The actual procedure for bringing congressmen to the bunker remains somewhat unclear. Greenbrier is a five hour drive or a one hour flight (the local airport was expanded in 1962) from Washington, so it would have required advance warning of an attack to bring all 535 members of Congress. Almost no members were aware that the bunker existed––only the leadership was ever briefed. Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill recalled, “I never mentioned [the evacuation plan] to anybody. But every time I went down to the Greenbrier I always used to look at the hill and say, ‘Well that’s where we’re supposed to live in the event something happens, and that’s where we’re going to do business, maybe under the tennis courts.’”
There remains some ambiguity on whether congressmen would have been allowed to bring their families to the bunker. O’Neill recalled being told that he could not bring his family, commenting, “I kind of lost interest in it when they told me my wife would not be going with me.” Paul Fritz Bugas, however, maintained that there were plans to expand bunker facilities in order to accommodate families, although it is unclear if or when this project ever occurred.