Mrrzy, the odd thing about yesterday was the nature of the announcment to send everyone home.
It was a succint "Everyone is to be out of the building by 1PM"
Never before (25 years) has there been such an announcement.
It is a standard "Due to inclement weather early closure will begin. Managers will inform staff to blah blah blah..."

Perhaps there was a substitute in charge but I was not being alarmist, it really was suspicious.

As for slowing down tensions, I suspect Donald deferred to Vladamir.