So, uh, yeah. I swear I didn’t mean to help this along any, but it pretty much does seem like the entire city of Washington, D.C. is cursed this week, culminating in today’s massive power outage across the center of the city. Traffic lights are out, five Metro stations are without power — and now we’re hearing that Farragut North and Dupont have been effectively closed to entry. One thing to keep in mind: Pepco is reporting that 12,598 customers are currently without power in the city (as of 9:43 a.m. on their web site). One “customer” is one building downtown. For each outage, that could mean more than 100 people are stuck without AC, internet or elevator access downtown. It’s Friday the 13th, kids. Fasten your seatbelts.
Trinidad Checkpoint Abruptly Ended: D.C. police have decided to end the “Neighborhood Safety Zone” checkpoint in Trinidad all of a sudden — one day after they said they’d be extending it through Sunday. Way to make everyone feel like this thing has been well thought out, guys. There’s also some confusion over the number of vehicles reported to have been turned away at the checkpoint. The MPD are now saying they stopped fewer than 50 of the more than 700 vehicles that tried to pass through the checkpoint since it was in place on Saturday. But on Wednesday they were saying they stopped 50 percent of vehicles. There were no shootings in Trinidad while the checkpoint was in effect, so police are declaring the program a success! Too bad those eight people who were shot the other night weren’t in Trinidad.
Briefly Noted: Eight people have been indicted in an alleged $35 million mortgage foreclosure rescue scam in Greenbelt … Montgomery County Planning Board rejects developer’s proposal to add a 16-story office tower to the Bethesda Metro center … Vienna woman dies in early morning house fire … Police on the shore are bracing for Senior Week.
This Day in DCist: Last year Marion Barry was back in court, and the year before that Georgetown was cracking down on housing code violations.
Photo by philliefan99
