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DC Journalists Have Escape Plans If Nation’s Capital Is Attacked

HARRY JAFFE

The Washington Post is moving its data center to Tysons Corner in Virginia.

U.S. News has plans to send reporters and editors to hotels in Frederick, Maryland.

The BBC would evacuate its staff to waiting boats on the Potomac River to avoid land-based escape routes that are likely to be jammed.

The New York Times Washington bureau says it hasn’t a clue about what to do.

As the threat of a terrorist attack on Washington occupies the front pages and airwaves, news organizations are trying to figure out how to keep going in a capital city where the air or water might be toxic.

“We’re putting our plan together now,” says U.S. News executive editor Brian Kelly. “We have people here and in New York. If [terrorists] hit both places, we’ll be in Frederick.”

The Washington Post newsroom had been blasé about the prospect of a terrorist attack, according to staffers working on contingency plans, but editors now seem to be in a panic to prepare for a scenario blasted across the paper’s front page all week.

“They’re really taking it seriously,” says a member of the communications team.

The Post has been doing some planning for worst-case scenarios for months. A move of its data center to Tysons Corner is scheduled to be done in June. But the pace picked up Thursday in meetings with top editors such as managing editor Steve Coll. Post Company chair Don Graham also has been involved in daily meetings.

“We have a pretty well-developed plan to keep publishing the newspaper,” Coll says.

According to internal communications, the Post is planning for three levels of trouble:

l. A chemical or biological attack, such as anthrax, in the newsroom.
2. The downtown DC headquarters is uninhabitable but still standing.
3. The Post building is destroyed.

”We are working on plans to keep publishing at each level,” says one editor. “How do we recreate ourselves?”

If the newsroom is out of commission, the foreign desk reorganizes in the Alexandria bureau. The national desk would reorganize in Silver Spring, north of DC in suburban Maryland. Coll calls it “a dispersal strategy.”

The paper is also stocking up on basic survival supplies, like water. “We are preparing for lockdown,” one staff member said.

USA Today is already about 14 miles west of the White House in Tysons Corner, but it has begun to plan for second and third publishing sites.

“We will work out of these offices here as long as possible,” says director of communications Steven Anderson, “but we have offices in Silver Spring where we could publish if necessary.”

USA Today also is setting up a potential publishing site farther away in Winchester, Virginia, 75 miles west of Washington. It already has moved some computers to Shenandoah University there.

The BBC’s plan to evacuate its Washington staff by boat was explained to Post executives. BBC news editor Patrick Howse referred calls about the use of boats to corporate headquarters.

At U.S. News, editors and managers were doing what they could to make sure their building and its ventilation systems were secure.

“We’re trying to reassure people,” says Brian Kelly. “There’s not much more you can do.”

Source: http://washingtonian.com