Even if only 1 million show up on Inauguration Day near the National Mall, sanitation experts said there simply won’t be enough toilets.
Several buildings will be open for those avoiding the bitter weather Tuesday in Washington D.C.:
» Old Post Office Pavilion, 5 a.m. to 7 p.m., 12th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW
» Ronald Reagan Building, open 24 hours, 13th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW
» Federal Aviation Administration buildings, 10A and 10b, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Eighth and Independence Avenue SW
» Ford House Office Building, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Third and D streets SW
» Seven Smithsonian museums, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., National Mall. The American History Museum and the Smithsonian Castle will open at 8 a.m.
» Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Fourth and Independence Avenue SE
» Lutheran Church of the Reformation, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 212 East Capitol St. NE
— Kaitlyn Funk
“Basically, you’ll have sewage rolling down the streets,” said Roy Morris, a sales manager with Maryland’s United Site Services, which provides about half of the Mall’s portable toilets.
Morris, only half-joking about the sewage, said the 7,500 regular portable units and 1,200 handicapped accessible units are far fewer than the 13,000 needed.
“They’ve got a 60-gallon holding capacity. Typically, that’ll be filled by 75 people in a six-hour period,” he said.
According to Morris’ formula, a crowd of 1.5 million would produce 1.2 million gallons of waste. The portable toilets in place have a capacity of about 522,000 gallons.
Despite the warnings, President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural organizers said the toilet count is adequate and the Mall’s natural beauty will not be sullied.
November’s wild-eyed estimates that 5 million would be in the District for Tuesday’s presidential inauguration likely won’t prove true, but may have helped to generate the level of preparation at least to its current level.
Politicians and planners “have been doing everything in their power to get the highest estimates and play those out,” said Maggie Daniels, a professor of tourism and event management at George Mason University.
“You prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.”
But if, as hoped, the entire historic affair goes off without a hitch, Daniels said all costs and crowd estimates will have been worth it.
“This is not unlike the Olympic games, but abbreviated,” she said. “We have to really impress a lot of people in a short period of time.”
