Posted on 02/11/2015 12:31:21 PM PST by Timber Rattler
The National Transportation Safety Board sent Metro three urgent recommendations Wednesday regarding the ventilation of tunnels in response to the fatal smoke incident Jan. 12 in Washington, D.C.
In a letter to interim General Manager Jack Requa, NTSB said Metro should assess its ventilation system, write a procedure for tunnel ventilation and establish ongoing ventilation training for control center staff and emergency responders.
"Procedures for ventilation of smoke in emergencies can be critical, but they vary across systems, and in some systems are inadequate — as we have found in the present WMATA investigation,” acting NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a news release. “Although the investigation is ongoing, WMATA should immediately address these issues to prevent any chance of a recurrence, and other systems should be audited for similar problems.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcwashington.com ...
Put all fedgov commuting employees on unpaid leave until fixed?
My impression of Metro is only that of an occasional visitor.
But, that impression is that the employees,as a group, are not helpful at all to people not familiar with the system. They are not helpful in explaining how the farecards work, or how to calculate how much it costs to go from one station to another. They are very unhelpful when it comes to giving instructions as to where to change trains or which line to take to get to your destination. And as a group, do not communicate well in spoken English.
I’ve ridden many other transit systems in American cities and never had the problems learning where to go or how the system works, as I have had with Metro employees.
Sad to say, my experience leads me to believe that Metro employees are not well trained to handle emergencies. If they have the same lack of knowledge and lack of motivation towards emergencies as they do towards routine everyday matters, I can see how this emergency caused a woman to die and numerous others to suffer smoke injury.
The air in the tunnel is pretty bad. I have to use an inhaler while I wait on the platform even if the wait is less than ten minutes.
I wonder if they meggared those cables and knew the insulation was bad. If so, some exec’s ass is in a sling. They would be low hanging fruit for a smart lawyer.
The cars were filling up with smoke and for 40 minutes, no attempt to evacuate passengers or move the rail cars was made. What was going through the Metro managers’ minds?
Where was Captain Obvious when they started operations?
As I am reading this part of the Metro has been shut down at the Courthouse due to another fire.
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