Results tagged “northeast”

D.C. police say they are investigating a daytime shooting in the 1200 block of H Street NE. An adult female was shot at about 12:54 p.m. at 1275 H Street NE.

Read this fascinating story from The New York Times on the D.C. Fire Department's Engine Company 10, by all accounts the busiest firehouse in the country. These Trinidad firefighters at the "House of Pain" spend most of their time not fighting fires, but rather serving as emergency medical responders.

About 80 percent of the calls handled by Engine Company 10 are medical emergencies because the firehouse serves one of the city’s poorest areas, where few residents have health insurance, doctors’ checkups are rare, and medical problems are left to fester until someone dials 911.

The story also makes the point that due to a trending decrease in the number of fires nationwide, many fire departments rely on these medical calls to keep their firefighters employed. Still, it's hard not to see the underlying truths of the current health-care reform debate: our poorer residents don't get good, regular medical care, and the burden of that broken system ends up in the laps of our emergency responders and emergency rooms.

The Post offers some preliminary details on a sad story out of Northeast: at least five people were shot around 5:30 p.m. near Minnesota Avenue and Grant Street NE yesterday, and no one really seems to know why. Reports state that up to seven people could have been wounded in the scrum, which occurred after a community gathering. All the known wounded individuals were 18 or under, including two who were only 14, but none have life-threatening injuries. Police are still investigating what happened, but it appears as if 150 people gathered after a block party when arguments began between them. Guns were drawn at that point; some witnesses told the Post that up to 15 shots were heard in quick succession. Regardless of the details, it's incredibly discouraging to see such a potentially positive event just crumble into such violence.

Via the Post's Get There blog, Pepco is reporting a major power outage affecting the H Street NE corridor, along with other spots in Northeast D.C. Roughly 1,400 customers are currently affected by the outage, according to Pepco's outage map, with an estimated restoration time currently slated for 5 p.m.

Confession time. We haven't yet watched the second to last episode of the West Wing. Give us a break, it's May sweeps and our DVR is a cruel and demanding mistress right now. Through chatter around the Internet though, we've been able to cull some facts and plot points.