Obama's Baltimore visit

I just got home (suburb of Baltimore just south of the city) from what would ordinarily be an uneventful quick trip to downtown Baltimore, the Baltimore Convention Center to be exact, but things were a little different today. The president was in town for something and every major artery into the city had been blocked from around 11a to 2:08p.

I had to set up a display booth for a convention this weekend and should have been in and out of the city in less than an hour and if I had not been a little sneaky by using side streets and going the wrong way down one-ways and using jedi powers on one traffic cop to let me across an intersection, then I would never have even made it to the convention center.

I sat in traffic from about 11a to 12:30p before finally making it to the loading dock, then I got stuck again from around 1p - 2:08p with no other sneaky options available to me. The cops said that it was because his motorcade was going a certain way to the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel, I believe north on Howard, then East on Pratt, but I know the traffic was stopped for the east-west traffic running parallel to pratt at least 2 blocks north of Pratt as well as south of Pratt St. The north/south traffic that comes onto pratt was blocked as well, with 95, 295, 395 becoming gridlocked going into the city and empty headed out.

I saw one police helicopter circling right above the downtown area during the gridlock and what I believe to be the aerial motorcade for the president of 5 helicopters flying south at about 2p. Usually there's at least one or two visible cop choppers and one news chopper in the air over Baltimore. I don't understand why the cop choppers would have been grounded today except for the one if their purpose was to keep peace or aid officers on the ground.

Anyone that knows how Baltimore is laid out knows how this effected the traffic, I'm sure that 75% - 95% of all city traffic had come to a stand still for 3 hours. Where i was sitting after I left the convention center, the traffic cops kept turning runners and pedestrians away from going down certain streets.

At about 1:50p i had gotten out to have some small talk with the traffic cop and saw the tail end of the motorcade, but we weren't allowed to move until 2:08p, I know the time b/c I was going to start driving at 2:10p no matter what the cops said.

We were not under arrest or detained, everyone was sitting in their cars or walking around talking to each other, but we weren't allowed to go anywhere. Well I'm all about civil peace, but Obama's schedule isn't any more important to me than mine and I am quite surprised people weren't flipping out about being stuck for 3 hours. I'm sure many businesses lost money from their workers being unavailable to work, deliveries not being made, etc.. and I'm sure some financial transactions were probably messed up by people not making it in time for things to be posted that day, etc..

I haven't seen any news coverage of this gridlock whatsoever.

Also, if anyone knows of any military or government agency exercise in Baltimore today, please enlighten me.