DC council member pins water problems on Chief Dennis Rubin. Chief thinks council isn’t giving credit to the great progress in solving woes.
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Read Council Member Phil Mendelson’s opening statement
See previous coverage of the Chain Bridge Road fire here, here, here, here and here.
“I believe FEMS is using the infrastructure issue as a smokescreen for the real problem – poor leadership.” Those harsh words were spoken Friday morning by Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary Chairman Phil Mendelson. Mendelson made the remark as part of his opening statement (at 1:15 on the hearing video from Friday) at a hearing looking into the water supply problems during the July 29 fire that destroyed the mansion of former District of Columbia school board president Peggy Cooper Cafritz.
We had warned you there were likely to be fireworks, as has been the pattern, when DC Fire & EMS Department (FEMS) Chief Dennis Rubin appeared before Mendelson’s committee. The two have butted heads at a number of hearings (September 16 at 2:01 and April 1) and rarely see eye to eye on fire department issues. This comment may have been the most pointed one yet from Mendelson, the man whose committee has oversight of the fire department and its budget.
For his part, Chief Rubin expressed disappointment that Mendelson and two other council members were not acknowledging the tremendous progress the department has made in trying to deal with a water infrastructure that is “falling apart” and includes hydrants dating back to the early 1900s (43:40).
Despite Mendelson’s strong words at the start, the council chairman and the fire chief did not have anything like the sharp exchanges of previous hearings until almost the end of the one-hour and 45-minute session (starting about 1:38:00).
Chief Rubin was joined by Lt. Sean Egan and the leadership of the DC Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) answering questions about the fire on Chain Bridge Road.
It appears the council member did his homework for the hearing. Mendelson was able to recite to Council member Jim Graham a list of hydrants that surrounded the burning home, the gallons-per-minute each hydrant was able to deliver, the size of the mains, and the time fire engines hooked-up to the hydrants (58:45). While much of that information was from a preliminary report into the fire by Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office, Mendelson peppered the panel with questions about other related water supply issues based on his conversations with firefighters and his own knowledge of the system.
In the closing discussion Mendelson talked in detail about an area of low flow hydrants on Massachusetts Avenue, first reported on 9NEWS NOW, and relayed a conversation with a firefighter about a smaller water main near Bolling Air Force Base.
Chief Rubin pointed out that the Navy is in charge of fire protection at Bolling and questioned the reliability of the council member’s information, asking, “Is that something we are going to use on folklore from a firehouse or are we going to work on science?” Rubin continued, “I didn’t take the course on listening to fire station rumor. I guess I need to brush up on that.”
It was then that Mendelson warned Rubin to “be kind” and later chided the chief for too quickly dismissing his line of questioning.
Rubin believes the program set up where the fire department twice yearly checks the operation of the approximately 10,000 hydrants in the city, and WASA checks the water flow, is a model system. Rubin also told Mendelson, “I think we can do knee jerk work or we can do it in a very structured scientific way.”
The council members have been concerned that WASA’s five year plan of refurbishing or replacing all of the city’s hydrants as it tests water flow and color codes the hydrants is too slow.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKeTxeSItMY&hl=en&fs=1&]Mendelson’s criticism also focused on key recommendations of the 2007 report by consultant J. Gordon Routley looking into a large apartment building fire on Adams Mill Road. Mendelson made it clear he thought history repeated itself with the Chain Bridge Road fire, saying that in both fires too many fire engines tapped into a main that was too small and fire officials didn’t know where to go to get a more adequate water supply.
In his opening statement Mendelson said, “At best it seems FEMS personnel were confused, sucking dry the closest hydrants, bypassing good hydrants not too far away, and expending precious resources accessing hydrants almost a mile distant”.
“FEMS has testified that it needed an estimated 1,600 gallons per minute water flow to fight the Cafritz fire. In fact, there was over 3,000 gallons per minute available from four hydrants on or just off Loughboro Road, but two of these hydrants were never tapped, and a third was tapped and then abandoned.”
As STATter911.com reported the day after the Chain Bridge Road blaze, despite it being an issue in the 2007 fire, fire officials still did not have maps from WASA that showed which hydrants were connected to which mains. WASA issued maps to the fire department in December 2007 a month after the Routley report recommendation. According to Mendelson, WASA testified before Mendelson’s committee a year later, with Chief Rubin in the room, that the department had the proper maps. It turns out that the department did not have the necessary maps and data discs and only got them after the Chain Bridge Road fire. Mendelson said, “It was apparent that FEMS had done nothing to obtain the maps for 20 months.”
The fire department has scheduled its battalion chiefs to be part of an October training session put on by WASA to give firegroun
d commanders a better understanding of the water system. Mendelson pointed out that also was a recommendation in the 2007 report.
As for Chief Rubin, he said, “Residents visitors and businesses in the District of Columbia are not interested in finger pointing and the blame game.”
The chief later added, “I think we are making great progress. This was obviously a systemic failure. I am remorseful for it. You just described me as not, but that’s not correct (1:40:25).”
