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WASHINGTON (AP) – Getting from house to house is a challenge under the best of circumstances, and even with movers as top-notch as the housekeepers and other staff who work in the White House.
But the coronavirus pandemic could be a complicating factor as the executive mansion prepares for a new president and performs the inauguration day ritual of moving one ruler and settling into another.
This is usually a precision operation: the two movements are usually completed in about five hours. The clock would normally start ticking when the outgoing and incoming Presidents together leave the White House to travel to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony. The process would continue during the ceremony and the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
“They basically have the moving trucks waiting outside the doors of the White House,” said Matt Costello, historian at the White House Historical Association. “And as soon as the president and president-elect leave, they’ll wave in the moving trucks, and they’ll pack the outgoing president’s things, and then they’ll unpack all the things of the new first family.”
Biden’s wife Jill said on Friday that she and the president-elect had spent the past two months preparing to move from their home in Wilmington, Delaware, and that they were “doing our closets this morning” .
But things will turn out a little differently this year.
President Donald Trump, still angry at losing his re-election, skips the nomination. He also leaves town before Biden is sworn in, which means the couple won’t be making their way to Capitol Hill together. Depending on when Trump leaves, the housekeepers and other residence staff who help move Presidents’ belongings might have a welcome head start on packing and unboxing.
Inauguration planners have narrowed down the traditional list of events this year due to the pandemic, which is now responsible for nearly 400,000 deaths in the United States. A luncheon for the new president on Capitol Hill has been canceled, and the hour-long parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House will be virtual.
This combination of events in the past has prevented the new President and First Lady of the White House long enough for house staff to finish moving with their clothes, furniture and other personal items.
The pandemic could affect the displacement process in other ways.
Some public health experts have said it is important for the White House to take extra precautions to reduce the spread of the largely airborne disease during the busy movement.
The White House has been the scene of several coronavirus outbreaks that have infected dozens of employees and others, including Trump and his wife, Melania. Biden is in danger because of his age. The 78-year-old is regularly tested for the coronavirus and recently received his last dose of the vaccine.
Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech with expertise in the airborne transmission of viruses such as the coronavirus, said housekeepers and other staff should be sure to wear headgear as they will of exercise for the five to six hours it usually takes to complete the movement.
“There’s going to be a lot of people in there coming and going with things,” she said. “I would like to make sure that these people are masked, covering their nose and mouth at all times. They are going to spend their time because they are going to make a difference.
Marr also suggested that the Bidens wait a few hours after the move is over to enter the residence.
The White House is normally thoroughly cleaned between families, said Anita McBride, who, as assistant to President George W. Bush, helped coordinate her move out of the mansion in 2009.
“Everything goes through a massive cleanup,” she says. Beds are stripped, mattresses replaced, carpets cleaned or replaced and new coats of paint are applied as needed.
The Chief White House bailiff, who oversees the housekeeping staff, usually coordinates with someone from the new president’s team to find out her preferences so the residence can feel as much at home as possible, with clothes hanging in closets and favorite foods. in the kitchen.
Once the waiting moving vans are waved through increased security and onto the White House grounds, residence staff members divide into groups to perform specific tasks. Some will only handle Trump’s business while others will be responsible for putting the contents of Biden’s boxes to their designated places.
The Chief Bailiff reports to Melania Trump, who visited the White House living quarters in November 2016 when she accompanied Donald Trump to the White House for a post-election meeting with the then President , Barack Obama. President Trump has broken with tradition and has not invited the Bidens to a similar meeting.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Chicago contributed to this report.
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