- The Presidential Emergency Operations Center was first built for FDR during World War II in 1942.
- The PEOC served as a command center in the aftermath of September 11.
- Trump confirmed the construction of a new military complex beneath the planned White House ballroom.
When people see the White House for the first time in person, they often remark that it looks small from the outside.
Matt Costello, spokesperson for the White House Historical Association, told Business Insider that appearances can be deceiving.
"There's a lot more to the White House than meets the eye," he said. "It has six floors, about 55,000 square feet. There are two sub-basements underneath the house that were part of the Truman renovation. And then, of course, you've got the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. So there's a bigger apparatus, so to speak, for the president and their safety and security than you might expect when you first see it."
The existence of a secure facility beneath the White House, known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the PEOC, or simply the "White House bunker," is something of an open secret, inspiring portrayals in film and TV such as "White House Down" and "24." However, details about its protective and operational capabilities remain classified.
The PEOC has undergone various expansions and transformations through different White House renovations, including the ongoing construction of President Donald Trump's new ballroom where the East Wing once stood.
"I would imagine, like many White House spaces, it's evolved and changed, and it's been updated to have the most advanced telecommunication systems, secure lines, everything that a president or vice president or first family or Cabinet members might need in the event of some kind of national catastrophe or emergency," Costello said. "It is considered the safest place to go on the White House grounds."
Here's what we do know about the PEOC.
The first iteration of the Presidential Emergency Operations Center was built in 1942 to protect President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.
From the Oval Office of the White House, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks to the world on February 23, 1942, over one of the most elaborate radio hookups ever prepared for a "fireside chat." In the speech, he warns that the United States, scorning a "turtle policy" of "not sticking our necks out, will carry the war to the enemy." Here, the President is shown as he points to a map to emphasize a point.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a temporary bomb shelter was built in the Treasury Department in 1941.
When Roosevelt expanded the East Wing and added a second story in 1942, a new presidential bomb shelter was built beneath it. It featured a bedroom and bathroom, as well as ventilation masks, food, and communications equipment, all fortified behind concrete walls.
"The best time to construct something underground is when you're building something above ground, especially when it comes to the White House," Costello said.
During these White House renovations, Roosevelt also converted a cloakroom in the East Wing into a movie theater.
The bunker was expanded as part of President Harry Truman's extensive White House renovations from 1948 to 1952.
Several men pose amid partially demolished walls, rubble and steel girders in the lower corridor of the White House, photographed during President Truman's White House Reconstruction, Washington, District of Columbia, February 14, 1950.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
The four-year, $5.7 million renovation was required to reinforce the entire White House structure, which had begun to sag into the ground. The Trumans temporarily moved to Blair House as workers hollowed out the White House.
"When they do the Truman renovation, where they essentially gut the inside of the house and then rebuild it from the inside out with concrete and steel, they really are fortifying the White House to serve as a bomb shelter," Costello said.
As the world entered the age of nuclear weapons, the PEOC was also expanded and updated during this renovation.
"As there are these wider changes around the world, they impact how presidential security is revisited, reassessed, and then adapted as needed," Costello said.
The PEOC largely remained a theoretical precaution until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Vice President Dick Cheney and senior staff responded to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.
National Archives
When the first plane hit, Cheney turned on the news in his office at the White House. After the second plane hit, his lead Secret Service agent burst in to escort him to the PEOC, Cheney said in an interview with the American Enterprise Institute in 2011.
Cheney said the Secret Service agent "put one hand on the back of my belt, one hand on my shoulder," and "literally propelled me out of my office."
Cheney was joined in the PEOC by staff members, including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and Presidential Counselor Karen Hughes. He advised President George W. Bush, who was in Florida at the time, not to return to Washington, DC, marking the first time in US history that the continuity of government operations plan was implemented.
The PEOC served as a command center in the aftermath of the attacks.
Vice President Dick Cheney with senior staff in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on September 11, 2001.
National Archives
Rare photos of the PEOC on September 11 were released by the National Archives in 2014 as part of a Freedom of Information Act request, offering a glimpse inside the top-secret space.
"As far as I'm aware of, I think those are the only publicly released ones, and they were publicly released because they were forced to be released," Costello said of the images.
The photos showed a conference room with phones, video call capabilities, television screens playing news reports, world clocks, and a map of the United States.
Former first lady Laura Bush wrote about her time in the PEOC on September 11 in her White House memoir, "Spoken from the Heart."
President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush talk with Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Tuesday, September 11, 2001, in the President's Emergency Operations Center. Photo by Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library/Getty Images
Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library/Getty Images
"I was hustled inside and downstairs through a pair of big steel doors that closed behind me with a loud hiss, forming an airtight seal," she wrote in "Spoken from the Heart" of her experience on September 11.
"I was now in one of the unfinished subterranean hallways underneath the White House, heading for the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, built for President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. We walked along old tile floors with pipes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of mechanical equipment."
Upon returning to Washington, DC, on September 11, President George W. Bush was brought to the PEOC.
After addressing the nation Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush meets with his National Security Council in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center of the White House. Photo by
Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library/Getty Images
Laura Bush wrote in her memoir that George W. Bush arrived at the PEOC at 7:10 p.m. on September 11.
When the Secret Service suggested that she and her husband spend the night in the secure bunker, Laura Bush wrote that they declined because the foldout bed "looked like it had been installed when FDR was president."
In 2020, President Donald Trump was reportedly rushed to the bunker as demonstrators protested the killing of George Floyd outside the White House.
Police officers hold a perimeter near the White House as demonstrators gather to protest the killing of George Floyd on June 1, 2020 in Washington, DC. - Police fired tear gas outside the White House late Sunday as anti-racism protestors again took to the streets to voice fury at police brutality, and major US cities were put under curfew to suppress rioting.With the Trump administration branding instigators of six nights of rioting as domestic terrorists, there were more confrontations between protestors and police and fresh outbreaks of looting. Local US leaders appealed to citizens to give constructive outlet to their rage over the death of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis, while night-time curfews were imposed in cities including Washington, Los Angeles and Houston. (Photo by Olivier DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
It was widely reported that Trump was taken to the PEOC as a precaution when protesters breached temporary fences outside the White House. Trump told Fox News Radio that he had visited the bunker to inspect it, not to take shelter there.
"I was there for a tiny, short little period of time," Trump said. "They said it would be a good time to go down and take a look because maybe sometime you're going to need it."
When Trump returned to the White House in 2025, he demolished the East Wing and began building a new ballroom, leaving the future of the PEOC below uncertain.
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 22, 2025: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks holding a photos of the new ballroom during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on October 22, 2025.
Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The White House announced that the new ballroom would measure 90,000 square feet, seat around 1,000 people, and serve as a "much-needed and exquisite addition." Trump and other "patriot donors" will fund the $400 million project, the White House said.
Trump confirmed that a "massive" new military complex was under construction beneath the ballroom after the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit to halt the project.
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: Construction cranes are seen, from the Washington Monument, on the site of the former East Wing of the White House on April 17, 2026 in Washington, DC. A federal judge released a revised order on Thursday blocking the Trump administration from above-ground construction work on the proposed White House ballroom. The ruling does make an allowance for above-ground construction in order to cover and protect national security facilities. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The National Trust for Historic Preservation's lawsuit alleged that Trump had no legal authority to demolish the East Wing and replace it with a ballroom.
In March, a federal judge's ruling halted above-ground construction until Congress approves the project, but allowed work related to "the safety and security of the White House" to continue.
Trump then confirmed what the lawsuit had alluded to: a new and improved PEOC was in the works.
"The military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed," he told reporters on board Air Force One on March 29.
He added that the ballroom would essentially function as a "shed" for the secure facility below.
"We have bio defense all over," he told reporters on March 31. "We have secure telecommunications and communications all over. We have bomb shelters that we're building. We have a hospital and very major medical facilities that we're building. We have all of these things, so that's called: I'm allowed to continue building as necessary."
A federal appeals court allowed construction to continue temporarily while it reviews the case more closely, with a formal hearing scheduled for June 5.
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