Tim Elfrink and Brittany Shammas
Washington - By the time President Donald Trump finished speaking to thousands of supporters at Omaha's Eppley Airfield on Tuesday night and jetted away on Air Force One, the temperature had plunged to nearly freezing.
But as long lines of MAGA-clad attendees queued up for buses to take them to distant parking lots, it quickly became clear something was wrong.
The buses, the huge crowd soon learned, couldn't navigate the jammed airport roads. For hours, attendees - including many elderly Trump supporters - stood in the cold, as police scrambled to help those most at-risk get to warmth.
Thirty people needed medical attention over the course of the rally, Omaha police spokesman Michael Pecha told The Washington Post on Wednesday. Seven were taken to local hospitals "with a variety of medical conditions." It was not immediately clear how many of those those were related to the wait outside the venue.
The Trump campaign said it had provided enough buses but traffic on the two-lane road outside the airport was throttled to one direction after the rally, tweeted Aaron Sanderford, a political reporter at the Omaha World-Herald. Samantha Zager, a deputy national press secretary for the campaign, placed the blame on road closures in a statement Wednesday, saying the campaign works to provide "the best guest experience" and "we care about their safety."
"President Trump loves his supporters and was thrilled to visit Omaha last night," she said. "Despite the cold, tens of thousands of people showed up for his rally. Because of the sheer size of the crowd, we deployed 40 shuttle buses instead of the normal 15, but local road closures and resulting congestion caused delays."
The confusion and the freezing weather added to the health risks that accompany every Trump rally during the novel coronavirus pandemic. In Omaha, buses carried about 25 000 people to the airport for the event, Pecha said. Though the campaign checked temperatures and provided masks, many of those who crowded the risers outside the airport didn't wear them, the World-Herald reported.
In the lead-up to the rally, police warned that parking lots were full. With buses taking a half-hour to ferry people more than three miles away to the rally site, hundreds of attendees were late to get inside, reported Iowa Starting Line, a liberal news site.
After Trump's speech, where he promised "we're making that final turn" on covid-19 in a state where positivity rates exceed 20%, per the World-Herald, Trump flew away on Air Force One around 9 p.m. Attendees began lining up for buses to return to their cars.
By nearly 10:30 p.m., though, they were still waiting.
"President Trump took off in Air Force One 1 hr 20 minutes ago, but thousands of his supporters remain stranded on a dark road outside the rally," tweeted CNN's Jeff Zeleny.
Zeleny wrote he watched one Omaha police officer shake his head at the "chaotic cluster" and say, "We need at least 30 more buses."
Soon, officers were radioing in about numerous elderly attendees struggling in the cold, according to Omaha Scanner. Police began shuttling some people to their cars to get them out of the elements.
"As we were walking, I saw at least two @OmahaPolice officers helping people who were getting cold, one elderly lady and a young boy," Sanderford tweeted.
The crowds didn't fully clear the rally site until after 12:30 a.m. - more than 3½ hours after Trump departed - Sanderford reported.
Some local Democrats blamed the president for the scene.
"Supporters of the President were brought in, but buses weren't able to get back to transport people out. It's freezing and snowy in Omaha tonight," tweeted Nebraska Democratic state Senator Megan Hunt. "He truly does not care about you."
During a Wednesday appearance in Delaware, former vice president Joe Biden also took aim at Trump over the lengthy wait in the cold, calling it "an image that captured President Trump's whole approach" to the coronavirus pandemic.
"He gets his photo op, and he gets out," he said. "He leaves everyone else to suffer the consequence of his failure to make a responsible plan. It seems like he just doesn't care much about it. And the longer he's in charge, the more reckless he gets."