(1) Carol Glover's 2015 death didn't do it. The past 15 months of news about failures during rail emergencies didn't do it. @MetrorailSafety's sharp criticism & many orders didn't do it. Is there anything that will change the culture at @wmata? (more)
(2) My story today on a passenger being the first to call DC 911 about a stranded train & the need for an ambulance, along with the usual poor communications between & by @wmata's ROCC & @OUC_DC is sadly just business as usual. (more) bit.ly/3gkUiHM
(3) It's the rule & not the exception that there'll be serious safety lapses anytime @wmata handles a rail emergency, whether big or small. And it's the same mistakes made over & over again. Is anyone surprised about the news this week? (more)
(4) One thing is clear -- @wmata is terrible at communicating. During emergencies it doesn't get the information to the right people, whether they are inside Metro or outside. (more)
(5) @wmata also doesn't communicate well about emergencies. I've been requesting info -- basic questions -- about 4 incidents since December 13. Not one question has been answered. Zero information. Metro appears to be paying its communications staff not to communicate. (more)
(6) And finally, it appears @wmata's GM doesn't communicate well with the agency's employees. Paul Wiedefeld's messages & orders about critical safety issues just aren't getting through or no one is listening.
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(1) There should be a lot of people screaming "WTF" after reading the @WMATA stories by @tomroussey7news@AdamTuss & @justingeorge on the March 26 debacle at Rhode Island Ave. But a major safety issue is missing from the news reports & apparently in Wiedefeld's memo. (more)
(2) There's no acknowledgment of another major break down in communications between ROCC & @OUC_DC. The inability to relay timely emergency information is a big part of what killed Carol Glover in 2015. It's painfully obvious these failures continue to this day. (more)
(3) Because of poor communication between ROCC & OUC, @dcfireems was first dispatched for an EMS call at R.I. Avenue. Then for people trapped on an elevator. And then for a decoupled train. All of this wrong info evolved over 16 minutes. Why? How does this happen? (more)
(1) 6 years after Carol Glover's death @WMATA & @OUC_DC show, once again, they can't communicate. It took almost a half-hour before the correct assignment was sent for an injured worker inside a tunnel. DC 911 initially dispatched it as a "sick person" at the station. (more)
(2) A supervisor reported the incident at 10:16 am. Within 2 minutes it was clear this was a worker with an injured leg who couldn't walk. It wasn't dispatched by @OUC_DC until 10:28 when Ambulance 14 was sent for a "sick person" at the Fort Totten station. (more)
(3) It's unclear what new information they had, but @OUC_DC sent Engine 14 on the call at 10:30. When Engine 14 arrived at Ft. Totten they initially couldn't find a sick person at the station or anyone who knew anything about an ambulance being needed. (more)
(1) The discussion following today's @MetrorailSafety report about the Feb. 4 L'Enfant Plaza smoke incident was particularly interesting. Chairman Christopher Hart noticed something that caught my attention when I first reported this story. bit.ly/3ksQseM (more)
(2) @wmata's ROCC controller never said "smoke" when sending a train with passengers to do a track inspection, even though smoke was the obvious problem. Acknowledging smoke or fire would have meant stopping rail traffic & emptying the inspection train of passengers. (more)
(3) LISTEN: You'll also hear that instead of telling the various supervisors what was going on via the radio, the controller asked each one to call ROCC by phone. But again, no mention of the word "smoke". (more)
(1) Why did it take DC 911 almost 14-minutes to dispatch @dcfireems to Friday's train decoupling on @wmata's Red Line? @OUC_DC hasn't answered that question, but the dispatch delay fits a pattern that DC's leaders have long ignored. Details here- bit.ly/2GZPxUI (more)
(2) LISTEN: @wmata confirms it notified @OUC_DC at 12:22 pm, within two minutes of learning of the decoupling. Radio traffic from @OpenMHz shows OUC didn't dispatch @dcfireems until 12:36 pm, about 14-minutes later. (more)
(3) WATCH: This dispatch delay occurred a year -- almost to the day -- after the delay & confusion following last year's Farragut West Metro Station collision. @MayorBowser still hasn't answered the question @paulcwagner asked in the days following that incident. (more)
(1) Let's play "OUC's 395/695/295 Roulette"? The game where there are no winners. Whenever DC 911 sends a call to the 15 miles of 395/695/295, the dispatch is almost always wrong. The job of @dcfireems is to guess the real location where help is needed before someone dies.(more)
(2) LISTEN: This afternoon, a frustrated @dcfireems battalion chief was one of 5 units sent to I-295 NB at I-695 in Southeast for a crash. After 17 minutes of back & forth with the @OUC_DC dispatcher the crash was found on I-395N in Southwest. (more)
(3) So, @OUC_DC misses it by 3 miles, dispatches @dcfireems to the wrong quadrant & wrong highway & wastes 17 minutes. What's the big deal? Apparently, not much. This happens multiple times a day & no one in charge cares. (more)
(1) A bizarre DC 911 dispatch Wednesday evening. The people in charge at @OUC_DC should be embarrassed by it. OUC sent a full box alarm for a boat fire that land units would have to travel 4 miles into Virginia to access. OUC didn't coordinate with VA jurisdictions. (more)
(2) LISTEN: The location was the Potomac River at Four Mile Run. Question 1 is why @OUC_DC sent 5 engines & 2 trucks for a reported boat fire in the river? It wasn't at a marina. There are no structures nearby. That alone was a bit strange, But there's much worse. (more)
(3) This part of the Potomac belongs to DC. But access to the western shore, where Four Mile Run is located, can only be reached via water or Virginia roads. The first due from @dcfireems are Engine 13 & Truck 10 from Southwest. They're 5 miles from the reported boat fire. (more)