’ in there, it really means so 

many of the people, two of whom are sitting with me here today, 

as well as this committee and others, especially the Architect of the 

Capitol, who have worked hard to provide the necessary security 

enhancements. 

With the installation of bollards around much of the Capitol complex, we have been able to remove a large amount of unsightly concrete barrier material that was very important to the protection of 

what we are doing here. We have installed new, improved and 

more aesthetic security and vehicle barriers. In locations where we 

have found vulnerabilities, we installed temporary vehicle barriers 

until permanent units can replace them. 

We continue to enhance the many physical barriers that provide 

visible evidence of our commitment to keeping the Capitol complex 

secure, but behind these visible measures are numerous other security measures that are less obvious. The entire Capitol complex has 

undergone an infusion of technology improvements, enhancements, 

and new implementation of state-of-the-art security to deter, detect, and delay unlawful acts using a risk analysis process to determine appropriate application. These technologies, which are workforce multipliers, allow us to monitor the campus and control access to facilities with greater efficiency and effectiveness. 

Our technologies provide greater safety and assurance for the 

Capitol complex through the use of improved X-ray machines, 

magnetometers, technologies to scan all incoming material shipments in an off-site location, monitors, sensors, panic button 

alarms in the Members’ offices, intrusion alarms systems, emergency notification systems, and measures to detect covert listening 

devices. 

We have enhanced our explosive detection capability with an expansion of explosive detection technology and an increase in the 

number of dog teams employed throughout this complex. 

Our ability to observe and detect potential threats has been enhanced through expanded closed-circuit television and building perimeter intrusion alarm systems. 

We have reduced the potential for vehicle-borne explosive devices 

entering the complex through an integrated system of observers, 

road barriers, and the use of random vehicle inspections at key 

intersections. 

We have increased the safety and security of our employees as 

they arrive and depart each workday with emergency call boxes in 

garages and parking lots. 

In partnership with the House Chief Administrative Officer’s 

emergency communications, we have enhanced our ability to proVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
20 

vide important instructions and messages to Members, staff, and 

visitors. We are currently installing a public address system in the 

public spaces of congressional office buildings with coverage extended to the evacuation assembly areas. Other enhancements 

have been identified and are being implemented each day. 

But beyond this, beyond the joint planning with congressional 

entities, Capitol Police also work closely with different groups within the national capital region to ensure that regional emergency 

planners consider and include the unique perspective and requirements of the congressional community and regional planning in 

this different branch of government. 

The Joint Federal Committee hosted by the Department of 

Homeland Security and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments represent just two key planning groups where Capitol 

Police are active participants. Our establishment of the Capitol Police of the Office of Plans, Operations and Homeland Security, approved by this committee, has bought together the police command 

and communications, our special events and emergency management functions under one umbrella organization to coordinate and 

supervise the preparation for and response to emergencies and 

large-scale events. We know there is more work to do in this area. 

The establishment of our Hazardous Material Response Team, 

HMRT, provides Capitol Police with a specialized unit prepared to 

deal with chemical, biological, or radiological incidents occurring 

anyplace within this Capitol complex, and it is the envy of most 

agencies throughout the United States. We have highly trained elements that deal with explosives, armed intruders, unruly crowds, 

disturbed individuals, and individuals who make threats. 

We at the Capitol Police look forward to continuing to safeguard 

Congress, its staff, and its visitors to the Capitol complex during 

these challenging times. We look forward to working with the Congress and particularly this committee in improving our operations 

again, which we know each day, even based on the incident today, 

we learn something new from this. And we are anxious for your 

questions and to hear what some of our contemporaries from the 

private sector have to say. Thank you. 

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The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank all three of you for your testimony. I am going to ask a few questions, and I am going to go to 

the other two Members, and then we can do a second round. One 

thing that just popped into my mind while all of you were testifying is the feasability of evacuating the CVC when it is fully operational. The evacuation might apply to a couple thousand people. 

Chief GAINER. One of the things we began—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Assuming it was in full operation. 

Chief GAINER. And one of the things we did after the first evacuation during President Reagan’s funeral was to turn to a lot of professionals, pilots, engineers, university types to see what the best 

practice was. And frankly, Mr. Chairman, the jury is out on that. 

And there is a lot of unknown information about not only the size 

of the plane could do, but what might be in that plane. So, frankly, 

it might be a little bit too early to determine what that is. 

And I know that, because we have sat and met with the Deputy 

Secretary of Homeland Security, and I have met personally with 

the Secretary of Homeland Security where we talked about the size 

of the plane and what it might do. And we need to do more of 

those, have more of those conversations. 

But we do know this: We have done a lot of studies about the 

effects that different-sized aircraft have on the various buildings on 

this campus, and at the moment, at least at the moment, based on 

the type of information we have on the aircraft, our recommendation if it happened 5 minutes from now would be to evacuate most 

of the buildings. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, with what we know now about the Cessna, 

you still would have evacuated the buildings? 

Chief GAINER. We would. Now, there are a couple of buildings we 

have identified that get a little bit more remote, whether there are 

some on the Senate side that are occupied by a lot of staff members 

or some further away on from these core buildings on Independence 

and Constitution. But since there are so many unknowns about 

what could be in the plane, that is one of the key things. 

You know, a Cessna 150 as we had loaded with C4 would do substantially more damage than a Cessna 150 that was low on gas and 

nearly empty. And those are the unknowns we don’t have. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am told that panel 2 will have some people that 

can answer some questions on what was or was not in the plane. 

But I was just thinking with the CVC that you might have a twofold type of evacuation. If a large plane was headed towards the 

Dome, you would want to get the people out of there because of a 

potential jet fuel explosion, but you may not want to get people out 

from underground in the Visitor’s Center, for example. 

I think it is worth mentioning that we didn’t used to have these 

types of incidents, and all of a sudden we had to create a system, 

including the digital mail and everything that Jay Eagen spoke 

about. It is remarkable how many changes occurred. With 9/11 we 

had to immediately set up the laptops. We we went down to GAO, 

as I recall. Everybody did such a fine job in a terrible crunch, and 

we are more prepared now. 

At one point in time, if we had some type of situation suspicious 

on these floors, we used to have to evacuate entire floors; now you 

Blackberry and say ‘‘Stay away from this room.’’ So it has been reVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
27 

fined along the way here on the Hill. I would assume that you 

would take a good look at that process, because when the CVC is 

in operation, there may be times you don’t want people to leave the 

CVC, but you want them to leave the Capitol, or vice versa. 

Chief GAINER. Yes. And one thing on the plane size, if I can, is 

its maneuverability. The upside of a small plane is at least there 

is initial perception how little damage it can do. The downside of 

a small plane is its maneuverability. So one of the totality of the 

circumstances we would be looking at with an incoming aircraft is 

its flight path towards the Capitol. A smaller plane, if it is coming 

in from the westbound, which seems to be the conventional wisdom 

with the Mall, it would be much easier for the small plane to counteract what we are doing. Obviously, with a larger plane, as even 

what we saw with the Pentagon, it is much more difficult to maneuver. So it would really depend on the size, the speed, and the 

direction from which the plane was coming. 

The CHAIRMAN. If it was a small plane, it still could have the 

crop duster effect if it could distribute chemicals onto crowds of 

people. This concerns me. 

I think the gentlelady pointed out something about the executive 

branch. Again, I have no doubt in my mind that we made the right 

decision to evacuate given the information we had at the time from 

Homeland Security. You all made the right decision 150 percent to 

do that. But I still think Homeland Security needs to evaluate 

small planes, large planes, potential items in them, and then decide whether or not to evacuate. 

And within their jurisdiction, frankly, is the communication with 

the District of Columbia. I am very sensitive to Delegate Eleanor 

Holmes Norton. I know you have made great strides in communicating. There were some questions at one point in time about 

communication, and I know you have a working group and coordinate with the District of Columbia. The controversy arose about the 

rest of Washington being evacuated, which is frankly not our responsibility here on the Hill. It is the responsibility and the coordination of Homeland Security, I believe, and metro D.C. But from 

Capitol Hill’s point of view, I believe that we have coordinated a 

lot and have improved that coordination with the District of Columbia. 

Chief GAINER. Mr. Chairman, would you mind if I at least comment on the chemical spray again, because I know there is a lot 

in the press about that. One of the things that go into us making 

the decision is what we know from an intelligence perspective. And 

you know as Chairman of this committee that we have people dispersed throughout the Federal system getting intel. And so in 

weighing what might be in a plane, not knowing, is whether we believe that terrorists have the ability to deliver chemical or biological in a weapons fashion. So, I mean, there are a lot of possibilities. 

A plane could be loaded with C4, or it could be loaded with a chemical. But intel tells us that the ability of our adversaries to do that 

and deliver it is low in the United States. 

The CHAIRMAN. I had a question for the Sergeant at Arms. You 

said a study is under way examining the consequence of an aircraft 

hitting the Capitol or an office building, and whether we should 

28 

shelter in place or evacuate. Is that being done by Homeland Security? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. No, sir. That is being done by some contractors 

that we have hired and one of the national labs. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I believe Homeland Security has said publicly I that they are also looking at this type of thing—a plane hitting a building. Would there be coordination between us and them 

in sharing the results? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. There will be. We have already discussed that 

with the Deputy Secretary. The only thing, they are not coming out 

here and going through all our buildings from a structural standpoint. I think they are concentrating more on the bigger picture, 

where we are concerned with our buildings here in the Capitol 

complex strictly, and we are doing a thorough analysis to include 

the Dome, as you say, and the House buildings and the Senate 

buildings. 

The CHAIRMAN. We focus on the Dome, but there is the possibility that it could crash into the buildings, in the complex too. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. I work with a lot of groups that are concerned 

with persons that have a form of a disability, and we did have 

phone calls from some of the groups saying that persons who had 

disabilities were having trouble getting out of the building during 

the evacuation. And I think that the Capitol Hill Police have requested information regarding employees with disabilities, and requested that offices report if you have disabled individuals. The 

OEPPO recently requested updates of any such information on behalf of the Capitol Hill Police. Have you acquired this information? 

What do you do with it? And the second thing I wanted to ask is, 

do you know cases? I would try to track down Members when they 

have situations where a person with disabilities is having trouble 

getting out of the building. 

Chief GAINER. Our House division, Mr. Chairman, does have a 

list of the disabled staffers and their room numbers, and during 

evacuation units are dispatched to conduct sweeps of the hallways. 

The House side is a little bit further behind than the Senate side 

in having backup power to elevators that would facilitate that. But 

the Architect of the Capitol is working feverishly at doing that. 

So, we do have the names. We anticipate that the elevator situation will be resolved shortly. This week, again, as a result of our 

May 11, we are sitting down with some of the advocacy groups for 

the disabled and the handicapped to get their perspective on how 

we can handle these situations better. So it is an ongoing, evolving 

process. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Once they finish these backup power for elevators, which we hope will be done very quickly, we will then put 

the information out to the offices, and someone from the office—we 

are going to recommend a buddy system—take them down to the 

elevator, the designated elevator, and they will be able to evacuate. 

The CHAIRMAN. We had a staffer here during 9/11 that was 

blind. That was a relatively easy situation to take care of because 

people walked with him, he brought his guide dog, and it was fine. 

But people who are in wheelchairs, for example, would have a real 

29 

difficult time. But I was told there were some people that could not 

get out. Is that correct? 

Chief GAINER. We do know that there were some problems with 

that. 

The CHAIRMAN. But you are working quickly, I assume, on that? 

I have one other question I want to ask, and it is about debris 

in the hallways. The hallways in these complexes are becoming full 

of everything. There are boards representing noble causes, don’t get 

me wrong, but they are all over the hallways. There are electronic 

devices, computer screens, deficits, boards honoring people again. 

And they are good causes. I am not quibbling with what the deficit 

is or whether it should be reduced, but there are all of these things 

all over the hallways. 

This morning we had a smoke situation which, because of the 

cord that caught on fire out in the hallway, passed the fourth floor. 

If you have smoke and you have to get down, are you going to run 

into these things? Are they going to fall over? Hundreds of people 

could be running up and down these hallways. Is anybody taking 

a look at that for an emergency situation? 

Mr. EAGEN. Mr. Chairman, there has been a working group that 

was established that has submitted a proposal for policies for the 

House hallways that is pending before this Committee. It was submitted about 2 weeks ago, and it has also been submitted to the 

House Office Building Commission jointly. We are hoping that the 

Committee will be able to review that and that the House Office 

Building Commission would be able to review it and establish those 

kinds of procedures. There are some challenging aspects to that 

knowledge, but there has been a policy recommended to the House 

for consideration. 

The CHAIRMAN. And as you say, the officers stayed in the buildings. They kept trying to move people out of these buildings. And 

if you have these hallways packed with thousands of people, and 

there are couches and everything else under the sun in these hallways, and boards and everything that are out there, I assume that 

has to be a real safety problem. Somebody could fall on one of 

these, be impaled by them in rush. 

Mr. EHLERS. Would the gentleman yield? I was appalled my first 

day in the Congress to see the amount of stuff in the hallways. I 

have never worked in a place where, if you wanted something 

moved, you put it out in the hallway and put a sign on it that says 

‘‘Remove,’’ or if you need extra space, you put a sign out saying ‘‘Do 

not remove.’’ It looks like a junkyard many times. 

We have made efforts in this committee to get rid of that, and 

it is far better than it used to be, but it is still incredible. Desks, 

chairs, lamps just perched out there. In a normal establishment, 

when you have something to get rid of, you call the appropriate 

people, they come and pick it up and take it away. Here we just 

dump it in the hallway. Maybe there are 3 or 4 days before it is 

gone. 

And I hope that you incorporate it. The Chairman has made that 

issue with me back in 1994 or 1995, as soon as he got on this committee, and I totally agree with him. It is incomprehensible and 

should not be allowed. People simply cannot put stuff in hallways. 

They are not storage spaces. 

30 

Mr. EAGEN. Basically, Mr. Ehlers, the proposed policy does exactly that. It would deny placement of trash, furniture, et cetera, 

in the hallways. It is not 100 percent comprehensive, in all candor, 

I will tell you, because in certain circumstances such as hearing 

room use where receptions are held in these rooms with a great 

deal of frequency, there is not storage capacity to move all that furniture on a regular basis and in a rapid manner. So it does make 

some limited exceptions for temporary storage. But, generally, the 

current practice that you have referenced of other items being put 

in there for pickup and so forth would be no longer acceptable if 

those policies are approved. 

The CHAIRMAN. I just want to move on to a couple questions, 

again, and then we will move on to other Members. But I did want 

to ask how we are double-checking (the audible alarms) during the 

day of the emergency. For example, Congressman McNulty today 

was standing talking to me, and he had his annunciator in his 

hand, but it had not gone off. When I heard the alarm, I was out 

of the building, and then some of the people that came after that 

were doing some cleaning of the building told me that they heard 

this is not a drill. But when the alarm went off this morning, I just 

heard the alarm and followed. But later on they told me the voice 

came on and said this is not a drill. 

But the day of that emergency on May 11, what about the audible alarms? How do we double-check, because Members will come 

up and some will say, ‘‘Yes, my alarm went off, and some will say 

no.’’ Do we have a system where we could find out from Members’ 

offices what really worked and what didn’t? 

Chief GAINER. We do have a system. We test the annunciators 

in each building on a monthly basis. We had talked about doing 

that more frequently, and most of us would like to, frankly, do it 

more frequently, but we balance that between the disruption that 

comes with the office. 

But what happens, for instance, in those monthly exercises, a 

message that will be sent over the e-mail system that there is 

going to be a test at such and such time; and if you don’t hear the 

message, then through the Internet and e-mail system you can respond back to the monitoring office what your problem was. And 

then we do have a contractor that comes in and works with the 

Member’s office about what the particular problem is. And the failure rates have actually been low, and generally they have been because the device is moved. These devices are set up to work in certain spots in the office, and given the activity in the office and the 

movement of paper and desks, we generally see that the problem 

is that either it has been moved, it has been unplugged, or that 

portable device has not been reseated properly. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And 

thank you for your questions, because the question of disability was 

one that I had. And certainly I do appreciate your continuing to 

provide the leadership and trying to resolve those issues because 

it is important not only for the few Members in wheelchairs and 

others, but those who are coming to see us and staffers, blind and/ 

or hard of hearing and other types of handicaps. Excuse me for saying ‘‘handicaps.’’ Disabilities. We should be cognizant of that. 

31 

And also the notion of those things in the hallway, I tell you, it 

certainly does look like a junkyard. Something of this magnitude, 

being the most deliberative body in the country, and you come to 

our hallways, and you have storage stuff all out into the hallways 

saying ‘‘Do not take’’ or ‘‘Take’’ and it seems like there are a couple 

of days before those things are taken. And that is—not only doesn’t 

look good, the aesthetics are not good, but we are talking about the 

safety of this, especially in terms of any evacuation. 

Mr. Livingood, you spoke about since 2003 there have been 50 

incidents surrounding the Capitol and the White House on issues 

such as May 11, and even more, a greater number, I suppose, outside of the perimeters. You say you coordinate with the House and 

Senate ofttimes on ensuring that your plans are all in place. But 

what about the city buildings? 

Getting back to Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and the city 

was concerned that they did not hear anything about the evacuation given May 11th. Are we—and that is within the 17 mile radius; am I correct? Then are you—or why aren’t we, or are we, coordinating with the city with reference to the plans as well? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. We have had discussions with the city on that. 

And I will let the Chief—he is the one that had the discussions recently. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Of course. 

Chief GAINER. As you know, Chief Ramsey and I go back a long 

way. We first came on the Chicago Police Department in 1968, so 

we have been together a long time. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Talking about a buddy system. I tell 

you. 

Chief GAINER. What we have done since May 11, in addition to 

some of the things we had done before that, is agreed to share the 

Blackberry information immediately with some specific members of 

his command staff. And they also are going to detail one of their 

officers to our command center in addition to some of the jointness 

we have at the National Capital Region Coordination Center or at 

Homeland Security. So we have really tripled the system of simultaneous notifications. 

And Chief Ramsey and I, we have always communicated since I 

have been over here on Blackberries. We might talk two or three 

times a day. And so we have built at his command center, and our 

command center he has an individual. We are also in the midst of 

installing a ring-down phone in our command center to additionally 

give the police department more command information. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And is this post-5/11 or pre-5/11? 

Chief GAINER. Two of those things are—Blackberries were pre-5/ 

11. The ring-down phone and the individual stationed in ours is 

post-5/11. Although, during any anticipated event, for instance, the 

State of the Union, the funeral, the inauguration, we will have people in each other’s command center, but on a day-to-day basis this 

is new. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. That is good. And whomever needs 

to answer to this. Mr. Livingood spoke of it, that there are studies 

that have been done, I suppose, with reference to inside of the 

building and ensuring that everything, I guess, along the protocol 

is taken care of in terms of evacuating folks. But what about a 

32 

study outside the building? And people really just seem to not have 

been able to discern where to go and what to do. And so what 

about a study and plans that have been put in place for that? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. There is a group after May 11—there was a 

group formed by the Capitol Police that are looking into the recommendations for particularly air evacuation, what would be our 

procedures, and the outside security surrounding our evacuations. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Okay. Fine. 

Chief GAINER. May I add just a little bit to that? It is part of the 

committee’s direction and Mr. Livingood’s, as well as the Senate 

Sergeant at Arms, to be very specific, what would we do this afternoon if this came up while we are doing all this studying? Chief 

Rohan, who heads operations, the Assistant Chief, along with his 

inspectors and deputy chiefs, instantly after that incident instituted a plan where officers will be repositioned by intersections. 

So there are a lot of simultaneous things going on, as you might 

expect. As we evacuate the buildings and go through the buildings 

looking for people, as soon as their core mission is done in the 

building and the building is secure and empty, then each officer is 

going to a pre-positioned place around the Capitol complex and remains there, number one, to be available to maintain the security. 

Now, when we abandon these buildings, we still have to keep 

them secure because it could be a trick by terrorists. So the officers 

are all going to pre-positioned positions, and I think as we work 

through better messaging and that the people understand better 

where they need to go, but I hope one of the things we will hear 

from the experts from the private sector is the need to exercise a 

lot more. 

The Capitol complex has been just outstanding, especially since 

the anthrax and ricin days, about suspicious packages and how we 

react, but we haven’t been very willing to do mass exercises and 

practices so that everybody really understands where they go under 

what set of circumstances. Now, the balance of that, obviously, it 

is disruptive to Congress and the committees and what is going on. 

But we all know from our earlier days the value of practicing fire 

drills, and we are pretty good with the fire drills, but we have certainly not spent enough time on emptying the Chambers or other 

buildings in real-life situations. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Well, it seems to me with this newfound environment we are in that that should become a more frequent occurrence than not. 

It seems to me that with our needing evacuation experts and 

structural engineers, would we not have maybe someone on staff 

whose of this ilk? Or is that too expensive, Mr. Chairman? 

I do not know, but it seems to me like, at this juncture now, we 

need to have some of those folks who are talking with us on a daily 

basis. Maybe they are; maybe they are not, but structural engineers, it would seem to me like we should have someone on staff 

or a couple of those folks on staff. And perhaps that might not be 

the thing to do, but it certainly seems to me if you have to go outside and talk to these folks, maybe some of these folks should be 

on board. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. The Architect has, I am sure, one or two people 

in that category. 

33 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Okay. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. But they are assisting and working with—and 

they have been outstanding—AOC has been really helpful to the 

outside group looking at this. So it is a combination. 

Mr. GAINER. And we do have a very, very active security services 

division under the direction of Bob Greeley, who is one of the nationwide experts on security systems and building construction 

now. So he brings a wealth of information that he gained with 

years at the State Department in building their buildings, especially the embassies. So we do have a lot of in-house experts, but 

we are not hesitant about turning to the university systems, the 

Department of Defense, ATF, academicians and others to learn 

more and to verify that we are going in the right direction. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. One thing for sure, you three, and 

four with the assistant chief, are absolutely professionals. You do 

a yeoman’s job, but such as what we do here, we still need these 

professionals behind us, too, as a backup and conduit. 

A couple more questions, Mr. Chairman, on this first round. One, 

Mr. Eagen, you spoke of the fact that our children at the child care 

centers are quickly bussed out. How soon do those buses come to 

get these youngsters out? 

Mr. EAGEN. The bus is actually located right on campus, about 

50 yards from the entrance of the daycare facility. So they have to, 

in the case of the infants, we actually take their rolling beds and 

roll them down the sidewalks. And so it is just a matter of the time 

to get them out of the building, onto the buses, start them up and 

drive away. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. What about the House pages? 

Mr. EAGEN. They have a similar capability. The pages are under 

the Clerk of the House as opposed to the CAO, but they also have 

a transportation vehicle as well. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And with reference to the Supreme 

Court and all of these other places, I know the employee union at 

the Library of Congress has asked for a Compliance Office review 

of the Library’s emergency evacuation procedures. Is that something that is either being put in place or will be put in place. 

Mr. GAINER. I do not know that I can speak directly to that particular review, but I can say this: As you know, the acting chief of 

the Library police is one of our inspectors, and we have been working with the Deputy Librarian to sync their operational procedures 

and ours in their training, and a lot has been done. 

The Deputy Librarian of Congress has asked me next week to go 

to his senior staff meeting and address some of their issues. So 

things have substantially improved in our relationship with the Library of Congress in the way we are moving, notwithstanding how 

the merger may or may not go. But their training and communications, similarity of exercises, how we react, are very much in sync. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And the Supreme Court, which all 

of us are in the same radius? 

Mr. GAINER. Of course, they are a separate department, but 

again, we do work very closely with the Supreme Court police and 

the Government Printing Office police to try to mirror each other’s 

procedures. 

34 

As to an air threat, several senior members of the Marshal’s Office in the Supreme Court as well as the police department are 

linked to our telephone system. So when one of these air threats 

comes on, we bring in all the key players from these different organizations and get on a telephone conference call so we know what 

is going on with each other. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And the last one. We are told that 

during the time of this evacuation, Blackberrys and phone lines 

were saturated during this moment, and Verizon was at a 70 percent, Cingular was at a 50 to 75 percent load. What steps are we 

taking again, Mr. Eagen, with reference to communication, given 

the fact that we thought getting Blackberrys and all of this after 

9/11 would suffice in terms of communication, and now we see that 

that too has been bogged down? 

Mr. EAGEN. Well, exactly. You described the circumstances quite 

accurately. One thing I would emphasize, in a circumstance like 

what we faced on May 11, the Blackberrys and cell phones or others are considered a secondary communication mechanism. The primary communications are the annunciators and the sirens in the 

buildings that direct people to leave the buildings. 

The cell phones, the Blackberrys, those kinds of messages are 

supplementary and intended to be directed towards recovery as a 

supporting device. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Of course, Members were quite concerned, given the fact that they were not able to use a lot of their 

Blackberrys or cell phones because they were inside of the Capitol, 

and of course they do not use it on the House floor, we will reiterate that. But I am saying that they still were trying to communicate with staff back in the office and that type of thing. 

Mr. EAGEN. That is exactly correct. When we first started making a House commitment to the Blackberry devices as an emergency solution, we recognized that at some point in the not-too-distant future, as that solution became more popular, we were potentially facing the same circumstance that has happened with cell 

phones. And that is that, during a circumstance where there is 

high use, the public grid can become overwhelmed. The statistics 

that you referenced are exactly what happened on May 11. 

Normally, during that hour, Verizon, for example, has a 99 percent call success rate. For that particular hour, they were down to 

70 percent. We have had discussions with Verizon, with Cingular, 

with Nextel as to whether there are capabilities for them to enhance their provision of services in this particular cell grid, and 

they are exploring that for us. 

I think it bears witness to the need for communications in-depth, 

which is our strategy. So the new system we have stood up, called 

House Alert, allows us to send simultaneously multiple messages 

to multiple kinds of devices. And depending on the situation we are 

facing, we are going to encounter different circumstances. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. I suppose. 

Mr. EAGEN. What is very helpful to us and a place where the 

committee can potentially be of help is where the Sergeant of Arms 

sends a solicitation to all Members of the House at the beginning 

of each Congress and asks them to give us multiple contact numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, cell phones, et cetera, et 

35 

cetera. That is what we use to populate this system. As of this 

point, we are missing about a fifth of the Members because we 

have not gotten a response. 

We cannot reach out to the Members if we do not get the information. So anything that you can do to help encourage your colleagues to provide that information, it will be treated confidentially, which is always a concern. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. This committee is hearing you very 

clearly on that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I would note if we can be of help, because in the 

past, we had a payroll situation one time when Mr. Larson was 

ranking member. We had, I think, four people on a different type 

of payroll. The system was changing, but we were able to actually 

go through the staff of House Administration on a bipartisan basis 

and talk to them and get them to convert to the system. 

So if you do run into a situation like that, if we can be of help 

on outreach, we will be more than happy to do that. 

Mr. Ehlers. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to be brief. I 

think we have covered much of this in detail, but just a few points. 

First of all, just on behalf of my staff, I want to communicate 

something they have communicated before and is still a problem: 

Trying to get out of the south area in Longworth is very, very difficult. The southeast entrance, you have the metal detectors there 

blocking the way, and there is a tremendous jam. And my staff is 

on the seventh floor. By the time they get down, they usually cannot get below the second floor because of the press of people on the 

stairways just trying to get out. And of course, there is no southwest exit from this building. So my staff has taken to going to the 

north end and then coming back. They are actually approaching 

the danger rather than getting away from it. 

At the very least, if we can, in an emergency evacuation like 

that, have your officers move the metal detectors somewhere else 

and get them out of the way so people can flow out of the building, 

it would be good. Because it is a bad situation. 

You might also be able to put for some people to exit via the 

truck bays; although that is not a good route. But I do not know 

if you, Mr. Eagen, could develop some sort of device, folding steps, 

that could be put in there so people could zoom out that way. But 

it is a major problem in Longworth. That is on behalf of my staff. 

In terms of what happened on May 11, perhaps it is the scientist 

in me, but I spent most of my time during the evacuation analyzing 

how it was going, and there are some things that were very good. 

We evacuated the Capitol very quickly. I thought that went extremely well. 

I also commend your officers. In previous evacuations, they have 

been basically standing there and pointing. This time, every one of 

them, ‘‘get moving, get moving, get moving.’’ They were really 

pressing people on and hurrying them on, and I think that was tremendously helpful. Because people, once they get out, tend to start 

looking around to see—looking for friends, looking in the air for 

airplanes, et cetera, and your officers did a good job of keeping 

them moving. 

36 

Mr. GAINER. Thank you. 

Mr. EHLERS. Perhaps a little too good, because I went to the assigned spot for my staff—I wanted to be with them and make sure 

everyone was okay—and could not find them. And I found one staff 

member, and she said, Well, the officers told us to keep moving and 

keep moving on further down. So none of my staff was at their assigned point. So you will have to work that out as to whether we 

are supposed to stop there or keep going. 

The communication, I think there was a problem in two ways: 

First of all, communication with your officers. I was surprised how 

little they knew. And I noticed people starting to move back into 

the buildings, and I kept asking people, do we have an all clear? 

I asked the officers, do we have an all clear? We do not know. But 

they did not stop the people from moving back into the buildings. 

Nothing on the Blackberry. It took well over half an hour before 

we got an all clear on the Blackberry, and by then, most of the people were already back in the buildings. 

I asked people when they were moving, how do you know it is 

okay? And most of them said they were listening to the radio or 

they had gotten a phone call from a relative or they had seen it 

on TV. And that is ironic. We have this great communication system for you to communicate with your officers, and they did not 

know what was going on, and the TV reporters did. They had reported it was a small airplane they had turned around. 

By the time we got the all clear, I think the airplane had already 

landed in Frederick. So, clearly, there has to be an improvement 

in that situation. And also sending out the all clear on the Blackberrys. I do not think the congestion lasted over half an hour, and 

you must have known at some point earlier than that that there 

was no further danger and that we could return to our offices or 

to the floor. 

Mr. Chairman, that is all I have to add to it. I can talk longer, 

if you like. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Just taking care of business here. 

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my apologies for 

being late. I was at a simply riveting hearing on patent law in the 

Judiciary Committee that I could not leave, but I think it is important that we are having this hearing. And I am hopeful that we 

will do lots more of this. 

One of the reasons why I was eager to accept this assignment 

when Nancy Pelosi asked me to do it was this kind of emergency 

services issue. 

I spent 14 years in local government before I was in Congress, 

and we organized in California, really thinking about earthquakes, 

not terrorism, but a lot of the steps that you do are the same. And 

we ended up actually in our county government making sure that 

close to 20 percent of our employees went through a week-long 

training of how to do CPR, all of the emergency services. And it 

actually not only helped us in government, but it was translated 

into kind of an emergency service force in the community. We had 

county employees that saved people’s lives in libraries when someVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
37 

body dropped and the like. So I am hopeful, and I am sure the 

Chairman is very interested as well, how we can do a better job 

preparing for emergencies. 

I would just like to say, when the evacuation began—I chair the 

California Democratic delegation—and we were just sitting down 

for our weekly meeting in the Capitol. And our new colleague, 

Doris Matsui, said, What is that noise? And I am glad she has 

great hearing because it was an officer shouting, ‘‘get out,’’ and we 

did. 

And I am mindful that, as we were exiting the building, the officers stayed behind. They were there putting our safety ahead of 

their own. And I think all of us, you know, we have suggestions 

and helpful comments about how we can always do better, but I 

think, if it has not already been said, our gratitude to the officers 

for their service to us cannot be said often enough. So I want to 

do that again. Thank you so much. 

Mr. GAINER. We will relay that to them. 

Ms. LOFGREN. And to all of your troops. 

Having said that, there are a few things I think we can do better, 

and it has already been touched upon. Communication is so important, and I think we really need to take a look at the Blackberry 

system. 

My Blackberry worked, but as I was out on the street, a lot of 

Members’ Blackberrys did not work. And the information that I got 

on my Blackberry was very limited; you know, the nature of the 

emergency. And I think information can change how you behave. 

I was not in the Longworth Building, obviously, but I got feedback after the fact from people who were that they could not get 

out of the building because of the congestion in the stairway. Someone I know who was visiting a member said it took them forever 

to get down the stairway, and his colleague was waiting for him. 

He took the elevator. 

Well, if it is a fire, you do not want to take the elevator. But if 

it is a small plane, there is no reason not to take the elevator. So 

the more we can provide information, the better off we will be. And 

it seems to me, if Blackberry cannot upgrade their system, we need 

to look at some other system that can get the information, whether 

it is the announcement through our beepers, by moving some of 

that announcement off the campus itself, I do not know. But I 

think together we need to explore that issue. 

And the other thing that I think we can do better on, in addition 

to the quality of the information, is the timeliness of the enunciator 

system. I think it is great that we have put that in place, but my 

staff is on the first floor of the Cannon Building. As with the last 

evacuation, they discovered there was an evacuation when they 

looked out the window and saw a lot of people running by. So they 

figured something was up, and it was only afterwards the enunciators went off. So I think the timeliness of that as well as the amplitude of the information is something we could look at and improve. 

I sent a memo to the Chairman outlining some of the issues that 

I thought might be explored, and one may be sensitive, but I know 

we do drills. But we generally do drills when the Members of Congress are gone. And that is probably because the Members of ConVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
38 

gress do not want to be drilled, and I understand that. But I think 

it is important that we subject ourselves to a drill, because that is 

more of a real-time situation. And even if it is inconvenient for the 

Members or some of our colleagues grumble, that we ought to just 

do that, and that is my personal opinion. And, really, we ought to 

look at it as supporting the guys and gals on the first line. If we 

are not willing to be discombobulated to that extent, how can we 

ask your officers to be brave on into the future? 

So those would be my comments, and my thanks also, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And I would note the memo you gave 

me. Other Members have also sent in memos, and we wanted to 

wait for this hearing so we could receive as many answers back as 

possible. And some of the issues you raised were definitely raised 

also by some other Members. 

Mr. Doolittle. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I join with the others 

in commending our three House officers here and the people under 

them for what they are trying to do. 

We are making improvements as we go on. Maybe you have addressed some of this, but I think for the most part you probably 

know more keenly than we do what the shortcomings were and 

where the areas of improvement lie. What were they? 

Mr. GAINER. From the police perspective, just as to the evacuation itself, it is the communication issue. The continued communication issue. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. You mean communication with us? 

Mr. GAINER. Yes. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. 

Mr. GAINER. Actually, the information we were getting from 

Homeland Security and others was the best that was available. 

And then each entity, whether it is the District of Columbia or the 

White House or us now have that information, and we have to act 

according to our policies and our procedures and what is particularly going on in our buildings. 

So I think we had all that we could have, and the Homeland Security and the military continued to improve that in the radar picture. So that is advancing. And that is how we handled the information and how we put that out. 

One of the things that we did not talk about is, we just do not 

go from standing still to evacuating. There is a whole series of 

things going on—for instance, in an air-con situation, we are tracking the speed, the direction, the altitude of the plane—that we are 

continually kind of ratcheting up what we are having our people 

do in preparation for a final evacuation. 

We have found out that, on May 11, we were not as precise and 

sharp as we should have been with Mr. Eagen’s office, and we have 

already met and rectified that. We were better than we were before, and there are some ongoing things, but we will be better tomorrow afternoon on that. 

It was nearly, I will not say disastrous, but the reentry was very 

clumsy. One of the things you mentioned were people seeing on TV. 

In order to reenter the building, we have to reposition ourselves to 

get back into the building. Close all those doors that have been 

39 

opened when the alarm sounds. And what was uncrisp at the time 

was the precise graduated reentry as we graduated to leave. And 

we have sharpened those already. But we need to drill it with both 

the Members and the community what it means to get you the information that the threat is over but you cannot quite get in the 

building, and that is where the confusion was on this. 

Clearly, the information about the plane, the intruding plane 

being turned and heading north was coming out quicker than our 

ability to get people back into position. So what you will see as we 

drill this with you and explain through the committees and others, 

that we would like to get you the information that the threat is 

over and now let us get ready to get back into the building. And 

it will probably take 10 or 15 minutes to pull our officers back from 

the perimeters to get back into position at the doors and re-arm the 

doors. And that is something we had not drilled in practice. That 

was not very good. 

One of the other things we picked up not only during the Reagan 

funeral but reinforced during this one is most of our officers have 

the radios so that you and they can hear them. If you will see our 

dignitary protection people and others, they have the radio going 

to the ear. We have reevaluated that, and what we are going to 

move towards is, you will not be able to hear the radios publicly 

getting information because the sounds and sights and codes mean 

different things to all of us, and we do not want to confuse people. 

So there will be a little more silence. 

Based on the very good suggestion of Mr. Eagen, we have designated a tactical communications officer. So as soon as this happens, there is an individual whose sole job is to get information out 

to all the stakeholders so they have nice-to-know information, 

need-to-know information, action information. And that went into 

effect this morning. 

Now, we were moving towards that, but we had to kind of goose 

the program and get this thing going a little quicker. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Is that someone the three of you select? 

Mr. GAINER. It is someone in our shop. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. In the Capitol police? 

Mr. GAINER. Yes, it is. But, again, that is just an individual who 

uses technology and messaging formatting. Much has been developed on the House side, in Mr. Eagen’s office, and he is in the 

midst, his staff, of showing us how to use the equipment, how we 

can get quicker messages out, and that has been a very ongoing 

joint effort. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Do any of the rest of you want to add to Chief 

Gainer’s commentary on what you identified as the shortcomings, 

areas where improvements were needed? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Well, we met right after the air evacuation, the 

next day, and then we met a second time, and then we met this 

last Monday. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. By ‘‘we,’’ you mean the three of you? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. And the Capitol police and other officials and 

others from the Senate, et al. And we did lessons learned, and the 

major ones were the ones the Chief just mentioned, the communications. 

40 

As he said, the big advantage that will change is having one person dedicated in the Capitol Police Command Center to push out 

information, to promulgate information. And that will be a huge 

improvement. 

Just to answer one other question. Sometimes people have said 

they did not hear the annunciator. The sequence in an evacuation, 

when you evacuate the building, not shelter in place but evacuate 

the building, will be the alarm going off first. That is the first 

thing. Everyone should leave when they hear the alarm. Sometimes 

you will be gone before you hear the annunciator because that 

takes another minute or so to get out over the airwaves, where the 

alarm you just pull. 

And coming on line will be a PA system that should go right 

after the alarm is pulled throughout all the public spaces in the 

buildings. So we will have a three-tiered besides the Blackberry. 

And that is something we have been working on and came to fruition or was brought to our attention as lessons learned after this 

last one. But we had been moving towards that. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I was on the House floor, as I think all the Members were. I think we were having a vote right then. And just by 

coincidence, the Speaker happened to be near me, and somebody 

said, his security said, ‘‘get down.’’ it was like somebody might be 

in the Chamber with a gun or something. So we crouched down behind the seats. The Speaker, too. And then the next thing we knew, 

it was ‘‘get out,’’ but I never heard any alarms. Do we have these 

enunciators or alarms in the House Chamber? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. No, there are none in the House Chamber per 

se, and that is the function of, and we have just finished a drill and 

gone over procedures in the last week of the Speaker or the Chair 

to announce. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So there will not be, but the Chair will announce 

when one of these things happens? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Eagen, anything you want to add, any shortcomings or lessons learned or areas of improvement? 

Mr. EAGEN. I would echo the Chief’s references on communications. Our objective all along has been to establish a capability that 

would have the Police Command Center have the direct tools to 

communicate to the House employee force, because they have the 

best knowledge about the circumstance, and we have been working 

towards that. 

I think the tactical communicator role that the Chief identified 

is absolutely crucial. Our vision has been to have a triple redundancy of that capability, even though if a circumstance occurred 

where the command center could not send out messages, that we 

would still have our emergency communication center as a backup, 

and then even third, beyond that, we are working towards having 

a triple redundancy at our alternative computer facility. 

There are certainly limitations with the Blackberrys. You have 

it correct. Just so you understand, when we send an all-campus 

email out via the Blackberrys, the system alone takes 7 minutes 

to cycle through 10,000 messages—then you encounter whatever is 

happening on the public grid—that those messages are going out. 

And now, in the world the House is in, it is multiple public proVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
41 

viders, Verizon, Cingular, Nextel. When we first stood up the 

Blackberrys, we were using one vendor, and they had a data base 

solution that was very new and had limited usage, and it was very 

efficient. But what we discovered, with the Members particularly, 

was that that was not necessarily the best solution back in their 

districts, and they started to migrate to other providers. And we 

recognized that we had to stand up a capability that could reach 

them multiple ways. 

So the key for us, as I mentioned earlier, is having those multiple contacts. The simple problem may have been with one particular Member that we did not have their email address. Some 

Members do not use a House account as their primary email address; they use another provider. And if we do not have that email 

address, we cannot send it to their Blackberry. 

So the answer to what you alluded to could be multiple problems. 

Blackberrys are not perfect. I think today was a better example of 

where the Blackberry can be effective. I myself have gotten I think 

seven messages so far today. But that happened before the crunch 

of the business day. It was while most people were away from the 

campus, and it allowed us to send multiple kinds of information 

sources in a secondary kind of situation, not when the emergency 

is happening right there on the spot. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, Mr. Eagen, when you send out a big blanket message like that, do you try to use Members’ pin numbers if 

you have them? Or is it all only or primarily their email addresses? 

Mr. EAGEN. We will use whatever we are provided. The House 

alert system can take multiple iterations of addresses for each individual. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, does that 7-minute thing for cycling 

through, would that be 7 minutes if you used pins instead of email 

addresses? 

Mr. EAGEN. That is 7 minutes for the entire address list that we 

send to. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So that would be irrelevant then whether it was 

a pin or email address it was going to. That is just the limitation, 

technically. 

Well, my time is up, but I do want to ask this question: Verizon 

has had and I think still has an advantage that nobody else has 

because we cannot get the other antennas in. Has that situation 

been rectified? 

Mr. EAGEN. Actually, that has already been resolved. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. It has. 

Mr. EAGEN. Within the House office buildings, we completed a 

project that the committee sponsored in December to install multiple vendor repeating antennas, so that all the providers now have 

similar access to the House buildings. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Good. So that is all in place? 

Mr. EAGEN. Yes. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. As of December, or more recently than that? 

Mr. EAGEN. December. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Would the gentleman yield? 

The CHAIRMAN. If the gentleman and gentlelady will yield, just 

on that point. There were a lot of security issues to be worked out 

on that. In fact, it probably took three years, if I recall right. It 

42 

transcended Mr. Thomas’ chairmanship and also mine, but there 

was only one provider. And how it started, a Member would go 

down, and they would be walking through the tunnel, and they 

would see another Member and say, how does your cell phone 

work? Well, what provider is that? Well, that is Verizon. Well, in 

fairness to all the other people that have telephones, we might all 

want to switch to that one. 

But it was a process of the antenna system. And the Sergeant 

of Arms and Mr. Eagen, security-wise, also worked that out so that 

whole thing could eventually take place. So everybody has an equal 

footing on antennas. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Good. 

The CHAIRMAN. The Gentlelady from California. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I think the 

questions are excellent ones, and it stimulated one in my mind. As 

you know, I come from Silicon Valley and there is all kinds of technology out there that we may or may not know about here. 

Have we sort of posted the issue for the tech world to address, 

that we have an overwhelmed system and we need a way to be able 

to, in emergency situations, communicate and see who has a solution for us? 

Mr. EAGEN. Similar to the answer that Mr. Livingood gave, we 

have no hesitancy going out to the experts in the world and seeking 

best practices. So, absolutely, we seek that kind of input and are 

open to new technologies and new solutions. 

The challenge of the House, quite candidly, is we have, for the 

most part, a decentralized business model. So deploying some of 

these things and getting everybody to adopt them is often the biggest part of the challenge. If a Member or a staffer is not willing 

to carry a device of some kind, then we cannot communicate with 

them. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Then you are going to be doing, hey you. But most 

people are actually carrying devices at this point. 

Mr. EAGEN. But not everyone. 

Mr. GAINER. May I add one of the other areas that we are looking at that needs improvement is where we evacuate to, and we 

have to reexamine that. But, still, part of that goes back to the 

human element. All of the technology and good communication 

without the practice of the humans is very difficult. 

We have talked to a lot of adult educators, and in some of these 

incidents, whether it is a big plane or small plane, we may have 

a tendency to say, you know what, probably the Capitol is more a 

target than the Ford building; probably the Capitol is more a target 

than Postal Square. But what the adult educators have shown us, 

and because we do not practice too much, is whether we can get 

different groups of people to do different things. And there is an 

awful lot of self-evacuation that goes on up here. 

So under some circumstances, it might be good to say let’s evacuate the Capitol and everybody in the Ford building stay in place, 

or everybody in the Cannon and the Rayburn. And what happens, 

they are watching TV, listening to different things, and they see 

one group leave and the next group wants to leave. 

Again, the best example of that most recently—is when there 

was a bus fire in the 3rd Street tunnel by the Ford building. We 

43 

were in perfect consult with the emergency management agency of 

the City, which we are also very linked to, and the Police Department and the Fire Department about what was going on. But then 

some people, when they saw the smoke, and it makes people nervous, and there were some explosions from that fire, then people 

start evacuating and it starts kind of a contagious hysteria; why 

aren’t I learning something, why aren’t you telling me? And then, 

as we put out that information, then the community comes back 

and says, you are giving me too much information; why do I want 

to know what is going on in the 3rd Street tunnel? So we are still 

in a push and pull on that. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I would just observe on the two occasions like we 

have, Members are supposed to go to one place; and staff people 

and the other buildings, they have their places they are supposed 

to go. I was with a staff member so I intentionally did not go to 

where the Members are supposed to go. I went with him. I was 

going to go with the rest of my staff. 

Well, our primary meeting place, the police told us you cannot 

go there; you have to keep going beyond that. So, then, we do not 

have a primary meeting place. The backup meeting place, they 

were also told to go beyond, and so this thing of the meeting places 

has not quite worked out. 

We also are told to have those quick hoods, have them in a bag 

and one person takes charge of those. But if you do not have your 

meeting places worked out, then you are not going to have the 

quick hoods. I must say, I do not have a lot of faith in the quick 

hoods anyway, but that is one of the types of security that is being 

provided. But it is not really working out because, in these two situations we have had, you do not have that meeting place like we 

are supposed to have because we have been directed not to go 

there. 

Mr. GAINER. We are going to work on that with the House Sergeant of Arms and others to clarify that. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. That is being worked on as of a couple of weeks 

ago. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I know I am over. I will say this last thing. 

It was kind of ironic this morning. I did not read my Blackberry 

as I left the House this morning to see what was on it. And I 

should not do this, I know, but driving along I noticed in the car 

that I had a bunch of messages, and I had not cleared out the messages from yesterday. So without reading the messages, I just 

thought, you know, typically this is about something, some suspicious substance, and it is always resolved. And so I just deleted 

everything. 

Mr. GAINER. Ouch. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Then I heard on the radio that there was a problem with the Rayburn Building. Are you concerned about—I almost 

think this issue of too much information, but we get so many of 

these things. It is like Proposition 65 in California when you walk 

into the grocery store. There is a warning there on the door that 

says: This premise may contain substances that are known to cause 

cancer in humans. Well, I have concluded virtually everything 

causes cancer, so I am not going to worry about it anymore. I am 

going to go into that store fearlessly. 

44 

And it is the kind of thing with these Blackberry messages, we 

get so many of them, and they are all—virtually all, except for 

today—without meaning. So how do we deal with that? Because I 

tend to just write off, frankly, when I get some emergency announcement. I tend to sort of discount it, and I think that might 

be a real factor in other people’s thinking as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. The House officers will not answer this, but I 

can. We have a course teaching Members to read their emergency 

enunciators. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, I read them all until today. 

Mr. EAGEN. The problem is when we start sending those messages, we do not know what the outcome is. I think the Chief referred to it. We often feel damned if we do, damned if we do not. 

Because if we do not communicate, then people are saying, how 

come you did not tell us? And if we do, and it turns out to be nothing, people are like, why are you bothering us? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Sure. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Because I saved my notice from May 11th on my 

Blackberry. I know that is obsessive, but this is what it said: ‘‘this 

is a message from the U.S. Capitol Police. An evacuation has been 

ordered for the entire campus. Remain calm and move in a safe 

manner to the exits. If nearby, grab go-kits and personal belongings on the way out. Close doors behind you but do not lock. Avoid 

using elevators,’’ I do not know why that would be the case. ‘‘Proceed immediately to your designated assembly area. Check in with 

your office of emergency coordinator at the assembly area. Do not 

respond to the email.’’ 

Well, I think that there is some missing information I think we 

are addressing already, which is what is this event about. And as 

it turns out, I actually twisted my knee, and I went over to the 

physician. You know, Congress is full of middle-aged, out-of-shape 

people, and there were a lot of Members who were there seeking 

medical assistance. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Speak for yourself. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I am speaking of myself, as a matter of fact. So 

I think more information would be a very helpful thing. And I understand what you are saying, John, but if you have enough information, you can make some judgments about what to do as well. 

I do not want to beat a dead horse, because I think that point has 

been made, and now I will erase this message. 

The CHAIRMAN. If you have any other questions, we can ask 

them, but I have a couple more questions I want to submit for the 

record. It is about the PA system we have been working on. 

I heard it in the Senate yesterday when I was over there. It is 

very loud, but they come over and say, ‘‘This occurred on the first 

floor, near room 104; now, it is over with.’’ They do that. They still 

send out a Blackberry notice, but they do that too. And I thought 

that was interesting yesterday when I heard it. 

I will follow up with this later, because my main questions were 

answered today about the airplane, things you are going to look at 

in the future, and a couple of the alarms that did not go off. I think 

we need to double-check that. 

45 

Let me conclude with two things. And I want to give credit where 

it is due to all of you. The Speaker and Ted Van Der Meid, his 

staff, and I know Bernie Ramos from the Leader’s Office and myself, and the gentlelady and Members have been insistent upon 

tours—letting the public come into this building. I give credit to all 

the people I named that are insistent on having tours. I know the 

House is bearing a lot of that load. I understand that. 

People are coming in the House and going out of the House, and 

of course, it is the People’s House, but I think you have done a good 

job in training, working with the officers. Because, obviously, tours 

were taken care of that day, too. I had a couple of tourists that 

stopped by our office afterwards and said it was a good evacuation. 

All of you did a great job evacuating the tourists, including the 

staff-led tourists. This way, tours remain open in this building, and 

I think that is so important. But the education component you have 

done and continue to do with these officers I think is critical. 

I will yield to the gentlelady shortly. In regard to Mr. Doolittle’s 

comments regarding the confusion on the floor, before the alarms 

went off, I heard two ladies screaming up in the gallery; they were 

running and screaming. I think they heard somebody say, ‘‘Incoming plane.’’ When they went out, two things were knocked over, two 

or three things out there, and it sounded like gunfire down the 

hallway, and somebody said, ‘‘There’s a gun.’’ 

So the first reaction, before the alarm came on, based upon what 

I heard on the floor as I was back voting, was ‘‘There is a gun.’’ 

We heard two cracks and two ladies screaming. 

And as Paul Harvey says in the rest of the story—I will tell you 

that the gentlelady from California quickly said, ‘‘We must protect 

Mr. Doolittle’’, and jumped in front of him.’’ 

The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Oh, gosh. 

The CHAIRMAN. The rest of that is a true story. The Doolittle 

part is not. 

Proceed. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. What a chairman we have here, eh? 

I am telling you. 

Getting back to Mr. Doolittle’s issue on the reentry procedures, 

I am happy you are trying to crystalize those procedures. I also 

take note of the fact that the Senate recessed after that, whereas 

we came back in. Is that something that perhaps should be looked 

at? Or do they then break off and do their own thing returning 

back or what? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. I think that is a question up to each respective 

body. There is no problem as far as the House was concerned with 

us coming back in to session, given there was provided enough time 

to set up the security with the Capitol police. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. But it seems to me like they, too, 

need to crystalize the reentry procedures as well. 

Mr. GAINER. It does, from the police perspective, given the methodology of the House and the Senate create a little bit more problems to us. So that each body wants different information in a different format. So that is just a little more pressure on us. We can 

handle that, but with the limited radio channels, you are directing 

the Capitol division to do one thing, the Senate division to do anVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
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other thing, and the House to do another thing, and we are trying 

to pump out all this different information. It does make more of an 

opportunity for us to do either real well or not do so well. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. I can understand the challenges are 

with us, and certainly, each time we have these types of events, the 

challenges do come and new challenges arise. 

Mr. Eagen, we talked about the antennas that you have put in, 

but that only increases the coverage inside of the building, whereas 

Verizon has these cell sites that they can also communicate outside 

the building. Will we ever get to the point where those other cell 

phone services will perhaps have the cell sites? 

Mr. EAGEN. I need to check into that for you. I would think we 

should be getting towards that. Outside the campus, that is a commercial decision on the part of each of the vendors as to what their 

cell coverage is. But I can certainly look into that for you and get 

back to you. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. I would like to, because it also helps 

those of us that are having either the Verizon phones or the 

Cingular phones, and that may be something we can talk about 

along with the Chairman. 

The other thing, gentlemen, and you have been quite patient, but 

do we have adequate exits? Or are we looking at that, adequate 

exits for the number of people, again, and the design of the building? If this is something that you are contemplating, then we can 

accept that for now. But doors that perhaps can open just for these 

types of occurrences or that type of thing perhaps as we look into 

this. If we can look into particular doors that will open when this 

happens. Again, these are challenges that we are facing, so we 

need to look at that even if we perhaps have not. 

Mr. GAINER. Well, a couple of things, ma’am, and it is a great 

point, and we struggle a lot with that. Probably the quick answer 

is the stairwell size and the exit doors are inadequate for the number of people we have here, but we are dealing with the size and 

shape of the buildings we have. 

One of the things that our experts are doing is developing a computer model that will help better gauge the flow of folks out. But 

people up here are experienced enough to know that that is an 

issue. 

Some of the experts we brought in from Texas A&M even after 

President Reagan’s funeral, in some of their preliminary information, really started to say, Gee, you have to have more staircases, 

you have to make them wider, things that just are not going to 

happen. So we then went to the computer modeling, and we are 

going to have to drill on how we are going to have to work with 

the tools and time and the size and shape of the building. 

As to the doors, again, the Architect of the Capitol and others 

have worked very hard with us to alarm them in such a way that 

people cannot get in them when they should not and are able to 

open when they must, and that is pretty consistent with almost all 

the doors. 

Now, I think your point about exiting, or maybe it was Mr. 

Ehlers, about exiting out of some of the other bay doors, I think 

that deserves looking at. I am just not real familiar with that. But 

when the alarms go off, all the locks go off all the doors and people 

47 

are allowed to exit. That is what I referenced that, when we reenter, we have to go back and resecure all those. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Interesting. Interesting. 

The last thing that I will ask you I suppose this morning is, do 

you recommend lighted directional signs, signage that will give directions? Is there anything we can again look at that automatically 

lights up and says ‘‘this way,’’ ‘‘go in this direction’’? And it certainly would be good for those who are disabled as well to read 

signage that will tell them to exit or whatever. 

Mr. GAINER. From an emergency perspective, we think signage 

and lighting and strips along the floor would be the best, the absolute best thing. We have been troubled by the fact it is difficult to 

even identify what stairwell you are in, if you were stuck in a stairwell and wanted to call, to ascertain what floor you are on and 

what stairwell. So there has been a lot of conversation about that. 

So I think the balance is the historic preservation of the building 

and what is available. Our Office of Emergency Plans is working 

with the Architect and will make suggestions to both Sergeant of 

Arms and to the committees that that is an area that definitely 

needs to be improved. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. You guys have done just an extraordinary job, and have done one today being with us. 

And, Mr. Chairman, the Office of Emergency Planning, Preparedness, and Operations, there is more of a reason we need to talk 

with them because of some of the things we have shared with these 

gentlemen, and I thank you so much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Any other questions? I want to thank so much 

the three individuals for being here today, for all you do keeping 

the complex safe. I look forward to some of the determinations you 

get on any afterthoughts on this whole evacuation, any thoughts of 

improvement, and again, I think a lot of things went right. And, 

again, I am looking forward to thoughts you find after the analysis 

of the large plane versus the small and what the content may be. 

I just want to thank all three of you for the wonderful job you 

do, and thank the Members for all their patience. And with that, 

we will move on to the second panel. 

Mr. GAINER. Thank you for your support. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ms. MillenderMcDonald. We thank you for your support and your suggestions 

and help, all of you. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank this second panel. 

STATEMENTS OF JACK L. JOHNSON, JR., MANAGING DIRECTOR, PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, WASHINGTON FEDERAL 

PRACTICE; THOMAS L. KENNEDY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

PROTECTION SERVICES, VANCE; COLIN PETER COXALL, 

QPM, LL.B., CONSULTANT, SECURITY STRATEGY, CAPITASYMONDS GROUP LTD.; KEITH STILL, PH.D., FOUNDER AND 

CEO, CROWD DYNAMICS LTD. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think we have a very fascinating second panel. 

We are fortunate to have with us Mr. Jack Johnson from 

PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr. Johnson is the Managing Director of 

PricewaterhouseCoopers Washington Federal Practice. He was 

48 

Chief Security Officer of the Office of the Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security from December 2003 to February 

2005. He was Deputy Assistant Director of the Office of Homeland 

Security, United States Secret Service, and Special Agent in 

Charge, Forensic Services Division, and Assistant Special Agent in 

Charge, Intelligence Division, and on and on and on. And that is 

our first panelist. 

The second is Mr. Thomas L. Kennedy, Senior Vice President, 

Protection Services, and that is for Vance. Mr. Kennedy is a resourceful and team-oriented senior executive with three decades of 

progressive experience with the United States Department of Justice, Department of State, and private industry. He is internationally recognized for his organizational development skills and his extensive experience in physical security, executive protection training, asset protection and information technology security. He is 

widely recognized through a broad network of security, government 

and law enforcement contacts in the United States and international venues. I want to thank Mr. Kennedy for being here. 

The third witness is Mr. Colin Coxall, from Capita-Symonds, and 

he has ventured a long way to be with us here today. He has been 

awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service, Senior Command Course, Bramshill, Wolfson College, University of 

Cambridge, King’s College, University of London, Honours Degree 

in Law. And present position is consultant, Security Strategy, Capita-Symonds Group Ltd. And that is from 1998 to date. He was 

Commissioner of Police in Bermuda from 1995 to 1998. He has 

been the Deputy Commissioner, City of London Police; Acting Commissioner, City of London Police; Home Office, Deputy Assistant 

Commissioner Grade; and about three more pages of very incredible references. And we want to again welcome you to the United 

States; we appreciate your expertise. 

The last witness is Dr. Keith Still from Crowd Dynamics Ltd. 

And Dr. Still is the founder and CEO of Crowd Dynamics Ltd., an 

international consulting business which advises on crowd dynamics 

during normal and emergency situations. Their current projects include the development of a myriad and assortment of tools and 

techniques used around the world for modelling crowd dynamics. 

He also lectures at Easingwold, the U.K. Cabinet Office, and the 

Emergency Planning College, where he runs workshops to teach 

safety considerations to the industry. He has recently advised on 

crowd safety considerations for the Jamarat Bridge in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crowd dynamics problem. 

And we want to welcome you again for coming so far across the 

seas to be here. 

And with that, we will start with Mr. Jack Johnson. 

STATEMENT OF JACK L. JOHNSON, JR. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, members of the Committee on House administration. Thank you very much for giving 

me the opportunity to address your committee today on this extremely important topic. 

The events of Wednesday, May 11, 2005, clearly demonstrate the 

atmosphere that law enforcement, first responders and emergency 

49 

preparedness officials operate in following the events of September 

11, 2001. In this instance, an errant plane, piloted by individuals 

who had simply lost their way and did not realize the ramifications 

of their wayward travel, caused a chain of events that resulted in 

the evacuation of the Capitol and of the key structures in the restricted flight area. 

Although the pilot’s activity has since been determined to be a 

benign threat, the actions of the law enforcement and emergency 

preparedness officials in this case demonstrate in the clearest sense 

their ability to respond to these types of situations. 

I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to specifically 

commend the actions of the U.S. Capitol Police under the command 

of Chief Terry Gainer for their professionalism and decisiveness 

under these circumstances. 

I have been in the law enforcement, intelligence and security 

fields for over 30 years, many of these years right here in the 

Washington, D.C., area, and have seen firsthand the transition and 

professionalization of the Capitol Police. I can think of no other law 

enforcement organization that has so revolutionized its personnel 

and mission to meet the challenges they face everyday. 

This transition, although already under way prior to the events 

of 9/11, has taken on a greater sense of urgency for this organization since that time, and in many respects, it has now set the 

standard that other law enforcement organizations seek to emulate. Quite simply: They get it. 

The role of an emergency management architecture in this type 

of scenario, to evacuate the Capitol area and, if necessary, ensure 

the continuity of our Nation’s legislative process, is truly daunting. 

It is not one that can be approached in a haphazard or unorganized 

manner, but instead must be a proactive and orchestrated process 

that interacts with over 4,500 Members of Congress and their 

staffs, each with individual evacuation plans. 

This process also necessarily involves other key components, 

such as the Capitol Police themselves, the Sergeant of Arms; Office 

of Administration; Office of Emergency Preparedness; and the Architect of the Capitol; Thomas Kennedy, Vance International, Inc.; 

Jack Johnson, Jr., Price Waterhouse Coopers; Mr. Colin Coxall, C– 

O–X–A–L–L, Capita-Symonds Group, Ltd.; Dr. G. Keith Still, 

Crowd Dynamics, Ltd. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Together all of these entities have made great 

strides to ensure that the necessary elements of a comprehensive 

evacuation plan have been formulated and implemented for all of 

the respective stakeholders. 

Despite this remarkable progress, there are, in my opinion, but 

a few more pieces of this evacuation mosaic, if you will, to add before it is truly a comprehensive and enterprised program that is 

able to meet all of the needs of this esteemed body. 

My first recommendation is that there be one overarching organization that is responsible for the evacuation program of the Capitol. It is my understanding that this function currently is a collective responsibility of several entities. My experience is that whenever this type of critical function is shared, particularly by several 

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ities, miscommunication, and problems with the proverbial handoff 

especially during a crisis. 

My suggestion is that one organization be named as the responsible authority for this program, with the other components serving 

as an executive board to provide assistance and input. This enterprise organization should have the ability to leverage resources and 

technology, and the authority to institute policies and best practices to all of the stakeholders. Additionally, this organization 

would also mandate minimum requirements for all evacuation 

plans, to include critical areas such as building exit locations, evacuation routes, assembly and rally points, emergency coordinators, 

and training requirements. There must also be a requirement to 

conduct regular unannounced evacuation drills to familiarize employees and identify any impediments. 

Second, it is incumbent upon this overarching authority that it 

view the evacuation plans in a collective fashion. Once you have 

ensured that the individual evacuation plans have been implemented and tested, it is imperative that a consolidated and comprehensive testing methodology be instituted. The philosophy of 

this organization must be that it prepare for the worst and hope 

for the best. It must be assumed that, when the next evacuation 

occurs, both Houses of Congress will be in session, it will be a peak 

tourism time in Washington, and that significant delegations with 

a variety of physical challenges will be visiting their Representatives. 

Fortunately, there have been significant advances in the simulation modeling technology associated with evacuation planning that 

can be of tremendous assistance in this regard. This technology, 

coupled with a risk management methodology, is capable of projecting virtually limitless types of evacuation scenarios and validating both individual and enterprised evacuation plans. 

As I have indicated, all the components involved in the evacuation planning process of the Capitol should be lauded for their efforts and accomplishments. As evidenced by this hearing, the Members of Congress themselves and in particular this committee 

should also be commended for the critical importance that they 

place on this issue. All too often emergency preparedness planning 

and the ensuing law enforcement responses are minimized due to 

their being viewed as inconvenient and intrusive. It is refreshing 

to see that this is not the case of the United States Capitol. The 

attention that this body places on this matter goes a long way to 

instilling public trust, and the American people should feel reassured that the critical issue of the potential continuity of our Nation’s legislative process is receiving the appropriate scrutiny. 

This concludes my opening statement. I look forward to answering any questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Johnson follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Still. 

STATEMENT OF G. KEITH STILL 

Mr. STILL. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Ney, Congresswoman Millender-McDonald, and members of the committee, for 

your invitation to be here today. My name, as you have just stated, 

is Dr. Keith Still. I am the president and founder of a company 

called Crowd Dynamics. We are part of the Capita Symonds Group, 

a 2 billion parent turnover company in the U.K., and we are dedicated to the study and analysis of crowd behavior. 

Crowd dynamics is the study of how and where crowds form and 

move in places of public assembly during normal and emergency 

situations, and we have for the last 15 years been leading the 

world in both the simulation of crowds and the understanding of 

behavioral-basis safety. Our company has provided consultancy 

services to dozens of the largest municipalities throughout the 

world with a specific focus towards the safe and efficient management of people in times of evacuation. We have advised on terrorist-related issues such as the safety and security of the Sydney 

Olympics, crowd issues relating to smallpox epidemics and immunization in Holland, and the safety and security for the U.K. Labor 

Party conferences for the last 2 years. We have also advised on 

major religious gatherings such as the annual pilgrimage to Mecca 

in Saudi Arabia. 

Our technology assesses the relative probability of certain behaviors within large crowds during adverse conditions, such as emergency evacuations, in order to design safer environments or apply 

the appropriate management in evacuation strategy. We base these 

predictions using a variety of algorithms to take into account physical conditions of the venue in question, the purpose of the crowds 

gathering, the relative nature of how human beings behave in certain mass conditions. But while much of the effort has proven to 

be enormously useful, our studies reveal that the successful evacuation depends greatly on preparation, planning, and, most of all, 

training. 

We have developed a series of workshop materials and courses 

at the U.K. Cabinet Office Emergency Planning College, and for 

the last 7 years we have worked with multiagency authorities such 

as the police, fire officers, ambulance, first responders, emergency 

planners, business continuity planners, building control officers, 

safety and security personnel at multibuilding, multisite venues. 

For this reason, a great deal of our company’s effort has been focused on building simple-to-use documentation and procedures, 

training programs from municipalities and site owners in the event 

an evacuation should become necessary. 

Our experience has indicated that next to the proper crowd management planning techniques, training and preparation of employees and safety managers is the single greatest return of investment 

for the crowd’s safety in the event of an emergency evacuation. 

Forewarned is forearmed. 

In summary, our techniques and technologies have assisted numerous government-level clients in assisting potential emergency 

scenarios involving events from 500 people up to 3 million people; 

from organizing my local fireworks display in my village to the faVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
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cility planning, integrated management, and design changes of an 

over $1 billion project of a bridge in Saudi Arabia. 

Our studies and technologies have led the way to providing public and private managers with critical solutions for large-scale 

crowd management while ensuring safety for all those involved in 

the events. 

And, lastly, our experience has shown that, when faced with 

emergency evacuation, those entities who have planned and 

trained for such eventualities have far greater success in the fulfillment of getting people to safety than those who do not train for 

those eventualities. 

Our experience and recommendations are as varied as our clients. Yet, within the science of crowd dynamics, it is ultimately 

about people and behavioral-basis safety. 

And I was interested to hear the comments earlier about how 

people are being complacent about the information coming across 

Blackberries, about the junk that has been accumulated in the corridors, about the security exits blocking exit routes in the southeast 

of the building, about overreaction to certain information. We are 

doing a series of workshops in Las Vegas after the MGM stampede 

where a table fell over and somebody thought it was gunfire, and 

a stampede ensued. Particularly, the things about signage, wayfinding, location, these are areas that we have specialized in over 

the years. 

You may not be able to predict the behavior of any single individual; however, the behavior of certain masses have certain characteristics and variables that are very predictable specifically relating to indents that give rise to personal injury. When properly controlled, these variables can be reduced and used as tools for prediction and management of crowd safety. 

I know of no other company using simulations and situations 

such as the Hodge, where 3 million lives depended on the mathematics of crowds. In these types of situations, I had no margin for 

error. 

We model environments such as the U.K. Financial district, 

using sophisticated computer simulations to develop simple solutions to complex problems. The key is in implementing a practical 

and useful strategy for a multibuilding site, providing the appropriate training and education programs and the information and 

communication infrastructure to ensure crowd safety during emergency. We have delivered this already at our financial district. 

Adequate planning and preparation have proven to be the key 

factors in reducing levels of risk and increasing personal security. 

Nothing replaces preparedness in moments of mass evacuation. 

At this time I would be happy to discuss these and any other topics related to crowd dynamics and questions you may have. Thank 

you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Still follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Coxall. 

STATEMENT OF COLIN COXALL 

Mr. COXALL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank 

you and Congresswoman Millender-McDonald and members of the 

committee for this opportunity to testify this morning. I have a few 

brief opening remarks as well as a written statement which I have 

submitted to you which is slightly more comprehensive and would 

take longer than I have, of course, at this moment to deliver. 

For over 25 years, the British Government and its citizens struggled with the very real crisis of violence and IRA terrorism within 

our home borders. The threat to Britain’s homeland security was 

played out almost nightly as news of bomb blasts and other acts 

of terrorism continued to threaten our national security and our 

nation’s commerce. This included three massive truck bombs in the 

city of London, where I eventually ended up as chief officer of police, and attempts to assassinate our Prime Minister Margaret 

Thatcher, and a further attempt to assassinate our Prime Minister 

John Major and the Cabinet. 

In response to these enormous threats against our security, the 

home office and London police authorities asked Capita Symonds, 

who I now represent, to assist them in developing a unified set of 

security measures capable of identifying, stopping, and preventing 

terrorist attacks before they even had a chance to reach its intended target. The policy of our government was not to fortify the 

capital, it was to use intelligence and to use technology to protect 

the capital. In essence, we were challenged to devise a system that 

would capitalize on technology, protect the citizens of London well 

in advance of a terrorist event. 

Remarkably, the challenge gave way to perhaps one of the greatest security and surveillance systems in operation in the world 

today. Through the use of several sophisticated technologies, Capita Symonds and the City of London Police designed and deployed 

a perimeter security system unequaled in terrorism prevention. 

Our solution practically eradicated major acts of violence from occurring within the city of London area, which was an amazing feat, 

and was accomplished with hard work and overwhelming public 

support, huge support from the community in relation to the technology we installed. 

In addition, this system and its success has directly contributed 

to substantial reduction of violent crimes within our metro area 

and prevented countless other crimes before they could be perpetrated. This remarkable achievement is made possible by the integration and collection of crucial vehicle intelligence data, and 

communicating that data in near real time directly to the police officers on the ground. This crucially important vehicle information 

is analyzed and communicated back to the officers in 4 seconds, 

having searched on databases of many millions of records. 

In short, our systems of vehicle identification and intelligence 

collection have become the backbone of our antiterrorist prevention 

systems in London. The subsequent sharing of that information has 

provided the British police with the tools and technology necessary 

to aggressively monitor and thwart potential terrorist threats before they ever become a reality. 

63 

Our ring of steel, as it is now being called and has been commonly called throughout the world, now protects the City of London’s political government and financial sectors with up-to-the-second surveillance data to hundreds of law enforcement officers on 

the ground. These vehicle surveillance systems are now used extensively throughout the United Kingdom. Our technologies and solutions have preserved the way Londoners live and how our security 

forces protect our citizens. 

I hope throughout forums such as this our experience in Great 

Britain can begin to provide useful insights as to how similar levels 

of security can be attained here in the United States. I thank you 

for your time, and I am very happy, of course, to answer any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Coxall follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Our last witness is Mr. Tom Kennedy. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS L. KENNEDY 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, members of the Committee on House Administration, on behalf of 

Vance, I would also like to thank you for allowing us to participate 

in this valuable hearing. 

The way business is transacted and how government operates 

and how national defense is conducted have changed since 9/11. 

Additional world events have challenged us to prepare to manage 

previously unthinkable situations that may threaten an organization’s and our government’s future. Today’s threats require the creation of an ongoing interactive process that serves to assure the 

continuation of an organization’s or the government’s core activities 

before, during, and, most importantly, after a major crisis event. 

Security today is an extraordinarily difficult challenge that requires coordinated and focused effort. This new challenge goes beyond the mere emergency response plan or disaster management 

activities that we have previously employed. We must act to reduce 

our vulnerabilities before they can be exploited to damage our Nation’s critical infrastructures and ensure that, if attempted, destructions are infrequent, minimal in duration, manageable, and 

cause the least possible damage and loss of life. 

It is no longer enough to draft a response plan that anticipates 

naturally or accidentally caused disaster emergency scenarios. 

Plans must be developed to address possible intentional catastrophic events to include evacuation plans of large numbers of 

people, such as the U.S. Capitol evacuation plan. However, a plethora of scientific studies and procedures to confirm the anecdotal assumptions of effectiveness of such plans does not exist. 

I have not had an opportunity to examine the evacuation plan, 

nor have I been privy to post-May 11 assessments of its execution; 

therefore, my comments will be focused on industry standards used 

to examine the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency evacuations and response to disasters, and my personal observations 

based on 35 years of experience, and public information available 

to me. My comments are limited to the evacuation. Information 

technology security, business impact analysis, and continuity of operations are not addressed. 

Large-scale evacuations in the United States have historically 

been effective, successfully saved lives, and reduced the number of 

injuries associated with the hazard addressed. The U.S. Capitol 

plan, I believe, is no exception. 

Your overall evaluation of your emergency evacuation response 

operations should include approximately six components and their 

subcomponents: the direction and control, the notification and 

warning, traffic movement and control, sheltering, reentry, and 

training. 

The direction and control includes the evacuation decisionmaking 

process. Is the decision to evacuate made by a single individual or 

two or more individuals involved in the decisionmaking process? 

Are they armed with criteria to make that decision? Has different 

evaluation criteria been developed for various threats? 

75 

The command, control, and coordination process. An overwhelming factor contributing to evacuation effectiveness is a high 

level of coordination and cooperation among the various elements 

resulting from an effective command structure. That is, the command structure is well understood, participants work well together, 

and emergency coordinators are empowered to make decisions. Is 

the command structure well understood? Who is empowered to 

make those decisions? 

Emergency communications, as we have already discussed, are 

an important factor; emergency response activities, also. Two-way 

radios are the predominant method of emergency communication; 

however, radio communications issues are always reported in numerous cases. This usually involves that radios are not on the same 

frequency or reception issues. Multiple forms of emergency communications such as cell phones and pagers and e-mails, which have 

previously been discussed, are generally used, which often compensates for radio failures. It should be noted, as you are aware, 

that jammed cell phone networks occur during emergencies. 

Are the emergency response personnel mobilized and notified in 

sufficient time to complete the evacuation? Evacuation time estimates and modeling can be used to provide a tool for preplanning 

as well as protective action decisionmaking. It identifies potential 

challenges to efficient evacuation. Are evacuation time estimates 

developed? 

And your notification and warning. Multiple methods of notification are most efficient, as I have seen from previous testimony, 

which are deployed. These methods usually involve sirens, telephones, radio, public address systems, office-to-office notification. 

Multiple methods of notification should be used. 

Shadow evacuations, which haven’t been discussed. Are people 

evacuating outside of the designated evacuated area? They should 

have no significant impact on the traffic or the congregate care center capacity or on the efficiency of the evacuation in general. However, public awareness of a hazard, knowledge of part of the evacuation procedures, and especially of altering methods may contribute 

to the efficiency and effectiveness of the evacuation. 

Also, as previously discussed, are both vehicular and personnel 

movement carefully controlled? Are the evacuees directed where to 

go as they exit the structures? Are public emergency centers used? 

Who decides on the return and in what order should be discussed. 

Training and exercises contribute to the effectiveness of evacuations. The most successful plans generally have been tested in 

full-scale field exercises. This may or may not be feasible to the 

U.S. Capitol, in which case incremental testing would be advised. 

This is perhaps one area your committee should examine and review. 

Cooperation from evacuees is repeatedly cited as contributing to 

safe, efficient, and effective evacuations. Conversely, individual behavior is attributed to less efficient evacuation. Specifically, individuals taking nonsanctioned actions, usually trying to help out, 

are common issues reported as evacuation challenges. This reverts 

to the training and exercises. 

76 

Shadow evacuations, as I previously stated, are defined as evacuations by persons outside of the officially declared evacuation zone. 

If appropriate, have shadow evacuations been considered? 

Finally, advanced statistical methods, including regression and 

correlation analysis, can be used to scientifically analyze and identify key factors contributing to your evacuation efficiency. 

A system should be considered to be devised by which all personnel can be accounted for quickly after the evacuation. This system can range from a simple telephone tree or taking advantage 

of new technologies which addresses this issue. 

When time is a major consideration, as in the case with evacuations associated with air assaults, new and innovative ways to 

evacuate handicapped persons should be explored. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, based on information publicly 

available, and considering whether issues were encountered in decisionmaking, emergency communications, notification of response 

personnel and local officials, citizen action, traffic movement and 

control. And reentry, it appears that the May 11 evacuation proceeded efficiently and effectively in terms of evacuee health and 

safety, security, and issues related to coordination, decisionmaking, 

and emergency response. 

Thank you for your time, Mr. Chairman. And at this time I 

would welcome any questions the committee may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Kennedy follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate the witnesses. We had our internal 

discussions today, but it is helpful that you are outside the box. 

You are with companies, and so you can give us another perspective. I appreciate your comments about the evacuation here. 

Let me get your thoughts about one issue that has been debated 

a little bit in the media. It deals with Homeland Security analysis 

of planes, their contents, and whether or not we should evacuate 

based upon our analysis of the contents. Does anybody have any 

thoughts on how to account for some of the potential dilemmas that 

small planes present? Do they have something dangerous in them; 

should people be moved in or outside? Does anybody have any 

thoughts on the plane issue? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think the chief of police addressed it to some degree. Various scenarios have to be addressed. As I said in my comments, criteria should be developed for these scenarios. Decisions 

should be made as to which one they are in; go down your checklists efficiently and quickly to make your decision. A small aircraft 

can be as dangerous, if not more dangerous, at times as a large aircraft depending on what is on board. And you may not have the 

luxury to try to figure out what is there. However, you do have the 

luxury to get experts to evaluate what is the worst thing I could 

do to you with a small aircraft, and what, of course, is the least 

thing I could do to you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is fair. I heard some people say that 

the plane would have just bounced off the Dome like a ping pong 

ball. Well, we don’t know that until it is analyzed and we have assessed all the variables, including, the types of chemicals or explosives that the plane could be carrying. So I am happy to hear you 

say that. But I also think it should be looked at. 

I have a question, unless somebody wants to comment on the 

plane. My question relates to people, crowds, and their behavior. 

You dealt with Canary Wharf. You dealt with the Haj and the massive number of people over there. In those situations, was there 

any industry best practices on persons with disabilities and taking 

that into account in any of the situations either of you gentlemen 

have dealt with? And, of course, the other two gentlemen too. 

Mr. STILL. Yes. For the Haj specifically, the mobility-impaired 

have special procedures which are dealt with with the security 

forces. For Canary Wharf, again, special procedures are set up. 

There is an institute in the U.K. At Belfast University which specializes in looking at evacuation procedures. 

The CHAIRMAN. Where is that in the U.K.? 

Mr. STILL. Belfast University, for a—Professor Jim Shields set 

up the FireCert Group across there. They have a lot of experience 

in looking at this issue of how best to evacuate people with mobility impairment. And this includes sighted, hearing deficiencies. We 

did some work with the Special Olympics, which are for the—I forget the politically correct phrase—for people with learning difficulties, how to deal with the Olympic events there that were to be 

held in Ireland. So we have a lot of experience in looking at these 

particular types of issues, yes. 

On the plane. If you just look at a basic threat matrix, you have 

the one threat of a plane full of explosives causing some damage, 

but you have got multiple threats of damage on the streets to the 

84 

personnel, to the people, from chemical, biological, radiological, or 

nuclear fallout. So on a basic threat matrix, you could look at the 

probability functions there of what could be in this aircraft and 

which is the safest policy, stay put or evacuate. So there is a way 

of looking at that type of problem. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Coxall, do you have anything? 

Mr. COXALL. The only thing I could add to that as a former chief 

of police is the fact that you are constantly—and I listened towards 

your chief who was saying—which I totally agreed with—you are 

constantly set with the situation do you evacuate into danger, or 

do you keep people within the building? And we certainly found 

when we had the truck bombs going into the city of London, and 

we had many suspected bombs, of course, many, many more than 

were, in fact, real devices, frequently the option was to get people 

to the back of the building or down into the basement of the building and then secure the area until your security services could establish whether there was a real bomb or not. 

The CHAIRMAN. I know we have a vote coming, so I want to go 

on to other Members so everybody can at least get a question or 

two in. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all so much for your expertise. I tell you, there 

is just so much here to try to synthesize and bring forward. 

Mr. Kennedy, since you were the last one, we will start you off 

first. And in your position as overseer of asset protection and information technology, we have heard in recent reports of lost backup 

tapes with sensitive data that has become a focal point for data 

protection. Would you recommend encryption of data tapes prior to 

off-site storage? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, the short answer is absolutely. There is a 

longer, more complicated answer on better ways of storage and 

backup; however, anything that can be encrypted in this day and 

age should be. Also, the transportation of that material has to be 

changed. The methodology I saw in that particular issue, while efficient, was not securely effective. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And so I suppose, given that it 

would be more of an elongated answer than what you have given 

us, those problems that are associated with that would be also 

elongated in terms of your answer? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, in that particular one, Madam Chairman—— 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Madam Chairman. That is good. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am sorry. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you so much, Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. You are quite welcome. 

The CHAIRMAN. Will the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY. In that particular situation, I have worked on 

backup tapes and information in a classified, highly classified environment, and we chose to actually have shadow backups and duplication of effort ongoing simultaneously, which then precluded the 

necessity to actually make a backup tape and carry it someplace. 

You could destroy what you had on-site; you already had your 

backup where it needed to be. Or you then had to use a very secure 

85 

methodology of transporting that information to the secondary location. All information should be encrypted and secured. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And speaking about shadow evaluation, I think I noted that when you were talking. What do you do 

in terms of those other buildings outside of the chemical and others? 

Mr. KENNEDY. In the case of the Capitol, I haven’t had the opportunity to actually surveil the area. You need to take a look at 

whether or not there are businesses, residences, other people in the 

area that, because of the volumes of people coming out of this area 

off the campus, thousands, 35,000 people, what effect will they 

have on them? Someone had commented, I think one of my colleagues, on people beginning to evacuate before they should; they 

think they hear a gunshot, or you wind up with a panic. That is 

a situation. Some information, not all information, if it is going to 

affect those areas, you are going into those areas, those people need 

to be alerted in some way, shape, or form that 35,000 people are 

coming their way; otherwise, you could have a panic if this area 

has that situation. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. It is amazing you would say that, 

because just last night one of the businesses that I went into spoke 

about the evacuation and how they just had a barrage of people 

just coming into their place, and it was so overflowing because— 

and they didn’t know what to do because these folks didn’t know 

where to go, and so they just came to this place and just housed 

themselves there. And so—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. You certainly don’t want those people wandering 

back toward where you are evacuating from either. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. The other thing that we are looking 

at, given the two-way radio communication units that you spoke 

about certainly would be good for the disabled persons, and should 

our annunciation—annunciators provide two-way communication 

systems given this 5/11? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Increased security always increases or almost always increases inconveniences. That has to be weighed. For instance, if I were to tell you I could give you a beeper or a pager, 

and if it beeps, just evacuate, to carry that with your Blackberry, 

carry that with your cell phone, carry that with an access control 

card that I would like to have you to have also so I could immediately put you in a database when you walk outside the building, 

now you have four or five things. We have to carefully evaluate 

how we are going to do this, what would be effective, and then 

what is the probability of you carrying these things. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. It is amazing. You think about these 

things, but you do not think about its impact or ramifications given 

that. 

Mr. Jackson, you spoke about an overarching authority that 

should be put in place whereby one organization then, I guess, synthesizes all of this and disseminates that out. And I am so happy 

to see the Sergeant at Arms and the Capitol Police and the assistant chief both here. How effective is that? And I think I can kind 

of answer that, but I need to have you mention that. 

And you spoke about drills. How often should we have that? 

86 

And you spoke about testing. That is a nuance, it is a whole new 

phenomenon that I have not heard. So can you expound on that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, Madam Ranking Member. Certainly anytime 

you have a situation that requires an evacuation, no small feat, no 

small decision to be made, you need to have one, as I indicated in 

my remarks, overarching authority. And the key word in there is 

the authority, someone that has the information that enables him 

or her to make an informed decision as to what you need to do. 

And to echo comments my colleagues have made earlier, that includes appropriate intelligence. That also includes a matrix. And it 

also includes a risk methodology that you have to include as part 

of your decisionmaking process. 

My experience has been that any time you have such an important responsibility that is bifurcated and that has several people 

involved in the process, if you will, there is always the possibility 

that you may have gaps in the organizational chain, may have time 

delays. And minutes in this case are absolutely critical, in some 

cases even seconds. So I think you need this overarching authority 

that needs to be able to harness all the input from all the components that serve stakeholders to develop policy. I can’t stress 

enough what I think the importance of this authority needs to have 

to be able to require minimum standards for all evacuation plans. 

And then once they have those evacuation plans individually that 

have been created and implemented and tested, you can now look 

at them in an enterprise perspective through a modeling capability, 

if you will, that you can test these things collectively and determine where your problems may be. 

This is not a total panacea, however. You absolutely must have 

unannounced testing for this entire complex if you want to be successful. Human behavior is such that it is impacted in many, many 

ways by different things. Human nature, a lot of people just by the 

way they walk in the building sometimes dictates the way they 

walk out of it. 

One of the things I would like to point out. A couple years ago 

up in Rhode Island there was a horrendous fire in a nightclub, and 

a lot of people perished there. And a lot of the people perished because everyone tried to go back out the same door they came in. 

It is human nature. The only way that you can change that human 

nature is through the unannounced testing and the drills that basically solidify your plan, that basically educate people as to why you 

go a certain way, why you evacuate to a certain point, why we go 

through certain procedures. This isn’t going to occur in a modeling 

scenario. That helps you identify your gaps and your impediments. 

It must occur with real-life, unannounced testing. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Excellent. And I am sorry to have 

called you Mr. Jackson, Mr. Johnson. And so I apologize for that. 

Speaking about behavior, Dr. Still, you spoke about that and the 

predictability. How do you expound on this, given the behavior that 

many talked about with reference to that day of May 11, with those 

faces looking—you know, they were just fearful. And folks even 

talked about the leadership and their behavior. How do you, what 

can you tell us in terms of predictable behavior, and how do we get 

into that? 

87 

Mr. STILL. First of all, I think the testimony we had earlier demonstrates that you have made enormous progress, and that the procedures and practices that are in place are probably second to 

none. When dealing with the human condition, and to echo Mr. 

Johnson’s comments, people invariably assess risk in their mind 

differently to how they assess risk mathematically. So there are 

mathematical solutions and computer simulations that give us one 

set of answers looking at how the human being responds under 

both normal and emergency conditions, as you cited the example of 

Rhode Island where 100 people perished coming out the way they 

came in. 

These things are predictable, and they are mitigated by information, communication, and training. A lot of the exercises we run in 

Saudi Arabia, where we had 171 different countries, 121 different 

languages, many different forms of communications, you succeed by 

embedding the information into the environment. 

I think there was some talk earlier about orientation and wayfinding on the floors, knowing where you are, where you need to 

go. A lot of the exercises we run at Canary Wharf, our financial 

district, was about orientating people within the context of the 

building, within the context of the island, and within the context 

of the emergency, and the core—because we didn’t know where the 

accident or incident may occur. So we need to be able to keep people informed of the severity of the incident, the location of the incident, and the most appropriate action to take place. 

Now, prior to 9/11, there was the GTFOD principle for, you 

know, as an accident, a fire in the building: Let’s everybody get out 

of there as quickly as possible. Now you have got directed egress. 

You might need to move people away from the scene of the threat, 

or phased evacuation where you need to contain people for decontamination process. And there is the stay put policy which has 

been observed in the U.K. During the IRA terrorist activities. It is 

safer to keep people in buildings under certain types of scenarios 

or threats. 

So these are modeling exercises that we can test the boundary 

conditions, how efficient the system may operate, and then look at 

how we then implement and structure training, education, and 

processes to cover for how people may react in emergencies. 

So there is a degree that is predictable, but there is also a degree 

that is programmable by building smarter environments, better 

signage, better communication systems, and processes and procedures. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. How can you predict behavior when 

it is staged as opposed to when it is real? 

Mr. STILL. I think anybody that would state that a computer simulation can give you all the answers is probably not adequately 

competent to answer those questions. It is a combination of education and training. It is a combination of unannounced drills. And 

basically the computer simulations allow you to understand the 

boundaries. For instance, your southeast exit, how many people 

could we get out of there over a period of time? What procedures 

do we need to put into place to prevent an area becoming overwhelmed? So you can test with simulations the limits, the boundaries, and then you develop appropriate strategies, processes, proVerDate Aug 04 2004 22:33 Aug 11, 2005 Jkt 022481 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A481.XXX A481
88 

cedures, and information systems to prevent those boundaries 

being broken. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Mr. Coxall, I am going to say this. 

This might be a little sensitive, so. Our planes have to come in 

from Andrews Air Force Base. Would there be a possibility that 

having that closer in would help in terms of getting to the scene 

quicker by having maybe a helicopter at the National Reagan as 

opposed to having to come out as far as—or is that something that 

we need to talk about now or later? 

Mr. COXALL. Well, this may be outside my sphere, inasmuch as 

I have not studied the situation here; I am principally here talking 

about the systems we have put in effect to deal with terrorism in 

central London. But the backup situation with helicopters I really 

cannot comment on, ma’am. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Okay. Is there anyone here who 

can? And if that is anything that you can say publicly, or should 

we just perhaps talk about that later on? Either one of you may 

respond. In terms of having initially some type of military plane at 

Washington, at Reagan National. 

Mr. JOHNSON. If I may, as you are aware that there are a number of resources that respond to this type of situation. It goes into 

a phased approach. The first phased approach, my understanding, 

was a Department of Homeland Security Blackhawk helicopter 

which made the initial interception, and immediately upon responding to that, it phased a secondary notification to the response 

planes. 

My personal opinion is that the distance in locating planes from 

Reagan to Andrews Air Force Base, given the speeds that those jets 

can accelerate, is somewhat insignificant. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. I see. Fine. 

Mr. Coxall, the last question I have is closed-circuit television, as 

we know that in London you indicated that it reduced crime. Would 

that, can that also be some other means of an apparatus to be used 

in terms of discerning any impending threats, or any likelihood of 

closed-circuit television being used for anything with reference to 

terrorist threats? 

Mr. COXALL. We are. The closed-circuit television systems that 

we principally have been using are those related to the movement 

of vehicles. Our deep concern in London was the threat from moving vehicles, and all of the terrorist bombing attacks we suffered 

were a result of vehicles being moved into sensitive areas. And, 

therefore, we discovered that—what was self-evident, of course— 

that terrorists and criminals need vehicles to move around. 

And it was essential, therefore, for our security services and our 

police to enhance our intelligence-gathering methods that they 

could link vehicles to terrorists and link vehicles to criminals. And 

so, therefore, there was a change of methodology in the police service and the security services throughout the U.K. So that the intelligence-gathering process was linking people to the vehicles, and in 

some cases many vehicles, and this had to be constantly kept up 

to date. 

We therefore had data warehouses which could therefore be 

searched upon by CCTV systems around the capital, particularly 

around the financial area which we were trying to protect because 

89 

there were huge threats to the financial center. And these CCTV 

systems would capture the index plates of vehicles and the description of vehicles, would search against this database in less than 3 

seconds usually, but never more than 4 seconds, and would relay 

to the command and control centers if it was necessary to take action in relation to a vehicle. It may be a stolen vehicle, it may be 

a vehicle known to be used in crime, it may be a vehicle known to 

be associated with terrorism. And I could give you many, many vehicles of how this was successful, and by this method we prevented 

any further bombing attacks taking place within the financial center. 

The terrorists then moved the threat to areas where they knew 

we didn’t have the camera systems. And I am going back to the 

early stages. They then moved it then to Canary Wharf, which was 

our second financial center in London. That then came under attack by vehicle-borne bombs until we then put the camera systems 

into there. And we very publicly told the community, in fact told 

everybody in the country, exactly what we were doing. And we had 

a huge support from the community. 

We have now moved those camera systems around our country 

at strategic places which you wouldn’t expect me to discuss to, and 

we have therefore systems where vehicles moving towards London 

who are believed to be involved in terrorism or serious crime can 

be taken out at areas where they are not a danger to the public. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Because of time, I have other questions, and if we can get to that before the Chairman concludes the 

committee, I will. But you spoke about the huge support from the 

public and the community. And that is in and of itself some type 

of behavioral changes there. So I thank you all so much; and if I 

can get back, I will raise up other questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Well, thank you. And our Blackberries worked. 

We have got votes in about 10 minutes or less so I will be very 

quick. 

This has been interesting, and I appreciate especially our witnesses from Great Britain coming all the way here to share their 

experiences with us. 

I am interested, Mr. Coxall, on in your testimony relative to the 

automated license plate recognition system, and I don’t know if you 

are familiar with what we are doing here on the Capitol Police 

Truck Interdiction Program, which is essentially orange cones on 

Independence Avenue and a visual look at who is driving. I don’t 

know if you have comments about that or not. If you do, I would 

be interested in whether you think there is a better approach to 

that given the layout of the Capitol complex. 

Mr. COXALL. The layout, of course, is of crucial importance. Visual identification, it is very much down to guesswork and the intellect of the officers who are doing it and the instructions they might 

receive. It is not a very accurate way. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Well, the trucks can’t go at all. I don’t want to 

mislead. The trucks are not supposed to go down the street. But 

certainly there are large—I mean, limousines can, and they can 

carry a load as well. So there is—but there is an inspection of vehicles coming by. 

90 

Mr. COXALL. Yes. The system we have used particularly very 

close to our central financial area, which was so threatened, was 

that the officers stand alongside the camera systems. But the camera systems will be reading the index plates of the vehicles as they 

approach. And so within a few seconds, in fact less than 4 seconds, 

the officers will be informed if they should be taking any particular 

action in relation to a given vehicle. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I was interested in that further in reading through 

your written testimony. Clearly London has deployed cameras and 

a system to evaluate the information that we have not done, and 

whether or not we are prepared to do that is a different question. 

But the database would be essential. I mean, you can see the license plate, but what do you do with it? 

And, you know, the World Trade Center, the first World Trade 

Center bombing with the truck bombs, that was a rented truck 

bomb. It is not very hard to rent a truck; frankly, it is even easier 

to go buy some junker truck. And that—how would you know that 

that was something to be worried about? How did you create a 

database that would alert the authorities to be concerned? 

Mr. COXALL. This is the work of the intelligence services and the 

police service. They are monitoring a certain group or certain individuals, which is their job. They would then be loading their systems. 

Ms. LOFGREN. So it is intelligence-based. 

Mr. COXALL. It is an intelligence-based process for the officers, 

but it is capable, of course, of screening so that any vehicle—if the 

threat was coming from rented vehicles, the hard vehicles, you 

could then screen out those vehicles so that all rented vehicles or 

all rented trucks, for instance, could be stopped. And if it is known, 

of course, a certain terrorist group are using vehicles, rented vehicles, from a certain company, then, of course, intelligence can be 

gathered about that particular company, and particular effort can 

be taken in relation to those particular vehicles. It is all intelligence-based, and the systems are only as good as the intelligence 

that goes into it. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Perhaps, whether in this committee or Homeland 

Security, we should explore that further, because I remember years 

ago when I was a young staffer here, my mother came out to visit 

me for a week, which was great, and we rented a car. And it cost 

so much to rent the car, and at the end of the week I went out and 

bought a junker car for less than we paid to rent it. And it was 

an education to me that a good terrorist wouldn’t necessarily have 

to—they would go to the next alternative that wouldn’t actually 

catch you up in an automatic screen. 

So the intelligence issue would be key, and I don’t know that we 

are in the same spot that Great Britain is on that, but I appreciate 

your willingness to share your experience and your good work. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Millender-McDonald. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Mr. Chairman, let me first thank 

you and your staff and even my staff for bringing on such extraordinarily effective experts and men, and they are men all at this 

juncture, who have brought some insight, further insight, into the 

challenges that we face. 

91 

There are a few more questions I have, and one would be what 

would have happened, how could we have done the evacuation, had 

the weather been either raining or freezing? Would the evacuation 

process be the same? Should we have any other diversions from 

that? If someone can answer that question. 

The other question I have is in terms of, Mr. Kennedy, this evacuation was achieved within 10 minutes. Could we have made that 

a faster process? And, if reasonably so, given the thousands of people, how could we have done that better? 

And the third and last one would be aside from airplane-based 

threats, are there any other things that we should be doing? And 

what about the Capitol Police Truck Interdiction Program? 

Those are the three questions I have. If any one of you can jump 

on those. Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you. As far as the time element goes, you 

raised a very interesting question, which makes Capitol Hill evacuation for the air type of attack very, very unique. I looked at approximately 250 evacuations over a 13-year period. Only about 6 

percent deal with what we call malevolent type of causes. Most 

evacuations what you are looking to do is to evacuate as quickly 

and as safely as possible. Capitol evacuation is evacuate as quickly, 

as safely, and, oh, by the way, you have 3 minutes and 32 seconds 

because the aircraft is traveling at a certain—you know, distance 

equals rate times time. That adds a factor to—I will only speak for 

myself—to—in my 35 years of experience, that adds a factor that 

I have not considered very often. If you have a bomb and you see 

a clock, I mean, but this type of thing is not addressed. 

There are modeling simulations on people flow. My colleague 

mentioned testing and actually plans where—unscheduled. That is 

one of the best things you have to do. You have to train people to 

go in certain directions at certain times. Otherwise in a real situation they are liable to do, as my colleague said, go for the door they 

walked in that morning. 

Also, as I mentioned in my statement, in order to—on the time 

element, I think a couple of Members and yourselves have alluded 

to it, and I had said to kind of think out of the box, which is—in 

fact, take the Longworth Building for instance. In walking here, I 

think I observed about five or six elevator banks, a number of 

floors in the building. There is certainly enough to key and have 

one individual responsible for one floor to take handicapped to the 

first floor in a matter of—in this case would be seconds as opposed 

to possibly minutes to take someone to the first floor. 

These things—of course, backup systems, which the police chief 

had talked about, have to also be discussed. But we have to start 

thinking of unique and different ways that heretofore hadn’t been 

considered to get people out quicker, models I think will work, and 

then test them with real drills. I would do a lot of modeling, some 

of which I recommended, my colleague has recommended some 

modeling, and then actually test them unannounced. 

In all due respect to the Members, I noticed one Member commented that he wanted to be with his staff. That gets to continuity 

of operations. I don’t know if that is part of the continuity of operations, but he may have, thinking he was doing good by going with 

his staff, just violated one of the keeping the Capitol operational. 

92 

So people have to be trained, tested, and the Members have to participate in those tests. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Quickly, the weather conditions. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam Ranking Member, a comment I would like 

to make about that, and that is an excellent question. You said 

that is one of the variables that needs to factor into your entire 

risk methodology. If it is a sunny day, you are probably going to 

evacuate; if it is raining, you are probably going to evacuate; if it 

is cold, you are probably going to evacuate. If it is snowing and ice 

outside, that is another variable you need to plug into your risk 

methodology coupled with what do we know about the threat? The 

threat in this case is a small plane, unknown origin, unknown 

what is on board. And this is what you have to incorporate into 

this methodology that goes to this overarching authority to help 

him or her make that ultimate decision: Do we stay or do we go? 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Excellent. Excellent. And I wish we 

could expound more, but we can’t. We are hearing the bells. 

And the third one is the Capitol Police Truck Interdiction Program. Anyone can expound on that? 

Mr. COXALL. I could touch on that, if I may, ma’am. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Sure. 

Mr. COXALL. Yes, of course, it is—I am sure it is a good system, 

providing the technology is working. But my only comment on that 

was we in London would be very uncomfortable indeed of allowing 

the uninterrupted or the unsecured access to an area as sensitive 

as this by any vehicles, because large—any large sort of goods-type 

vehicle or any large vehicle can carry—potentially carry a bomb 

which could cause severe damage and destruction and destruction 

to life. Therefore, we have a system where every vehicle coming 

into the sensitive part of central London, every vehicle has its 

index plate read, and we have it in a system. The technology is 

now so good, irrespective of the speed the vehicles travel, that is 

a 98 percent—nearly up to 99 percent of vehicles the index plate 

is read accurately now by the police service. So they have the option of stopping that vehicle if they are concerned about the vehicle 

or the driver of the vehicle or the contents of those vehicles. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. You all have been extraordinarily 

good. So has our panel of our insiders. We thank you all. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for a very timely, informative, 

and a very effective hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank the gentlelady. And I want to 

again thank all our witnesses, both panels, and our staff here, both 

sides of the aisle, and the gentlelady and the Members who worked 

so hard for the hearing. It is important. We have a family here on 

Capitol Hill, as I call it. 9/11 brought everybody that deals with or 

visits the Capitol into a new world of thinking. 

I think staff of the Hill, the Capitol Hill Police, the staff the 

House officers, and everybody else has risen to the occasion, kept 

an eye out for one another, and did the right thing in how they reacted to a bad situation. But the purpose of today’s hearing, was 

accomplished. We wanted to look at what other ways we can improve as we look back on these situations—which is constantly 

done, by our House officers and the staff anyway. But this is a very 

good way to do it. 

93 

Also, having this panel is a good way for us to look outside the 

box, and we have always been willing to do that. Our House officers have been our chiefs. 

So with that, I again want to thank everybody for your time and 

travel. And you two get the award for the longest travel. Thank 

you for being here in the United States. 

With that, I ask for unanimous consent that Members and witnesses have 7 legislative days to submit material into the record, 

and for those statements and materials to be entered into the appropriate place in the record. Without objection, the material will 

be entered. 

The CHAIRMAN. I also ask unanimous consent that staff be authorized to make technical and conforming changes on all matters 

considered by the Committee in today’s hearing. Without objection, 

so ordered. 

And completing our business, that will conclude our Committee 

hearing, and we are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

Æ