Photo by Pianoman75

Good morning, D.C., and welcome back to the many, many of you who seemingly spent the weekend out of town. Thanks to a combination of extreme heat and the beginning of Washington’s traditional slow period at the end of the summer, the first weekend in August found those of us who stayed here and managed to venture out of the air conditioning remarking on what a ghost town we had been left with. Buses and Metrorail cars were empty, sidewalks and cafes and bars were all easier to manage, and traffic moved along nicely. It may have been swell to have a break from the hustle and bustle, but the high temperatures brought peril along with it as well. D.C. firefighters fought back three big rowhouse fires on Sunday, one in the 700 block of 3rd Street NE, another in the 1100 block of Columbia Road NW, and a third in the 700 block of Jackson Street NE, and as you might imagine, the grueling work left several of them suffering from heat exhaustion. Thankfully, no serious injuries have been reported in any of the fires.

Metro Employee Killed By Maintenance Equipment: Tragedy has struck WMATA once again this year. A Metro employee died Sunday night after he was struck by a piece of track maintenance equipment between the Dunn Loring and Vienna stations on the Orange Line. The incident occurred at about 9:50 p.m. last night, and it wasn’t totally clear whether the subsequent investigation would affect Orange Line service today. Metro has yet to release the employee’s name; all they’ve said is that he was a 25-year veteran of the transit agency.

Metro Had a Close Call Three Months Before June 22 Crash: The weekend’s big story was the Washington Post’s report on a near miss on the Red Orange Line on March 2, three months before the deadly June 22 accident. This is the key graf: “Despite repeated promises of greater openness about safety, Metro officials did not make public the near miss at the Potomac Avenue Station, and federal investigators said Metro did not tell them about it after the Red Line crash, which killed nine people and injured 80.” After you read the story, read the official statement by Metro Chief Safety Officer Alexa Dupigny-Samuels, which emphasizes that the two incidents are not related — a different part of Metro’s crumbling infrastructure failed in that case, it turns out. Not sure Dupigny-Samuels’s argument has the reassuring quality Metro was going for.

Briefly Noted: Sotomayor takes the oath of office … Wilson Aquatic Center opens … Party in Trinidad to celebrate the life of Trey Joyner … Water main break in Columbia Heights.

This Day in DCist: In 2008, the National Zoo held a contest to name its baby anteater.