The Secrets of Underground Washington DC

When Barack Obama’s publically announced visits to the Biden White House occur, he is driven to the northwest gate at Pennsylvania Avenue and enters at the Front Lawn’s semicircular driveway.

These were well reported visits to promote Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) updates, such as his first visit on April 5, 2022, and September 7, 2023.

He is welcomed (as most dignitaries and heads of state are) into the mansion at the North Portico.

During other visits, such as his June 2023 private lunch with Joe Biden, Obama arrives from a different direction.

If his White House meetings are intended to be secret, he is driven to either:

● to the right as the vehicle enters the Northwest Appointment Gate, then straight to the West Wing Entrance (leading to the Oval Office).

● the East Appointment Gate

● a secret street pathway (under the Treasury Building on the East side of the grounds) that leads under street level, up onto the northeast side of the President’s residence

● the South East entrance gate (via Hamilton Place just south of the Treasury Building)

There is a labyrinth of passageways and rooms that exist beneath 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the extent of which the public really doesn’t know much about.

It wasn’t until the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001, that Americans had more knowledge about the President’s Emergency Operations Center (PEOC).

This is Part 1 of The Secrets of Underground Washington DC

The PEOC was tested during that crisis when President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush were scrambled down into it on that day. Later, decision makers decided it would be safe enough to return up to their bedroom in the White House.

First Lady Laura Bush described going back many floors beneath the White House into the secure shelter after returning to their bedroom that evening.

“I could feel George staring into the darkness beside me. Then I heard a man screaming as he ran, “Mr. President, Mr. President, you’ve got to get up. The White House is under attack.

We jumped up, and I grabbed a robe and stuck my feet into my slippers, but I didn’t stop to put in my contacts. George grabbed Barney; I grabbed Kitty. With Spot trailing behind, we started walking down to the PEOC. George had wanted to take the elevator, but the agents didn’t think it was safe, so we had to descend flight after flight of stairs, to the state floor, then the ground floor, and below, while I held George’s hand because I couldn’t see anything.

My heart was pounding, and all I could do was count stairwell landings, trying to count off in my mind how many more floors we had to go. When we reached the PEOC, I saw the outline of a military sergeant unfolding the ancient hideaway bed and putting on some sheets.

At that moment, another agent ran up to us and said, “Mr. President, it’s one of our own.” The plane was ours.

The PEOC was intended to be a nerve center for the White House.

It’s a small room with a large table. National Security Advisor Condi Rice, Counselor to the President Karen Hughes, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, and Dick and Lynne Cheney were already there, where they had been since the morning. Lynne, whose agents had brought her to the White House just after the first attack, came over and hugged me. Then she said quietly into my ear, “The plane that hit the Pentagon circled the White House first.”

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney learned the hard way that this arrangement was rudimentary at best and far too unprepared for overseeing a national disaster.

As a result, by 2010, part of the North Lawn adjacent to the West Wing of the White House was dug up and barriers were erected around the hole to hide part of a highly secretive $375M construction project from the prying eyes of the very nearby media.

There is no doubt this secrecy brought on its own amount of media scrutiny, with stories popping up everywhere about how Barack Obama was building a mysterious ‘super bunker’ under the White House lawn.

Essentially it was presented to the media as an air conditioning and mechanical systems upgrade.  Most all reported this was part of a project that included a new, massively expanded, PEOC.

It would include the latest communications, computer systems, and environmental technologies that could allow the President and their staff to operate unimpeded for extended periods of time during a crisis.

Ronald Kessler, who wrote about the new construction in his 2018 book, “The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game,” revealed some of what he knew to media:

“After that attack, the national security people recognized that that just is not going to cut it,” Kessler said, referring to the old facility. “That’s just not sufficient.”

“The idea was, before that, that if there were a nuclear attack or something – biological, radiological attack – that the White House staff and the president’s people could be evacuated to some remote location at West Virginia or Pennsylvania,” he continued. “But then they realized after the 9/11 attack that they could never leave Washington, certainly by vehicle, because all the roads were clogged. It would take too long. And even by helicopter, it would take – it would be very risky, given that the country was under attack. So they came up with this scheme to create a totally separate facility, an underground bunker under the North Lawn.”

Sense it’s installation, various leaks from construction, supplier, utilities and tech contractors reveal the PEOC today is a heavily fortified, deeply buried, five-story underground emergency White House office which can also be used for holding the most highly sensitive meetings. 

For years, steel beams and concrete disappeared into the chasm and an army of contractors worked away at what was literally a hole in the ground. But today, by looking at the area, you would have no clue what lies beneath. 

“What it consists of is five stories deep into the ground with its own air supply and food supply,” Kessler noted. “It is sealed off from the aboveground area so that if there were, for example, a nuclear attack, the radiation would not penetrate into this bunker, which has very thick concrete walls and that sort of thing.”

There are at least three tunnels (like the one the Bush’s used on 9-11) under the building, including at least two that leave the mansion entirely.

One leads to the Treasury Building and, eventually, up to an unmarked entrance on H Street.

The other emerges onto the South Lawn, where the president can access the Marine One helicopter if needed.

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IN GOD WE TRUST

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