Friday, Feb 9, 2007
On Wednesday, February 7th, President and Mrs. Bush, Secretary Kempthorne, Director Bomar and others visited Shenandoah National Park to announce the National Parks Centennial Initiative and hold roundtable discussions. Superintendent Chas Cartwright remarked that he was pleased to host the event announcing this important initiative.
The park was notified of the visit the previous week and immediately established an incident command team to manage the event. Shenandoah chief ranger Gordon Wissinger served as incident commander. Over 50 employees from all divisions of Shenandoah, as well as 30 employees from 10 other parks in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, North Carolina and Tennessee, worked together with multiple federal, state and local agencies to coordinate the visit. The US Park Police provided Eagle II and mounted units to help secure the area. Other cooperating agencies that provided personnel included the US Marshal Service, Virginia State Police, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Madison, Page and Rappahannock Counties Sheriffs’ Offices, and the Luray, Stanley and Rockingham County Volunteer Rescue Squads. ARAMARK, the park’s concessionaire, and the Shenandoah National Park Association both contributed to the event.
The President and others arrived via Marine One and landed near the middle of the park at Big Meadows around 11:30 a.m. They were escorted to the Byrd Visitor Center where the event was held indoors. Four inches of powdery snow had fallen overnight and temperatures were in the low 20s, with the wind chill reaching -18. Significant snow removal operations were required to maintain the over 20 miles of road and facilities used for the event. Around 15 White House press pool members were flown in to cover the event and two local media outlets, WVIR television out of Charlottesville and the weekly Page News and Courier paper in Luray, were selected by the White House to attend. The visit lasted two hours and all operations were conducted successfully.
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