If you didn't brave the Metro crowds Tuesday en route to the National Mall for the inauguration, you may be interested to see what you missed.
Dionna Gibson, of Mitchellville, Md., sent several videos to NBCWashington.com to show the crowds she faced while trying to exit the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station at about 8 a.m.
Gibson and hundreds of others became stuck on the platform for a while as Metro personnel dealt with several problems. Gibson said the crowd was stopped at the bottom of the escalator first because someone had a medical issue at the top.
Then, Gibson said the escalators broke, causing riders another delay at the bottom even as more riders unloaded from other Metro cars that pulled into the station. She said she was told the problems were due to trash jamming the escalator stairs, causing them to stop, and because of weight capacity issues.
While those at the front of the line to go up the escalators were being updated by officials, those behind were getting hot and cramped, saw an empty staircase and started chanting "Let Us Walk!"
Eventually, the crowds were allowed up the escalator and Metro didn't even bother to have people swipe their fare cards on the way out.
Watch the videos on the left for a first-person view of the Metro chaos.
