Government creates new Washington evacuation plan

The federal government has created a new procedure for closing federal offices in Washington in the event of possible terrorist attacks on the nation's capital.

The protocol, which took effect in May, outlines how the Office of Personnel Management determines the status of government -- essentially, whether the government is open or not -- in potential terrorism situations. Closing the government -- as OPM did on Sept. 11 -- can be a precurser to evacuating federal agencies, although the authority to evacuate remains with agency heads, according to an OPM spokesman.

"All we do is establish the status of government and let [agencies] know about it," said Scott Hatch, OPM's director of communications. "What various agencies do with that information is up to them."

The protocol also tells how OPM will communicate the decision to close agencies to federal employees and to city and state officials that would be affected by an evacuation of civil servants from Washington. On Sept. 11, the Office of Personnel Management closed federal agencies without first notifying some state and transit officials in the Washington area.

"Basically the only emergency plan that was available that this area had [on Sept. 11] was the snow emergency plan," said Hatch. The new protocol was designed to determine the status of government in Washington, but could be used to make such decisions for civil servants in other cities, he said. Under the new process, the head of OPM will decide whether to close agencies after consulting with the heads of the General Services Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Officials will then notify the White House, Office of Homeland Security, Secret Service and a host of state and local agencies, including the mayor of the District of Columbia and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which runs the Metro subway system. Media outlets will also be tapped to broadcast closure announcements, a step that means officials will not have to personally contact every state and local agency that could possibly be affected by a closure and subsequent evacuation. "What we have emphasized in meeting with local folks and the Washington-area Council of Governments is that information from the media should be taken as official confirmation and official notification, and for folks to not get upset if they don't get a personal call," said Hatch. Certain scenarios may require officials to inform agencies before alerting the media, according to Hatch. "If, for example, there was believed to be a dirty bomb set off in Northwest D.C. near two or three federal buildings, the worst thing that could happen would be to have people running right out into the mess," he said. "So if we could inform the security force of those agencies even a few minutes before that word goes out, they can provide a lockdown of their buildings." Agency heads can still disregard closure announcements under the new protocol, although most followed OPM's lead when the agency released federal employees on Sept. 11. Officials have not used the protocol since it became official in May. In general, the process will only be used in incidents that could affect the entire city, according to Hatch. For example, the Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington was temporarily evacuated in June because of a suspicious package, but officials did not follow the protocol because the episode affected only a single building.