I’m sure several of my faithful readers were biting their nails in eager expectation, wondering if I survived my third evacuation from the Capitol! Yes, I am alright, even though I was only 2 blocks from the building and would have been vaporized had it been a real plane heading for the area.
The last time I ran for my life was at the beginning of the summer, when I was about to pray with two staffers and the fire alarms went off. I thought it was another fire drill, but quickly realized it was something different when the Capitol police were shouting “Go west and south, west and south!” and women were leaving their precious Louie Vuitton handbags and Gucci shoes on the steps of the Capitol as they were fleeing for their lives!
The third time was a little over a year ago at the Reagan funeral procession. I was sitting comfortably at 1st and Constitution in primo curbside seating, when the lights, sirens, and screeching tires of Capitol Police cruisers ruined our lovely seats! This time they were shouting, “Run, run, run…a plane is headed toward the Capitol…one minute to impact!” Wow, nothing like the calm collectiveness of uniformed officers to prevent panic. Panic quickly ensued as parents were screaming the names of their children, women (and some men, too…) were screaming for their lives, and streams of people took off running away from the Capitol with CNN, FoxNews (and maybe Al-Jazeera…) went off running to feed their 24-hour news cycles.
Unlike my co-worker, Lisa, I didn’t think I was going to die, I just thought a dirty bomb went off and I would have to find a new line of work! So I grabbed my Nalgene bottle and flip-flops and took off running for about ten blocks. I called my mommy to let her know I was alive and then received a play-by-play of the action. It was quite a day!
Ahh, a day in the life of a Capitol Hill missionary…
-jeremy
