Saturday, December 10, 2016

Moving day at the White House - a complex procedure


I had no idea how precisely choreographed the changeover at the White House has to be.

The president elect can't move in a minute before Inauguration Day, which is January 20. "We have to operate virtually from an off-site location and organise all the logistics there," said Bradley Blakeman in a recent interview with Elle Decor. Blakeman was former President George W. Bush's deputy assistant, and helped organise his move into the White House. "It's organised and they've got it done to a science. It's like a military manoeuver."

. . .

The Inauguration Day move-in starts when the sitting President and the First Lady have a traditional morning tea with the President-elect and his wife before heading over to Capitol Hill for the swearing-in.

Once they leave, the 93-person staff shifts into high gear. For security and privacy purposes, no outside help is hired, so the White House operations personnel and housekeeping department handles the move.

A chief usher coordinates the process, giving the White House staff floor plans and photos that show where each items goes (these are logistical issues the president-elect discusses with the chief usher beforehand), according to Slate.com.

The operations personnel does the heavy lifting while a housekeeping detail helps prepare the bedrooms, curators make sure the furnishings and décor are just so, florists worry about bouquet arrangements, and the chefs prepare the post-Inauguration dinner.

At the same time, the staff is also moving the ex-president out. Items get loaded into boxes, which get loaded into vans and then military cargo planes that carry everything to the former president's new residence.

. . .

Bradley Blakeman says that in the span of about six hours, the private residence rooms on the second level of the White House will be stripped of whatever belonged to the Obama family. Where necessary, they will be repainted, and the Trumps' belongings and furniture will be installed.

The plan involves an organisation of labour so precise that no job overlaps and no time is wasted. Staff is divided into who is carrying furniture in, who is carrying it out, who unpacks the incoming boxes and puts things away, and who takes the already-packed boxes out. Gary Walters said there are specific teams assigned to each of two elevators because otherwise things could get backed up.

There's much more at the link, including many photographs of White House decor past and present.  It makes interesting reading.

I wonder if I could borrow that changeover team to help with our next move?  (At taxpayer expense, of course!)  Just six hours to empty a room, repaint it and bring in all-new furniture and belongings?  That'd take me more like six days!




Peter

9 comments:

Tom Hunt said...

This doesn't sound too different from what a normal moving service does. My grandmother hired one for her last move (rather than push it all onto the two of us who were available to help at the time), and they stripped her house entirely in about two sessions of ~3h each. That was only three guys working; spend 10x as much and presumably performance will increase.

I wonder how the security aspects are handled? Is White House security handed over to the SS teams who previously protected the president-elect, or is there a dedicated White House team?

Uncle Lar said...

The description of the process does make me wonder just how it was that the Clintons managed to make off with $200,000 worth of items that weren't their property. Something tells me that all those things left the premises well before the official moving day.

And of course there is the MSM headline: Trump responsible for forcing minority family out of public housing.

drjim said...

Wonder if they'll fumigate the place before the Trumps move in.....

Old NFO said...

It sounds like an odd sort of ballet... And one does wonder who will make the decorating decisions for the Trumps.

DaddyBear said...

And standing in the middle of it is the head usher, stern of countenance and sharp of eye and tongue. Woe be unto he who moves the wrong thing at the wrong time, or decides to use the wrong elevator.

Anonymous said...

Apparently, the Oval Office needs extensive repairs and Trump may not be able use it for a year or so. http://nypost.com/2016/11/17/trump-may-not-be-able-to-work-in-the-oval-office-for-over-a-year/

J Melcher said...

You may be interested in Trump's discussion before Congress some years back about moving UN offices around during renovations to their NYC HQ bldg. On youtube surely

genericviews said...

(At taxpayer expense, of course!)

I would gladly pay more, of your money, to move the Obamas out faster.

Shell said...

And they keep a damned close eye on Air Force One when transporting the newly-ex-President for the last time since LBJ's staff cleaned stripped the aircraft of everything with the Presidential Seal on it and then some. That included the "throne" LBJ had had custom-designed and installed in the conference center. Yep, his people unbolted it and took it and everything else off to his Texas ranch.