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MD DC VA RE V1 V2 V3 V4

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24 , 2011

Mostly sunny 86/70 Tomorrow: Thunderstorm 92/70 details, B8

Earthquake jolts D.C. area

NUCLEAR PLANTS:

No damage, but 2 shut down.

TRAFFIC: Streets are

clogged as workers leave early.

MAGNITUDE: 5.8 Va.

temblor shakes East Coast.

washingtonpost.com 75

Exultant rebels
storm Gaddafis
main compound
SYMBOLIC END OF FOUR-DECADE RULE

But on radio, Libyan leader vows to fight on

BY

T HOMAS E RDBRINK
AND L IZ S LY

tripoli, libya Jubilant rebel

BILL O'LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST

fighters overran the seat of power

of the fugitive Libyan leader
Moammar Gaddafi on Tuesday,
swarming into his fortified Bab
al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli
and heralding the symbolic end
of his four-decade rule over Libya.
Gaddafis whereabouts were
unknown, and loyalist forces continued to put up stiff resistance in
scattered areas around the capital. As night fell, his fighters
unleashed volleys of artillery
onto the city and battles raged
near the airport, muting the celebratory mood and sending some
revelers rushing indoors for cover.
At least two major towns as
well as numerous smaller ones
remained under Gaddafis control, and it is clear that more
fighting lies ahead before the
rebels can claim the whole country.
Ever defiant, Gaddafi vowed to
fight on in a late-night address

delivered on a local radio station,

because state television had been
taken over by rebels the day
before. He described the rout of
his forces at Bab al-Aziziya as a
tactical retreat, according to
the Reuters news agency.
But with the breaching of the
walls of the compound from
which Gaddafi ruled unchallenged for most of the past 42
years, his stewardship of Libya
seemed to be over, making him
the third dictator to be toppled
since Arabs across the region
began to rise up against their
rulers in January.
This was also the first outright
regime change of the Arab
Spring. Though people power
forced Egypts Hosni Mubarak
and Tunisias Zine el-Abidine Ben
Ali to step down, their regimes
remained largely intact, with military leaders from the old order
stepping in to oversee the transition to a still-undefined new one.
Never before has the Arab
world witnessed a rebel army
overrun a rulers home and power
libya continued on A9

People flee a building at 15th and K streets NW rattled by the quake, which hit at 1:51 p.m. and was centered 87 miles south of the District.

THE SCENE

BY

Post-9/11,
first thoughts
go to attack
BY

M ARC F ISHER

A rumble, and then the floor

jerked, and Sarah Saadian, a
block from the White House, had
one thought: terrorism.
Konnie Hooton felt the shake
and instantly assumed an attack.
Lacey Boling was in a room
with 25 others. When everything
went jittery, she figured the Metro, several stories below, had
been blown up.
In Washington, 10 years later,
every day is Sept. 12. When the
office ceiling shifts to and fro,
and the pens and cups fall off the
desk, its scary enough. But in a
terror-scarred city, thoughts go
immediately to evil attack rather
than natural disaster.
John Williams was working
construction on a building
across from Lafayette Park when
scene continued on A10

TIMOTHY WILSON/THE WASHINGTON POST

Evacuees fill Freedom Plaza. People who tried to reach out by

cellphone found it difficult as networks quickly became jammed.

Event of rare magnitude

for Virginias shake zone
The commonwealth hasnt seen a
quake like this since 1897, when an
estimated 5.9 temblor struck. A11

A long ride home

Extra safety precautions and early
departures from evacuated offices
made for a difficult commute. A12

Rattled routines
As offices shook, D.C. workers fled for
the sunny, suddenly friendlier streets
some for the rest of the day. C1

J OEL A CHENBACH

A rare, powerful 5.8-magnitude earthquake rattled the eastern third of the United States on
Tuesday afternoon, damaging
older buildings, shutting down
much of the nations capital and
unnerving tens of millions of people from New England to the
Carolinas.
It was not a killer quake, nor
even a particularly injurious one.
But if it didnt add up to a natural
disaster, it was still a startling
geological event, the strongest
Virginia tremor in 114 years, and
it effectively blew up the workday
in Washington.
Any assumption that the region is seismically serene was
corrected at 1:51 p.m. In Boston or
Charleston or Detroit it might
have felt like a sudden case of
vertigo. Closer to the epicenter it
was not so subtle. It began with a
shudder, as if a helicopter were
landing nearby or perhaps someone had turned on a large piece of
machinery. Within a couple of
seconds, it grew into a heaving,
bucking,
no-doubt-about-it
earthquake.
It was over in less than half a
minute. Workers surged out of
earthquake continued on A10

INSIDE THE COMPOUND

Savoring the moment,

and the spoils of war
BY

T HOMAS E RDBRINK

tripoli, libya Moammar

Gaddafi ruled Libya for decades
from behind the high walls and
fantastically well-guarded steel
gates of the Bab al-Aziziya compound. For most Libyans, the
only glimpse inside came during
the meticulously choreographed
rallies that aired on state television.
But on Tuesday, NATO bombs
and rebel bullets conspired to
bring the walls tumbling down
and yank the gates open wide.
The compound that had been the
inner sanctum of Gaddafis regime a forbidden city at the
heart of this seaside capital
became the setting for a rebel
victory party and a prime opportunity to seize the spoils of a
six-month-long civil war.
This is freedom! one man
shouted as he emerged from the
compound and squeezed the trigger of his freshly plundered assault rifle, unleashing fire skyward.

For the Libyans who have been

battling Gaddafi since February,
the conquest of Bab al-Aziziya on
Tuesday marked the sweetest triumph to date. Gaddafi was nowhere to be found, but the most
potent symbols of his reign were
there, and they quickly became
targets for desecration.
A golden bust of the Libyan
leader was hoisted in the air as if
it were a trophy, after the rebels
had taken turns kicking it in the
dust. A rebel truck with an
antiaircraft gun mounted on it
carted off a massive statue of a
spread-winged eagle.
The fight to get inside the
compound had been perilous,
even after its defenses were weakened by precision-guided bombs
dropped from NATO planes.
Earlier in the day, 20-year-old
Tofiq Ghadda had stood aimlessly
under an overpass near the winding entrance to Bab al-Aziziya,
which means splendid gate in
Arabic. The ragtag rebel forces
tripoli continued on A8

In Alzheimers, famed coach faces toughest foe yet

Summitt will continue
to lead Tennessee
basketball team
BY

S ALLY J ENKINS

knoxville, tenn. Pat Summitts doctors are lucky they are

still standing. When the first neurologist told her she had symptoms of early-onset Alzheimers
disease, she almost dropped him
with one punch. When a second
one advised her to retire immediately, she said, Do you have any

idea who youre dealing with?

Three months ago, Summitt,
59, the blaze-eyed, clench-fisted
University of Tennessee womens
basketball coach who has won
more games than any other college coach ever, mens or womens,
visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. seeking an explanation
for a troubling series of memory
lapses over the past year. A woman who was always highly organized had to ask repeatedly what
time a team meeting was scheduled for. She lost her keys three
times a day instead of once, her
son Tyler says. She was late to
practice. On occasion, she simply

stayed in bed.
Are you having trouble with
your memory? friends began
asking, puzzled.
Sometimes I draw blanks,
Summitt finally admitted.
Her first clue that something
was badly wrong came last season, when she drew a blank on
what offensive set to call in the
heat of a game.
I just felt something was different, she says. And at the time I
didnt know what I was dealing
with. Until I went to Mayo, I
couldnt know for sure. But I can
remember trying to coach and
trying to figure out schemes and

whatever and it just wasnt coming to me, like, I would typically

say, Were gonna do this, and run
that. And it probably caused me
to second-guess.
Summitt believed her symptoms were the side effects of a
powerful medication she was taking for rheumatoid arthritis, an
excruciating condition that she
has quietly suffered with since
2006. Instead, when Summitt received her test results from the
Mayo Clinic at the end of May,
they confirmed a shocking worstcase scenario: She showed mild
summitt continued on A14

MARK HUMPHREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

I cant change it, said 59-year-old Pat Summitt, who has won 1,037
games at Tennessee. But I can try to do something about it.

INSIDE

A STONE
OF HOPE
A special section
examines the abiding
lessons delivered by
the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. Section H
Photos by Nikki Kahn

BUSINESS NEWS..............A15
CLASSIFIEDS.....................D6
COMICS..............................C7

Tommy Hilfiger

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Frank Smith

Fashion designer

D.C. congressional delegate

African American Civil War Museum

My parents told me they were

two important people in the
world: JFK and MLK.

If you joined the movement,

you took an almost silent pledge
to be nonviolent.

Dr. King had courage. . . .

Courage is not something you
see in everybody.

EDITORIALS/LETTERS ..... A18

FED PAGE.........................A17
GOING OUT GUIDE ............. C5

KIDSPOST........................C10
LOTTERIES.........................B3
MOVIES..............................C6

OBITUARIES.......................B5
TELEVISION......................C10
WORLD NEWS....................A6

Printed using recycled fiber

SPORTS

THE REGION

Long on yards,
short on points

Virginia primaries

The Redskins have rolled up

plenty of yardage in the
preseason, but touchdowns
have proved elusive. D1

Voters go to the polls to choose

party nominees for Novembers
general election, when the GOP
will try to take complete control
of the General Assembly. B1

OPINIONS

ECONOMY & BUSINESS

David Ignatius: Al-Qaeda,

battered and disoriented. A19
Jeanne McManus on an
earthquakes ability to
unsettle the soul. A19

Bernanke to speak

DAILY CODE

Details, B2

3 9 1 7

The financial world is waiting to

see whether the Fed chairman
offers hints in Jackson Hole of
new steps to boost growth. A15

CONTENT 2011
The Washington Post
Year 134, No. 262