Photo by Chris Bullneck
Attention Ward 1 residents. Next time there’s a fire at your house, please try to have it extinguished quietly. Your neighbors might be annoyed.
A band of Columbia Heights residents is holding meetings in hopes of lowering the sirens on fire engines that barrel in and out of the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services station at 3420 14th Street NW. The station, which is home to Engine Company 11, is apparently quite the nuisance, keeping people up at night and even scaring the children.
That’s according to Maryam Ahranjani, the organizer of two meetings dedicated to addressing the decibel level created by emergency responders responding to emergencies. Ahranjani tells DCist contributor Andrew Wiseman’s New Columbia Heights blog that while she can accept some noise given her home’s proximity to the station, lately, it’s just been out of control.
“We all understand that we live near a firehouse and of course we want our tax dollars to be put to good use, so some level of noise is inevitable,” she tells Wiseman. “However, the noise has recently gone from present to omnipresent and oppressive.”
In particular, Ahranjani would like to stop fire engines from using Monroe Street NW (the station’s cross street) as an east-west thoroughfare. She also says that the intersection of 14th Street and Park Road, which a few years ago was completely reconstructed with new medians, results in excessive traffic that forces fire engines onto Monroe.
Ahranjani invited several D.C. officials to the meetings, including Fire and EMS Chief Kenneth Ellerbe, and representatives from the offices of D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1). In an email to DCist, Ahranjani says she had to cancel yesterday’s meeting due to rain, but another meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Trolley Turnaround Park at 11th and Monroe streets.
The meeting is a production of an online group called QuietDC. And if it seems that complaints over fire engine siren noise is more the bailiwick of sensitive Cleveland Park and not lively Columbia Heights, fear not. QuietDC was founded by Bill Adler, the moderator of the always charming Cleveland Park Yahoo Group.
