October 1, 2007
Almost Eight Hours Fighting Fire on Adams Mill Rd.
Firefighters took almost eight hours to put out a four-alarm blaze overnight in Adams Morgan on the 2600 block of Adams Mill Rd., across from Pierce Park. The fire started at about 1:15 a.m., gutting a four-story apartment building and displacing residents of more than 30 units.
The length of time it took to battle the blaze is being blamed on low water pressure in Adams Morgan. WTOP explains that the firefighters originally tapped in to the 8-inch water main in the neighborhood, but that provided water at too low a pressure, so they were forced to run over 2,000 feet of fire hoses to Connecticut Ave., across the Duke Ellington Bridge, to connect to a 20-inch main.
The Post has more on neighbor and Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham's reaction, who has pledged to get answers about whether water pressure in Adams Morgan is dangerously low. They also quote a WASA customer service representative who said pressure on Adams Mill Road is low compared to some other parts of the city because the street is elevated.
UPDATE: Turns out ESPN's Tony Reali, host of Around the Horn, was a resident of the building that burned down.
Top photo by Valentin Puscasu and bottom two by lukekb.
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"Erica Smith, a WASA customer-care associate, said pressure on Adams Mill Road is low compared to some other parts of the city because the street is elevated. ... "That's just the way it is."
Someone should tell Ms. Smith about a new invention from Mesoptamia called the "water tower". It's been used for about 50 centuries to overcome the very problem she has identified. Who knew?
What are the odds that CM Graham will use "low water pressure" as an excuse to hold a press conference on "closing down Adams Morgan?"
The Adams Morgan/Kalorama plateau on the east side of the park generally has poor water pressure, and I'm willing to bet it's because of the same general apathy at WASA that brought us the broken fire hydrants in Georgetown.
When my building looked into installing a fire sprinkler system, we got such a run-around from WASA that we abandoned our plans. The company told us we had to comission an engineering study to analyze the effect our sprinklers would have on THEIR system!!!
From this customer's perspective, the agency is an unbelievably bureaucratic maze of excuses, apathy, and blame-the-customer attitudes. WASA sucks!
Of course, if anyone proposed to build a water tower, it would be condemned as an eyesore by the dumb ass NIMBYs in Adams Morgan and Kalorama.
Question: is the building that was gutted the one that former Congressman and Chandra Levy suspect Gary Condit used to live in? Or was it the one just to the left. What a horrible thing for all the residents.
Back in 1997, I was on the 8th floor of an apartment building at Columbia and Mintwood. There was a time when, every morning, I would have NEGATIVE water pressure. The fixtures in the bathroom were actually SUCKING IN. It turns out that there was water main work going on somewhere nearby, and then construction forced the shut-off of another main.
Adams Morgan is at the top of a hill, so of course by default the water pressure is going to be lower than in other parts of the city. Imagine the neighborhood's reaction to having a water tower installed somewhere near 18th and Columbia...
The building that burned is 2627 Adams Mill. The Gary Condit building is the right of it, 2611 Adams Mill.
"Erica Smith, a WASA customer-care associate, said 'Die whitey, die!'"
isn't anyone going to complain about the fire fighters causing water damage?
How awful for the thirty people/families who are now homeless due to the inexcusable incompetence of WASA. Fire hydrants should always work. There are no excuses for this. Fenty needs to take WASA over like the school system and hire a water system engineer akin to Michelle Rhee to clean house. We live in a 1st world country in a city with a 3rd world water system.
Wait. Is this... does a musician live in that building?
Does anyone know the exact address of the building? I'm trying to locate a friend. All the articles just say the 2600 block.
As posted previously, it's 2627 Adams Mill Rd.
Was it the building with the red tile roof and white stone exterior? Because that building is 2633.
Adams Morgan sits at an elevation of 165 ft. That is well below the 420 ft. elevation of the city's highest point (Fort Reno) and also below places like Columbia Heights and Woodley Park from where water had to be taken to fight the blaze. Recyclist, your logic of it being at the top of a hill means that large parts of NW are under severe threat of this problem as well based on their elevations alone.
I woke up to the smell of smoke from this fire at 4am this morning. It smelled like it was coming from directly above me but I was at 15th and W. Must have been a crazy fire to deal with.
"WASA customer service representative who said pressure on Adams Mill Road is low compared to some other parts of the city because the street is elevated."
We've lived here for a couple years now and it still amazes me the absolute dumb-ass smack that will go unchallenged by anybody else that works for the city. I get that there are stupid people everywhere, but besides DCist, who is calling out these chronic idiots? Surely there are other people on some city payroll somewhere that could "clarify" that enormously dumb sentence into something that doesn't clearly mean "We at WASA are just victims of gravity and still too stupid and/or too lazy to implement basic technology that has existed for hundreds of year to fix this most unbelievably basic thing."
There is really truly NOBODY at WASA that understands how to compensate for varying elevations? Nobody?
The roman aquaducts were invented to solve just this problem that apparently still stumps WASA. (Insert Visigoth joke here.)
Trust me, I live across the street, it was 2627...2633 is the building at the corner this building is one up from the corner of Adams Mill and Ontario Place....
I know, Graham should write a bill banning fires in DC. That'll take care of it.
I have a friend who lived in the building that burned last night. Thankfully, she and everybody else got out alive. But those people should demand to get their city taxes back. We pay the highest income taxes in the nation, and you'd think if there's one thing the city government should be able to do with all that money, it's put out a damn fire without taking 2 hours to run hose across a bridge to a hydrant 1/2-mile away. Absolutely ridiculous!
Imagine the neighborhood's reaction to having a water tower installed somewhere near 18th and Columbia...
Water towers don't always have to be made of metal. If they can't do that, then they should put in a small pumping station. Not having water to fight fires in areas where there are rowhouses and mid-rise residential buildings is unacceptable. I wonder if that WASA spokesperson would have been so flippant if someone had died.
To the person's whose friend lived in the building, if you don't think that the fire department did everything they could you clearly weren't out there watching this unfold last night. Those guys busted their a*ses.
No one said it took 2 hours to run the lines, I believe Alan Etter is quoted as saying they lost two hours because they had to run the lines...huge difference.
If anyone is to blame, it's WASA, which while it has city oversight, it's like DCPS and acts as it's own (rogue) organization.
Equally stunning is WASA's continued insistence that all pipes in the city be replaced. After the local media hyped the 'lead in the pipes' BS a few years back WASA decreed that they were going to dig up quite literally every single street in DC to replace the pipes going into our houses.
Turns out simply changing the chemicals used for treating the water solves the problem.
But no. WASA had made up their mind. So to the tune of tens of millions of dollars they are going forward with this, even if there is virtually no risk of actual lead danger.
I wasn't blaming the firefighters who were on the scene - I'm sure they were doing everything they could. But I'm not sure I understand the practical difference between taking two hours to run the line vs. "losing two hours because they had to run the lines." The point is the fire burned out of control for two unnecessary hours because the city government didn't make sure the firefighters would have the water pressure they'd need to effectively fight a fire there. I'm just saying I'd be extremely pissed if I'd sent thousands of my income and property tax dollars to DC government, and the one time I needed them to actually do something for me in an emergency, this is what I got in return.
NPR was reporting a fire on 18th & Columbia. Does anyone know anything about that?
I know, Graham should write a bill banning fires in DC. That'll take care of it.
Nonsense! Graham is going to ban hydrostatic pressure since it violates the residents civil rights.
I'm sure the 18th & Columbia comment was about the fire on Adams Mill...NPR (WAMU) does not really have that crack of a local news team... but then again, neither does the City Paper... closest media outlet to the fire and they don't post anything on their blog till hours after everyone else....
Pretty sure it was different because they also mentioned the one on Adams Mill. Also, I saw the 42 and 96 buses that usually go down 18th outside my building on 16th & Kalorama.
The buses have been rerouted all day because of street closings for the Adams Mill fire. My colleague has been on the scene all day of the Adams Mill fire and I'm sure if there had been another fire at 18th and Columbia I would have heard. And a more reliable news source than WAMU would have reported it, which a quick check shows no other news sources reporting any other fires at 18th & Columbia.
Seriously, WAMU has one of the worst local news departments in the entire area. I hear countless inaccuracies during their local news breaks in the morning.
But no. WASA had made up their mind. So to the tune of tens of millions of dollars they are going forward with this, even if there is virtually no risk of actual lead danger.
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Hillman. I have my water lead test results pre and post chemical replacement and post lead pipe replacement. The lead after chemical replacement was cut, but not cut to safe standards. Why would you suggest otherwise? My tests showed that the chemical replacement did not solve the problem. My neighbor's original lead test was over 10,000 parts, mine was something like 5000 parts originally. If anyone cares I'll go through my desk tonight and look at the tests, but they were not "legal" until the pipes were replaced. Hillman, can you post your test numbers?
Hillman,
Using the caveat of "virtually" officially erases all credibility of any argument. And it looks like guest 31 proved that.
In short, WASA is a joke.
Not a single person on my block had lead in their water. I don't recall the specific numbers, but WASA told us they were below the safety threshhold levels. Yet we all got our streets and yards torn up anyway. We asked WASA why. They said that's just the way it is. WASA even had the audacity to convince several of our older neighbors to pay a good chunk of money to continue the pipe replacement into their own property.
I have a rental property that tested below the safety levels, and WASA was insisting that they needed to dig up the yard anyway, and destroy two century-old retaining walls and the entire yard on both sides. Estimated cost to repair: $25,000. It's only after I threatened lawsuit that they backed down off of that and used equipment they already had to avoid such damage.
So, yes, we had 'virtually' no actual lead danger. Yet a great deal of money was spent.
I'm not saying no one in the city has lead in their water. For those that have actual unsafe levels something should be done.
But it's one of the great over-hyped stories of the decade, and the decision to replace every single pipe to every single dwelling is huge overkill. It's not necessary, and it tears up literally every single street in town, plus many of the private yards (technically city property but maintained by residents). In large part because of our suck-ass local news, which did all they could to convince us our kids would turn into mutants by being exposed to a single drop of DC water.
DCFist:
Please go back and reread my statement. I didn't say there was no lead anywhere. I said WASA was going forward even in instances where there was virtually no lead danger.
That's a credible statement. Ask any of us that had no lead in our lines yet got our streets and yards torn up anyway.
DC is a third-world shithole. Oy.
On a completely unrelated note, what happened to HillRat? I miss reading HR's comments..... If you're out there, surely you can find something to opine on, no?