|
MSN News
Wanted at the
White House: A Fence That Says Halt! (With Curb Appeal)
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MICHAEL D. SHEAR
WASHINGTON — Just after a Secret Service official shouted “Go!” and
started a stopwatch, an agent hurtled toward a 10-foot-high fence with
curving rods at the top.
Intended to slow any climber, the rods unexpectedly served as handholds
that allowed the agent to hoist himself over the fence, a variation of
the cast iron barricade at the White House. The feat took under seven
seconds, even less time than it took two intruders to jump the
seven-foot fence surrounding the Executive Mansion last year.
Since fall, the Secret Service has conducted dozens of tests on
possible modifications to the White House fence, recruiting some of the
agency’s best athletes — including tall, short, hefty and thin
volunteers — to serve as pretend fence jumpers at a rural training
ground outside Washington. The agency, officials said, has tweaked and
winnowed the options and should be ready to add extra safety features
to the current fence by this summer, with a newly designed fence to be
installed a year later.
Though improved security was deemed an urgent priority after an
intruder climbed the fence along Pennsylvania Avenue in September and
made his way inside the White House, the fence enhancements have been
many months in the making in large part because of competing
requirements from at least a dozen government agencies and
organizations. This is Washington, after all, and the nation’s most
important residence.
“Do you want it to look like a fortress?” said Thomas E. Luebke, the
secretary of the United States Commission of Fine Arts, one of the
groups reviewing designs of security enhancements at historic buildings
in Washington...
Read the rest of the article at MSN News
|
|
|
|
