Barb’s Burblings

Around 1 on Wednesday afternoon, we got an email that there was a “disturbance” outside the building, and that we should stay inside. Naturally, I was intrigued, but it wasn’t until I heard coworkers talking about police cars swarming Georgia Avenue that I got up and headed to the windows on that side of the building.

So there, along with a bunch of coworkers, I watched as the police blocked off initially just the roads right around the Discovery Building…and then the next blocks. We watched as cops did the whole darting from place to place thing, guns held up. (I may have described this as “bad ass.” Because it totally was.) I took all this in and said that there must be someone in the Discovery Building with explosives, probably with hostages. (We were trying to figure out whether the building had been evacuated; we didn’t think so, but it turned out that they had evacuated to the other side of the building.)

And wow. I was right. It’s kind of hard t focus on work when you know that there could be an explosion across the street. But honestly, I never felt like I was in danger. Though it was a bit unnerving when I took the bridge from my building to the parking garage next door; despite the fact that the building I work in lay between us and the Discovery Building, the alley was blocked off, with cops and cop cars throughout. I paused to take this in (and maybe take a picture with my phone) when a voice came from below: “Ma’am! What are you doing? KEEP MOVING!” So I did.

Best part of the story? Because of the craziness, the parking garage wasn’t charging. Yay!