no expense is too large when it comes to protecting the president and other royal rulers Original Article Evacuation plan of Capitol at issue Sari Horwitz Washington Post May. 15, 2005 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer is meeting with security experts to determine whether evacuating 35,000 people from Capitol buildings when a small plane violates Washington's restricted airspace is the safest policy amid criticism from experts that it might create even more danger. Gainer said a group of engineers, security experts, social scientists and aeronautical engineers from Texas A&M University has been studying Capitol Hill buildings and terrorist attack scenarios to determine the safest options for those inside the buildings. The work already was under way when a small plane headed toward downtown Washington last Wednesday created a midday crisis. Unable to establish contact with the pilots, and with the plane coming within three miles of the White House, Gainer ordered the evacuation of Capitol buildings. Officials also cleared the White House and the Supreme Court until the plane was forced to land in Frederick, Md. "The evacuation policy is an evolving work in progress," Gainer said in an interview Friday. Gainer said he had to make a complicated, split-second decision to evacuate based on the information he had from the Federal Aviation Administration. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Gainer and other leaders have planned for a variety of worst-case possibilities. Several high-ranking law-enforcement officials and homeland security experts, however, questioned Wednesday's evacuation. They said that if a jet loaded with fuel were nearing the White House or the Capitol, an evacuation would make sense. But in this case, they said, officials ordering the evacuations knew the plane was a Cessna 150. The damage that a small plane, even one packed with explosives, could cause to buildings is minimal, they said. Pentagon officials took that into account in deciding not to clear that complex, according to federal authorities. "Evacuation for a small plane makes no sense based on the amount of damage that plane acting as a missile can do," said David Heyman, director of homeland security programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a non-profit research group.