The Mount Vernon Square-7th St. Convention Center metrorail station was flooding for good part of the overnight hours yesterday, but WMATA didn’t realize what was going on, despite an alarm that went off at central operations control. WMATA is now investigating.

According to the AP, via WJLA/NewsChannel 8, Pepco had somehow set off sprinklers in the station, which automatically triggered an alarm at 1 a.m. Wednesday. But there wasn’t an immediate follow-up by WMATA and by the time transit personnel noticed the station was flooding at 4:30 a.m., the station had to be shut down as the mess was mopped up through the morning rush. Green and Yellow line trains continued to run through the station.

Handicap Accessibility: With the elevators at Metro Center out of commission for repairs, the Posts reminds us how difficult it can be for people with physical disabilities to navigate the transit system. From the Post:

[Michael] LaJuene, who lives in Reston, had followed a carefully crafted plan to circumvent the elevator outage: He took the Orange Line from West Falls Church one extra stop, getting off at Federal Triangle. Then he took a 25-minute shuttle bus ride back to Metro Center. There, he figured, the street-level elevator would take him straight down to the Red Line platform.

Nope. The shuttle should have taken LaJuene to Gallery Place.

(Photo of the Mount Vernon Square-7th St. Convention Center station from Ambivalent Images.)

Filed Under: Ambivalent Images, bus, church, convention, convention center, falls church, Federal Triangle, gallery place, green, metro, Metro Center, mount vernon, mount vernon square, orange line, people, red line, transportation, Vernon Square, Wednesday, West Falls Church, westfallschurch, wmata,