Interesting but disturbing - heck, I hadn't even heard about this...
surprisingly: These situations are not unknown. In fact, they are rather common on Metro. Safety reports show that Metro had 86 incidents of "smoke and fire" in 2013 and 85 more between January and the end of August 2014.
http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/observation-tower/archive/2015/01/16/welcome-to-the-district-of-catastrophe.aspx
Wow, thanks for sharing ted kelly . If there is a high likelihood of occurrence, which it appears there is ... there certainly should be a robust and proportionate response plan to address it. 86 smoke incidents in a year seem like a lot.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, there are still unknowns about this latest incident which make the author's criticism premature. A common misconception - perpetuated by this article - is that just because victims are only 800 feet from where the first responders have assembled, that doesn't mean that the responder's should race into the smoky tunnel, lest the 100 victims turn into 110, etc. In any case, the emergency response may have gone as well as expected but it seems clear that the communication about that response are sorely lacking! Thanks again for posting this Ted!
I always try to account for some bias in any "pop" media articles. What bothers me the most is that I hadn't heard a word about this in the news. I think a "fan" magazine is an odd place to hear about things like this.
ReplyDeleteGreat point and very true Ted ... I saw the story on the morning news, NBC I think but didn't follow it/notice it after that. Upon reflection, yep, once would think this would be better covered considering the place where it occurred.
ReplyDeleteGreat read
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