28 of 36 Hydrants O.O.S. at District of Columbia’s 3rd Street Tunnel. Fire Chief Says a Fire Would Likely “Rage Out of Control”.
(Watch 9News Now’s 11:00 p.m. report on dead hydrants in the 3rd Street Tunnel.)
D.C. Fire & EMS Chief Dennis Rubin says he isn’t taking chances. Any fire related emergencies on or near I-395’s 3rd Street Tunnel will get twice the normal amount of fire engines dispatched to the call. That’s because firefighters wrapping up a city-wide inspection of fire hydrants have determined that more than three-quarters of the hydrants along the tunnel are not working.
Acting on a tip from STATter 911, 9News Now reporter Doug Buchanan determined that testing on Sunday showed water did not flow in 28 out of 36 hydrants along the tunnel. Chief Rubin said Tuesday evening about the possibility of a fire in the tunnel: “Without water, the basis to be able to cool a fire, I think we all know that it would rage out of control”.
The tunnel goes underneath the National Mall, one block west of the U.S. Capitol, and connects the Southwest-Southeast Freeway with New York Avenue. The more than one-mile long commuter route also runs below the U.S. Department of Labor and near U.S. District Court and Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters.
At-large D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson said, “The fact that we have so many fire hydrants that are out of service in and around the 3rd Street Tunnel, says how many years of neglect have taken place”.
After hydrants failed during a fire at the Georgetown public library on April 30th, Chief Rubin ordered firefighters to inspect each of the city’s almost ten-thousand hydrants by September. The weekend inspection on the highways was one of the last parts of the summer-long program.
Up until now, D.C. Fire & EMS crews found a failure rate of near 10 percent. Chief Rubin says his department has been working closely with the D.C. Water & Sewer Authority (WASA) to get broken hydrants fixed or replaced. Rubin has also been trying to hammer out a memorandum of understanding that would have WASA fund future inspections.
WASA, a quasi-independent agency, has the responsibility of maintaining hydrants in the Nation’s Capital. As for the ones in the 3rd Street Tunnel, a spokesperson said Tuesday evening that those hydrants don’t even show up in their system as belonging to WASA.
Chief Rubin believes with the completion of the hydrant inspections, “the crisis is over with the exception of the 3rd Street Tunnel”. Rubin said, “I will feel a lot more comfortable when that’s completely repaired and back up”.
(story updated at 11:55 p.m.)
