They came for the inauguration but got stuck in a tunnel

"I don't believe anybody who was not there fully understands the real potential there was in the line at the purple gate and in the Purple Tunnel of Doom for disaster," said Lulu Chiu, a 23-year-old federal government employee. "It was only through the grace and civility of the people who are only now speaking out about it after the fact that there was not a fatal stampede or disruptive mob. It was only because we were all just happy that [Barack] Obama was going to be our president that kept our spirits up."

Clare Fader, 34, who'd taken the train from Baltimore that morning at 3 a.m. with her husband and two teenage cousins, had scouted the area the day before to make sure she knew where to go.

"We were doing as we were told," Fader said. "At first the police seemed like they had things organized; they checked our tickets and told us to go into the tunnel. We were there for four hours. And they were the only authorities we saw. The most incredible part is that it could have been so dangerous if people had not behaved so beautifully."

When she and her family finally left in frustration, they passed a police station and joked that perhaps if they were arrested, they could watch the inauguration on TV inside. Eventually, they ended up with about 20 strangers crowding around a parked car whose driver had turned up his radio so people could hear.

Late Thursday, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terry Gainer, the Senate's chief law enforcement officer, attended a meeting with the head of the Secret Service and the Capitol police. He also had spoken by phone with the District of Columbia's police chief. They reviewed video of the purple gate taken by a fixed security camera as well as satellite and still photos, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. He disputed much of what eyewitnesses described but admitted the situation was "clumsy."

Gainer said the purple gate opened at 7:33 a.m. and did not close until moments before noon, when the metal detectors had to be removed to accommodate exiting crowds. He also said that people may not have realized how many law enforcement officers were in the crowd because many were not in uniform.

It appears, he said, that the tunnel backup occurred because some people with silver-colored tickets were misdirected to the parade route and had to be redirected to the Mall. Also, President Bush's motorcade blocked movement for a time.