20th January, 2017
Crowds of people Early Friday morning lined up to get inside the security gates along the Mall and U.S. Capitol, with some coming late on Thursday night, to witness the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the U.S.
There is a whole lot of security personnel in town with about 28,000 security officials overseeing roughly 100 square blocks of downtown Washington D.C. from the U.S. Capitol to the White House.
For at least a week, Washington D.C. has looked like a fortress fences and armed guards, which cost tens of millions of dollars, according to Washington Post.
A wide range of help to maintain security has been brought in, including about 3,000 police officers from across the country and 5,000 members of the National Guard.
“We need to pee”, an inauguration goer said after a long wait at security checkpoint.
Some checkpoints were slower to get people through on Friday morning because of troubles with power, authorities at a mobile command centre, said.
But by 7.22 a.m. officials said the problems had been resolved and people were moving through the security checkpoints.
The U.S. Secret Service announced: “All screening checkpoints are open. Please be patient and have a safe #inaug2017 experience.’’
Snipers are expected to be on the roofs to ensure a peaceful change of baton from President Barack Obama, the outgoing president to Trump at about noon (6 p.m. Nigerian time), as threats have heightened around the inauguration.
Brian Ebert, the Secret Service special agent in charge of the Washington field office, appealed to the inauguration goers to “pack some patience” along to the inauguration venue.
There are lots of security checkpoints and residents are expected to “leave behind their weapons, ammunition, balloons and selfie-sticks”.