The alerts from the U.S. Capitol Police that cropped up in the bottom right-hand corner of her computer screen notified federal employees of a bomb threat at the Health and Human Services building across from Capitol grounds. Evacuated employees were streaming out of the HHS building, and then another building, and then another. She asked her colleagues, especially those who were present during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, if they were OK, if maybe they wanted to go home.

“Across the board, the answer was no – this seems like any other day,” Galbreath said on Wednesday. “Which in my opinion is unequivocally the most jarring aspect of what transpired this morning.”

Since Jan. 6, evacuation orders and violent threats on the streets of Capitol Hill have unfolded with unsettling regularity. Even as many have turned out to be false alarms, the specter of political violence still hangs heavy with each alert, generating reminders of Jan. 6 and sending the city into a constant state of hypervigilance – much like it was in the weeks after 9/11 when residents feared another terrorist attack.

On the other hand, the relative regularity of the threats has also normalized them, staffers said, making them seem to be increasingly just part of life on the Hill. On the other hand, the relative regularity of the threats has also made them seem to be increasingly just part of life on the Hill, staffers said.