WASHINGTON (AP) — Moving from house to house is challenging under the best of circumstances, and even with movers as first rate as the housekeepers and other staff who work in the White House.
But the coronavirus pandemic could be a complicating factor as the executive mansion gets ready for a new president and executes the Inauguration Day ritual of moving out one leader and settling in another.
It’s typically a precision operation: Both moves are usually carried out in about five hours. The clock would normally start ticking when the outgoing and incoming presidents leave the White House together to head to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony. The process would continue during the ceremony and the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
“They basically have the moving trucks waiting outside the White House gates,” said Matt Costello, a historian at the White House Historical Association. “And as soon as the president and president-elect leave, they wave in the moving trucks, and they’ll pack up the outgoing president’s things, and then they’ll unpack all of the new first family’s things.”
Biden’s wife, Jill, said Friday she and the president-elect had spent the past two months preparing to move from their home in Wilmington, Delaware, and they were “packing up our closets this morning.”
But things will unfold a bit differently this year.
President Donald Trump is skipping the inauguration. He’s also leaving town before Biden takes the oath of office, meaning the pair will not be going to the Capitol together. Depending on when Trump heads out, housekeepers and other residence staffers who help move the presidents’ belongings could get a welcome head start on the packing and unpacking.
Inauguration planners have scaled back the traditional roster of events this year because of the pandemic, which is now responsible for nearly 400,000 U.S. deaths. A luncheon for the new president at the Capitol has been scrapped, and the hourslong parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House will be virtual.
That combination of events in the past has kept the new president and first lady out of the White House long enough for the household staff to finish moving in their clothing, furnishings and other personal items.
The pandemic could affect the moving process in other ways.
Some public health experts have said it’s important that the White House take extra precautions to reduce the spread of the largely airborne disease during the busy move.
The White House was the scene of several coronavirus outbreaks that infected dozens of staffers and others, including Trump and his wife, Melania. Biden is at risk because of his age. The 78-year-old is tested regularly for the coronavirus and recently received his final dose of the vaccine.