Being a citizen of northern VA, just 3 miles south of DC, I've wondered many times if it's possible/likely that the DC area could ever fall into anarchy.  I've also had the discussion with a few friends, and some of them brought up an idea that DC wouldn't fall into anarchy because of the high density of LEO/military presence.

What do you all think?  I still haven't formed a plan on whether I'd bug-out at the sight of a break-down, or stick it out till the initial shock wore off and I had a better chance on bugging out.  If I could somehow imagine how things would go down near me I could make a better plan.

Thanks!

Yeah the hammer would drop pretty quick , even though DC is a shit hole  , though the biggest crocks and criminals there walk marble halls

Seize the bridges and hold them at the river.

I used to be stationed there.  As nice as it is, how could you tell when it shifted from status quo  to total anarchy?

I can't tell if you were being sarcastic or not, but...

By anarchy I mean looting, riots, people having to defend themselves/their property with force, etc.  I guess I imagine the scenes from the "After Armageddon" show I watched.

Let me just say that after living in NOVA for 23 years, I'm very glad to be living 400 miles away.

So, pretty much the way it is now, but with live TV coverage?

ditto, I havent been in DC in 20 years but,,,when did it get better to the the point a change would be called anarchy?

It looked like a failed third world government center then, trash barrel fires, street corner pass the bottle circle jerks, naked kids playing in the street and some local thug with $3000 shiny rims on a $1200 car held together by 2 or 3 brands of "bondo"

When I was there for the Restoring Honor rally, I didn't spend too much time in the bad neighborhoods, but what I did notice was that the municipal police had some really unprofessional looking types, and the mid/upper class patrons of downtown are really out of touch with the rest of the country.

Just like any other large city filled with "diversity".  Don't be there when the checks stop rolling in.

lived there  86-94.....have to agree, that place is on the edge allready

I've lived on either side of DC for about 30 years.You really only have to worry about SE DC...well, add in NE & NW. Any trouble is likely to meet resistance around the clustered Mall and federal buildings. While metro police are about as useless as cops get, there are plenty of other uniformed and non-uniformed police agencies to hold the core. Virginia is lucky enough to only have to cover a five(?) bridges.

It's like Moscow.... looks pretty on the outside. Has a ton of memorials and monuments. Has a bunch of criminals ruling with an iron fist and has a local government that's about as useless as the UN is. DC does nothing without FED democrat approval.



If the locals got uppity and decided to remodel. The FED would crack down like a ton of bricks on a snail. They don't give a shit until the locals would damage their homes and investments. If the locals stayed in their ghettos then the FED doesn't give a shit. If they breach the walls and moved towards their money then they'll send in every FED Agency they could.



National Park Police

FBI

DEA

Capital Police

Supreme Court Police

FAA

etc...



There are something like thirty different agencies operating there. All have their shock troops there.



DC is a place of shame in my opinion. I love visiting the place for histrocial reasons and seeing the sights but I hate the politics that rule it and how much of a police state DC is.

I believe the number is 22.

That is, 22 separate law enforcement agencies that have jurisdiction in D.C.
Regular cops, Park Police, Capitol Police, uniform Secret Service, etc. on down to Metro, housing and smaller federal agencies.
Commit a crime on the Mall, that's Park Police but step into the street and it's the regular cops.
Walk up onto the Capitol grounds and it's a separate jurisdiction.

Could never happen.

Yup.  

In addition to EVERY SINGLE agency having it's own SWAT team, historically if you look back to times of civil unrest in the area, you'll see how quickly the machine gun positions go up on public streets.  I have a picture somewhere of the race riots back in the 60's, where the VARNG set up machine gun positions around Interarms in Old Town Alexandria.

Same thing on 9/11.  The Air Force SP's closed Old Alex Ferry rd on the backside of Andrews and sandbagged themselves some pretty vicious emplacements.

Remember Katrina; when the S really HTF, many of the police will desert to protect their families, and whatever remains will be the personal guards of the rulers.

Do you have some place to "Bug Out" to?

TEOTWAWKI: The mob will be hungry, and, eventually, they will be ambushed and killed by other average people like yourselves, but you probably want to be a bit further from their start than their finish.

The emergency response to such a mess in DC will be to fall back and protect the people who pay for the protection.  Most neighborhoods will be allowed to burn.  Government will first and foremost protect itself.  

Most of that LEO presence seems to be for 'executive protection', not to maintain order in the streets.  Seems like every agency is getting into the game......even the Dept. of Education.   Seems to be a realization that the traditional approach of  maintaining general order in order to protect the executive corps is getting untenable.

number of cops seen directing traffic on 9-11-2001?

As rumors that a Hispanic man was shot and killed while handcuffed spread throughout the neighborhood[3], crowds of youths, most in their teens and twenties, formed and started to attack the police. Around 400 youths fought running street battles with the police for several hours, late into the night. Police cars were torched and several stores looted.[4] The District’s mayor, Sharon Pratt Dixon told the police to hold back from making arrests for looting because she feared it would only antagonize the crowd and lead to more violence.[citation needed] District law enforcement officials also had problems massing enough riot police to control the riot because of a lack of communication equipment. These problems led to an uncoordinated response when the rioting first began.[citation needed] Because of this poor initial response, several police officers were left to fend for themselves as the mob attacked them and had to wait to be rescued by other officers.[citation needed] The violence continued until early in the morning, when the crowds began to break up because of rain.

Hoping to avoid a second night of rioting, city officials met with Hispanic community leaders the next day. But the meeting did little to stop the violence.[5] By evening, even with 1,000 riot police on the streets, the rioting started again. Police fought with as many as 600 black and Hispanic youths, some with bandanas over their faces.[5] The rioters pushed dumpsters into the streets to block traffic, looted and damaged stores, and attacked police vehicles and city transit buses, setting several on fire. Several instances of gunfire were also reported. The police responded by firing tear gas grenades at the groups of rioting youths and by making arrests. When it was obvious that the disturbance was not going to end, the Mayor declared a State of Emergency and put a curfew into effect. The curfew covered a four square mile area of the city and included not only the Mount Pleasant area but also the surrounding areas of Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights.[5]

that was a fun week in DC in 1991

Wait and see if we get snowstorms again this year

1968 Washington, D.C. riots - had the city pretty well locked in.

John Allen Muhammad/Lee Boyd Malvo (aka DC sniper) had the city gripped in fear in the 90's

PS:  If your 3 miles from DC, your Bug Out routes are 66, 495, 95S, some back roads, game over unless you've left early.  Next 4th of July watch the traffic try and get out of DC after the fireworks.

Been in the general area my whole life.

Don't kid yourself,  DC can locked down very fast,   faster than most other cities.

SilentType was right on the mark:
"D.C. is federal district and probably has in place some of the most prepared and ready elements to respond to various stages of disasters due to the VIPs and highly important agencies.
If some civil disobedience broke out in D.C. and the police couldn't control it the Feds would tighten the reigns very quickly."


Let me dispell some myths posed in this thread:

-Don't kid yourself,  there are gun emplacements in key parts of the city, 24x7,  you just don't see them.
example: During Reagan's inauguration there were US Navy Stinger teams just below him,  in the portico area of the Capital.  (can't imagine what's happening these days?)
-There is more active US military within 60 minutes of DC than anywhere else in our country.  Don't need a Governor to call in National Guard.  The Quantico Marine base is just to the South in VA.   Andrew's Air Force base in MD....and so on.   (trivia:  Andrew's has a landing strip long enough to land the Space Shuttle.)
-There are not daily riots and looting in DC.   DC is not an industrial town, there are bad sections, but they don't compare in size and number to places like LA, NY or Detroit.  Most gun crime in DC is drug-on-drug stuff.   Bad guys shooting other bad guys.
-The LEO and military presence in DC is not soley for the executive branch,  it's there to protect our Federal Government in its entirety.  The goal is to be able to keep our government operating smoothly and without interruption.
-The DC metro police (city police) handle the non-federal portion of Law Enforcement,  however, the Feds (all the agencies) have them outnumbered when you do the math.
-The city is NOT on the edge.   A small portion of SE DC, basically certain neighborhoods are crappy,  but nothing like Oakland CA, East LA, Detroit or Newark, NJ and NYC.  Been to all of them.
-DC is not a large city,  it's the greater suburbs that give it it's numbers and girth,  but MD and VA are separate entities, we have no claim to anything associated with DC.

There are approx. 43,000 Welfare recipients in DC,  total.     California has 1 million,  many in LA and Oakland.
Michigan has over 200,000 Welfare recipients.
By comparison,  Connecticut has about the same amount of welfare recipients as DC.
Stats cited are here––> http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_wel_cas_tot_rec-economy-welfare-caseloads-total-recipients

DC is not a big place.    600,000 residents.    27th largest for US cities.    61 square miles (of land).   small.

By comparison,  Houston, TX has  2.2 million city residents.  4th largest in the US.

DC is not my favorite place,  lot's of traffic,  lots of politicians and lawyers and some isolated shitty bad areas.
But as far as a mega-population of looters-gone-wild,  
they would be much more easily controllable than places like Detroit, LA, Oakland, NYC, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta...etc.

There's no doubt that in the bad areas of DC they might burn down a few city blocks,
but by no means are there the numbers of people to turn the city into a post-apocalyptic zombie nightmare.  Not as long as LEO are still on duty.
LEO vacate?  Well,  it's pretty much no different than any other city.

The ratio of LEO/Military to potential "bad guys" is probably the best in the civilized world.

Don't sweat greater-DC being the scene of total entitlement class anarchy.    

The thing for DC,  the biggest worry,  by far,   is as a terror target.

I used to work in that zoo. Never again.

The dcpd when I was there was "literally" staffed with gang members.........no kidding......good guys were the bad guys.....hoped they had weeded them out by now

Can't say I remember that as I traveled that road quite often.

i checked them all out.  

ar-jedi

I agree with Miami JBT.



If the chaos stayed in the ghetto anarchy would reign, because local PD there suck.



If the chaos reached down Pennsylvania Avenue or any nice area with money the hammer would come down PDQ.

Just remember most of the federal agencies (in the district as opposed to the metro area) are within 4 blocks or so north and south of the mall, and west of the capital area.  Those agencies with Campus enviroments to protect are pretty well organized and have SWAT like teams and interoperable comms.  I don't know as much about the guard the building police,  but DC got 2 serious wake up calls of working together- the DC sniper shootings and then 9/11

I'd hate to be a resident of DC outside this protected area, particularly in the slum area- the DC PD isn't very impressive, but they are showing consistant improvement.  I can imagine the federal government would look to protect it's own living in the DC area (in a general sense).  Plus most of the contract armed guard services that guard everybody from FEMA  to ATF employee people living in said areas.  There is a huge cost difference between a GS-7 /9 police position and a 40 hr contract armed guard, and not many agencies use feds for building security.  The Supreme Court, FBI and Library of Congress police are the only exceptions I can think of (Capital police, USSS uniformed division, CIA and NSA assert their authority outside their perimeter, which requires sworn officers I would think).

In addition to all the police, you've also got unteen thosand armed inspector generals, staff positions from almost every LE Agency,  and  almost 200,000 Active duty military servicemen with 250 miles (Norfolk, Elizabeth City, NC, Pope, Seymour Johnson, Boiling, McGuire, Dover Andrews AFBs, Forts Eustis, detrick, Ritchie, AP Hil, Bragg, Dix, Meade, Pickett, Belvor, McNair,  James River, Camp Pendelton, NAS Oceana and Pax River, Anapolis, Aberdeen, Quantico, Cherry Point.  Bet I'm missing another dozen smaller bases.  But the 200,000 figure is official.

I'm currently stuck here at Walter Reed until I finish up with my med board and I hate it. I've been here in NOVA for over 7 years and it was at least tolerable when I lived 50-60 miles away the capitol. Traffic is horrible, all sorts of stupid protesters, stupid tourists... And now I'm stuck right on the edge of the DC ghetto. Once you go past Florida Ave northwest towards MD, it's lock the doors and roll the windows up time. I've seen vehicles being carjacked in the middle of the day, that's how bad it can be in this area.

Security at most of the non-big wig installations is pretty worthless: Myer, McNair, Belvoir, Walter Reed, Meade, are all staffed by Wackenhut Security. They're so professional that two of their employees had a point blank shootout here at WRAMC about 3-4 years ago. Both emptied their clips and neither managed to hit the other. Half the time the person working the gate is someone's 40-year-old mom who'd have a hard time yelling at you, much less drawing and firing at someone.

And while there are large amount of troops very close to DC, ammunition is a large problem. We have 5-6 bunkers on Myer and we don't have a whole lot of ammunition stored in them; mainly blanks for funerals in ANC and for the Presidential Salute Battery. All the ammo we use is two hours away at AP Hill (which has no resident units, so don't add that base into any sort of "force" calculation). While we could theoretically mobilize almost 2000 soldiers, our ability to stay in the fight would be very short.

Basically, what everyone else has been saying is correct: if something happened in DC, all forces are going to be forming a perimeter around the central DC area to protect the government buildings. Anything outside of that cordon will probably be SOL.

Wackenhut staff are issued Garands?

ar-jedi

To sum it up,  slums are slums,   no different anywhere in any city, except to re-inforce that DC's slums might be unsavory areas,
 but they aren't the size, depth, and population of many other cities.

I think the general consensus is let them burn their homes/neighborhoods, in a word  "containment".     WTF, burn your own neighborhoods??

The OP's question,  would the city go into "total anarchy"  ,   the short answer is "no".

But if you are working in any city,  and riots break out,  well,  if you have to use transit or roadways that go through those areas,
you'll have a challenge.     Knowing the proper/safe routes out of dodge will be paramount.

Anyone who works in any downtown area that hasn't established at least 3 routes for egress is planning to fail should a disaster occur.

Yup.  People forget that in addition to the Marines from Quantico, 8th and I, and Henderson Hall; there is the Old Guard at Myer, USAF and HMX1 at Bolling, USN at the Navy yard and the DC National guard (which I believe the President can use at his discretion), .  Every single Federal and DC LEO could leave DC at the first sign of trouble, and there still would be such a huge military contingent in the city that things wouldn't get out of hand.  

SE might burn, but I guarantee you that the Federal section of DC would be locked down like FT Knox.

DC is full of shit heads and criminals, however there are things in DC that are important to this country that don't belong to the current residents.  The buildings, the archives, the smithsonian, our founding documents, etc; belong to Americans past present and future........ they are worth protecting at all costs.

My shop was a block up from Woodyard rd, I couldn't get to work on 9/11 because Old Alex was blocked.  It was open on the 12th, but if you were there on the 11th you would have seen it.

I suspect that there are parts of DC that would burn, but there are plenty of troops (both police and military) to protect the things that actually matter.

The basic philosophy of riot control is to contain it to an area no one in power really cares about anyway. Let them burn down neighborhoods that burning down would be an improvement.

Maybe they carry M1896 Mauser Pistols of Roth Steyr M1907 Pistols. They're both feed by stripper clips. Maybe the guards emptied their stripper clips reloading their pistols.



 

And the other is controlled by the Navy and is longer!  

And please call it by it's proper name, Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility Washington.

K.

The US Army's 3rd Infantry Regiment that performs all of the ceremonial tasks such as guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns, State Funerals, Military Funerals at Arlington, etc. is also a fully functioning Infantry Regiment that is to support any civil authorities in the event of and emergency or disaster in the National Capitol. They are in addition to the numerous Federal Agencies that operate in the District.

If Civil Unrest were to take place in the District they would no doubt lockdown the areas around the National Mall, Pentagon, etc. very quickly.

"Don't sweat greater-DC being the scene of total entitlement class anarchy.

The thing for DC, the biggest worry, by far, is as a terror target. "

This is my top 2 concerns for prepping. This and weather. I'm about 80 miles NW of DC.
This last winter we were basically stuck for 3 - 5 days. I was well prepared for this.
I've since bought a set of chains for my 4x4 truck, this will allow even better mobility.

My biggest worry is that WHEN DC gets hit the people there and surrounding area will flock this way. I'll be
prepared but they won't be. Standing joke with Jefferson county, WV LEO/fire/ems is "Bridge Watch" Berkeley
county needs to do the same.

Thanks for all the great input, guys!  I guess I'll relax a little as far as concerns of riots and whatnot.  I still need to work on my preps to hold-out here for a while if need be.

Who ever asked about my bug-out location- I don't really have one.  Ideally, I'd go to South Dakota where my folks are VERY prepared, sparse population, living off the land, etc, but at 1400 miles, I hardly consider it an option unless I can load 70 gal of fuel in my rig (to be able to avoid gas stations).  As far as local, the wife's family has a mountain cabin in WV that we could head for, but we wouldn't expect to find any food there.