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Report: Radio communication was ‘nonexistent’ in smoke-filled Metro tunnel Report: Radio communication was nonexistent in smoke-filled Metro tunnel
(about 3 hours later)
D.C. firefighters had to use cellphones after their radios stopped working during the rescue of passengers aboard a stranded train in a smoke-filled tunnel in downtown Washington this week, and Metro officials had been warned four days earlier that radio communications in the tunnel area were a problem. D.C. firefighters had to resort to cellphones after their radios stopped working during the rescue of passengers aboard a stranded train in a smoke-filled tunnel in downtown Washington on Monday, and Metro officials had known for at least four days prior that emergency radios were not working properly in the tunnels.
The difficulty that D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services personnel faced in responding to the first fatal Metro incident in more than five years was detailed Saturday in a report released by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser. The full scope of the chaos that D.C. firefighters faced during the worst Metro calamity in six years — they were blinded by smoke and hamstrung by faulty equipment, with no way to communicate and no warning from Metro about the severity of the situation they were entering — came into fuller view Saturday with the release of the District’s first accounting of its response.
The report was the latest in a series of piece-meal explanations for why passengers waited at least 30 minutes to be rescued — a time frame that passengers said felt interminable, and proved fatal for Carol Glover, 61, a federal contractor and grandmother from Alexandria. For Metro riders and countless others unsettled by the tragedy, the report was the latest in a series of piecemeal and exasperating explanations of why scores of passengers waited at least 30 minutes to be rescued from the train. The incident Monday afternoon near L’Enfant Plaza Metro station ended with the hospitalization of 84 passengers and the death of Carol Glover, 61, a federal contractor and grandmother from Alexandria, Va.
The District’s report confirms a growing body of evidence that Metro’s operator, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, did not alert emergency responders to the existence of the stopped train full of passengers until firefighters were on the scene. In the realm of assigning responsibility, however, the report appeared to mark a tipping point, addressing some of the biggest questions regarding firefighters’ response time and raising new ones about Metro’s earnestness in following the “safety culture” Metro officials pledged after the fatal 2009 Red Line disaster that killed eight passengers and a train operator .
The District’s account from its firefighters also revealed that despite billions of dollars in upgrades and a “culture of safety” adopted by Metro since its 2009 Red Line disaster that a critical piece of infrastructure — emergency communications — remains a detriment to passenger safety. The District’s report, based largely on accounts from firefighters and 911 call logs, revealed that despite hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades and new training and safety protocols at the transit agency, a critical piece of infrastructure — emergency communications — remains a significant problem.
The first firefighter to reach the stopped train said radio communications were “nonexistent” in the tunnel and that reinforcements did not arrive until about 100 passengers had helped self-evacuate as those firefighters could not communicate the situation, according to the report. As D.C. firefighters dispatched trucks and ambulances — and later, as they descended into L’Enfant Plaza station — first responders were not told by Metro for 20 minutes that a train filled with passengers was stranded in a tunnel, the city’s report said.
The radio issue is far from a new one. Metro has a well-documented history of problems with communications among first responders in the tunnels for more than a decade. Its own transit police for a time had to carry two radios because of spotty coverage on competing systems. The lack of working signals has also been no mystery to riders whose cell phone signals come and go during passage between underground stops. Once firefighters were in the station, they were informed of that fact by an officer in the Metro Transit Police, but the first rescue crew could not radio to a battalion chief aboveground for backup.
Still a frantic 911 call from a passenger on the stranded train was among the first indications for emergency responders that a train full of passengers was stuck in the smoky tunnel. Had either of two emergency calls placed minutes earlier by Metro, which focused on smoke in the Metro station, also mentioned the possibility of a train with passengers, city fire protocol would have called for a greater response, with at least 25 firefighters descending to the tracks.
The report shows that firefighters were only notified of the train by transit police once they reached the lower level of the Metro station. As it was, there were just five firefighters, and one had to hold back to try to get a radio signal.
In fact, it was as firefighters entered the Metro station and began to lose radio signals, that the 911 caller described the severity aboard. Asked Saturday whether Metro’s operator, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, was at fault in Glover’s death, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said it was premature to draw a conclusion.
“It’s an emergency, There is a Metro train, we are stuck in a tunnel and the train is filling up with smoke,” the caller said. But Bowser called more forcefully than at any point since the incident for Metro to match the District in releasing a full accounting of its actions.
“Where are you on the train? What. . .what. . .what . . .what?” the 911 operator asked. “Are you having trouble breathing?” “My job is to find out what happened to ensure that we have a top-down review from our end. We demand that Metro does exactly the same thing from their end,” Bowser said outside a movie screening hours after her office released the report Saturday. “There is a lot to learn from this incident, and we would just compound the tragedy if we did not take those lessons and make improvements.”
“Yeah. It’s like my lungs,” the caller said. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel declined to comment on the District’s report. Tom Downs, whose term as Metro board chairman ends Thursday, and Mortimer Downey, the incoming chairman, did not return calls seeking comment.
The report also indicates that there was confusion about whether power to the electrified third rail was actually turned off as the first firefighters entered the tunnel to begin the rescue. Since the incident, Metro officials have cited the ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board as the reason for their refusal to respond to questions about the event.
Firefighters were told by Metro Transit Police officers on scene that it was safe to approach the train, and firefighters threw emergency switches every 800 feet along the tunnel wall to make sure power around them was cut-off. But confirmation from Metro that there was no electricity in the area only reached firefighters once they were already at the train and had begun to rescue passengers, the report said. The agency did, however, buy a full-page advertisement scheduled to run in Sunday’s editions of The Washington Post titled “A Letter to Our Riders.”
A preliminary report released Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board also said that power in front of the train, at the site of an electrical arcing incident that is believed to have caused the smoke, remained live for several more minutes after the rescue began. “We apologize to all Metro riders, and particularly to the family of Carol Glover and those injured or impacted by the events of Monday afternoon,” the letter begins.
Once at the train — a little more than a football field’s length into the tunnel — the rescue process also was complicated because the first emergency exit that firefighters encountered would not open, according to the report. “We also want to thank those first responders and passengers who came to the aid of our riders. The incident that occurred on the Yellow Line outside L’Enfant Plaza was harrowing for the passengers aboard that smoke-filled train, and caused a major service disruption for thousands of others. We know that we have to redouble our efforts to learn from this and take every step necessary to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Instead, rescuers had to use a key they carry to open passenger doors. They moved along the side of the last car of the train to enter and begin assisting the scores stuck on board. The letter, signed by Downs and interim General Manager Jack Requa, promises an “absolute commitment” to a full accounting of the tragedy. It ends: “Your safety, and your trust in Metro to deliver safe and reliable service, is paramount to us.”
The account of entering the smoke-filled tunnel was detailed in a written report from D.C. Fire Lt. Stephen Kuhn, who entered by breathing with the assistance of an oxygen tank and mask: D.C. Fire Lt. Stephen Kuhn, head of the first group of rescuers who reached the train Monday, said in an interview Saturday that it was only the calm behavior of the trapped passengers that kept Monday’s death toll from increasing.
“The train was about 200 feet in the tunnel and we could not see its taillights until we were right next to the train. We could hear the train operator over the PA telling passengers to remain calm and seated as he was trying to move the train forward to get out of the smoke.” He said about 100 people exited the train in the smoky tunnel, stepping down about three feet and onto a 22-inch-wide ledge, before reinforcements arrived to help with the evacuation.
The first responder said he and another firefighter “made our way to the first door of the last car and could see that the car had as much smoke in it as the tunnel. We pounded on the car door and told the passengers to open the door and they yelled that they couldn't.” “There was no pushing, no shoving. It was absolutely the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” said Kuhn, a 29-year veteran. “If we had active fire and heat, that would have been really bad.”
The pair opened the door with a special firefighter’s key. Kuhn said that when he and his team entered the Metro station believing the problem involved smoke there, protocol dictated that they descend to the track platform and stay near the base of the elevator.
“The passengers were calm and I told them that the Fireman with me was coming aboard to start triage, and I would be assisting them off the train, they would then be walking along a narrow pathway to the end of the train where other firemen would assist them.” But Kuhn said the team was stunned that the entire station was empty of passengers who by that time had had 13 minutes from the first Metro emergency call to evacuate. Kuhn described an eerie scene as the team began searching for the problem. They encountered a group of Metro Transit Police officers near the end of the platform who told them about the disabled train — a little more than a football field’s length away, but invisible in the smoke-filled tunnel.
The report may help explain why initial reports of firefighters not entering the tunnel until minutes later were false. Their radios were failing in L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station, the report said. Kuhn said he tried to relay the news, but when he pressed a button on his radio, it did not make the chirping sound that indicates an open line. Instead, it “honked out,” he said, using the lingo for an abrasive sound that warns that the radio is out of range for reception.
The written account from Kuhn, cast the radio problems even more bluntly. The problem repeated persisted, and Kuhn said he asked the police officers, one of whom appeared to be on a cellphone call with Metro command, to relay a request for power to the tracks to be cut. The officer said the power had been cut. Four firefighters began walking along a catwalk on the side of the tunnel, with Kuhn instructing one member to hold back and try to get a radio transmission through to the battalion chief outside.
Kuhn said the first crew to reach the train began rescues before reinforcements arrived because they could not communicate with other firefighters. The first team reached the train and was about 10 minutes into the rescue before reinforcements arrived, according to the report.
The evacuation of roughly 100 passengers in the first 10 minutes “could not have been done without the complete cooperation of all of the passengers. This is also not a knock on the arrival of other fire companies as radio communication was nonexistent in the tunnel.” Metro had been warned four days earlier that D.C. firefighters’ radios were not working in that exact spot.
Kuhn’s identity was redacted in the report, but he first described his experience Friday in an interview with The Washington Post. Firefighters were dispatched to the station at L’Enfant Plaza on Jan. 7, and a supervisor wrote in an e-mail to Metro the next morning that firefighters were unable to get 800-megahertz radio coverage “anywhere in the station.”
The report says generally that fire “personnel encountered difficulty communicating with each other in the Metro station using traditional radio communication channels,” the report said. “The findings indicate that communications were not effective or sporadic during the response.” A Metro employee, whose name is redacted in the District’s report, wrote back five hours later to say that the subway operator had been “troubleshooting” radio problems in tunnels the previous day and might have had emergency radio bands to L’Enfant Plaza’s station turned off at the time firefighters were dispatched. The employee said Metro was “having trouble with the tunnel areas which we are troubleshooting,” but he seemed to discount the idea that there could be a widespread problem in all of L’Enfant Plaza. “The stations seem fine,” he wrote.
The report said that some fire personnel had to communicate with the battalion chief coordinating the rescue “via cellphone due to diminished reception.” The D.C. fire official, whose name also is redacted, wrote back within minutes, asking Metro to inform the fire department when such maintenance would affect firefighters’ radios.
The radio communications equipment in Metro stations and tunnels is “within the jurisdiction of the WMATA,” the report said. D.C. fire officials notified WMATA four days earlier, on January 8th, that “there was no 800 MHz radio coverage anywhere in the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station.” Kuhn said in a written statement published in the District’s report that firefighters also had trouble extracting passengers once they reached the train.
Lena Sun contributed to this report. The first door they came across had no latch for emergency workers to pull. The team asked passengers to open the door by following the emergency instructions inside. But firefighters quickly realized that that would not work and used a special key they carry to open Metro train doors.
For passengers to open doors on four of the six train cars would have required them to remove two screws from above the door, the report said. That system was flagged by the NTSB as a concern after the fatal 2009 crash on the Red Line, and a Metro corrective plan at the time called for all of the doors to be retrofitted with exterior releases for rescuers. According to the Metro plan, all of the doors should have been fixed by last April.
Paul Duggan and Lena H. Sun contributed to this report.