As thousands of cars from the east, west and south crept one by one through the intersection of 17th and Constitution on Tuesday evening honking horns and nearly grazing doors, four police officers stood in raincoats with their arms crossed next to a “road closed” sign.
The chaotic scene, with cars lined up for dozens of blocks in all three directions, looked more like a bumper car course than a well-organized detour — a problem that some officials say doesn’t bode well for the city’s evacuation plans which hinge on the corridor.
“I had to yell at officers to get out of their squad cars,” said D.C. Police 1st District Cmdr. Diane Groomes, who received dozens of complaints from commuters who had to exit their vehicles to ask officers directions.
“I told them, ‘You’re going to have to get a little wet.’ Those officers will be dealt with.”
City transportation and police officials decided to close major portions of Constitution and Independence avenues, the main east-west routes to and from Virginia with 50,000 vehicles daily, late Sunday night after record-setting rains cut electricity to traffic signals.
When the water cleared, the closures remained in effect through Wednesday morning, causing gridlock through most of downtown.
“I don’t have enough officers to put at every intersection for 16 blocks if the lights are out,” Groomes said. “The officers we did have there were not perfect. All of us could do better.”
Mayor Anthony Williams acknowledged problems with traffic enforcement, which in some cases was nonexistent in other major downtown corridors.
“Our goal is to have police out at the intersections or some kind of coverage at these intersections,” Williams said. “If looking back now there are instances where there wasn’t coverage then we want to correct that. That cannot be excused.”
Williams said the city deals with a massive influx of commuters who present a logistical nightmare in an emergency.
“I can never promise people that we’re going to have a major flood and a major storm and traffic’s going to move fluidly, because it won’t,” he said.
Michelle Pourciau, director of the D.C. Department of Transportation, said the traffic signal issue should be resolved later this summer when the city — using Homeland Security money — receives an order of 70 generators which can be connected to signal boxes during an outage.
“By the next storm, we should have those,” she said.
