Happy Day After the Fourth of the July, Washington. We hope you managed to get some sleep last night despite the all-night fireworks marathons taking place in many city neighborhoods. Not that we’re complaining — since the view of the National Mall fireworks from the north was largely obstructed by a giant cloud of smoke, locals putting on their own displays pretty much saved Independence Day for many of us. There will be more clouds in the sky today, though these are of the thunderstorm variety. The high temperature will reach about 80°, lows in the mid-60s, with a big storm with heavy rains predicted for most of the metro area.
Yesterday in Metro Service: While serving more than 430,000 riders Tuesday during the July 4 holiday, Metro also had to deal with rescuing passengers of a Yellow Line train that lost power due to an electrical cable that fell onto the tracks just south of the Van Dorn Street Metrorail station. According to WMATA’s report, Metro was able to evacuate safely all passengers within about 30 minutes of the power outage, which occurred at 3:22 p.m. We’re glad everyone is okay, and can only imagine being stuck on a Metro car with no A/C in yesterday’s heat.
Politicians Seize Holiday for Campaign Gain: The Post has the goods on how area politicians currently running for office spent Independence Day, and how they tried their best to make sure voters knew about it. Vincent Orange spent the day at the parade on a Segway, Linda Cropp handed out bottles of bubbles, Michael Brown gave out M&Ms — though poor Vincent Gray’s plan to give us all Hersheys Kisses was foiled by the heat index. Unconfirmed reports to DCist suggest that Mayor Williams may have been wandering the city asking residents if they’d like to have their picture taken with him, a request quickly followed by him sobbing and begging those who declined to “please, please remember me.”
Briefly Noted: More wealthy Washingtonians are choosing to rent rather than buy; Alexandria’s “Black Widow” falls to Kobayashi in hot dog eating competition; Northwest convenience store owner shot and killed; the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center opening delayed again.
This Day in DCist: We told you all about the District’s Democracy Tree; Hypothesized that the Nats were going to be a very big deal; and lamented the loss of the last working farm inside the Beltway.
Photo by Flickr user La Tur.
