The death toll in the metro crash went back up to nine this morning. The number rose a few hours after Fenty insisted the number was seven at the morning press conference. The Washington Post reports:

"The number of people killed in last night's deadly Red Line crash has risen to nine, Metro's general manager said this morning, shortly after five bodies were removed from the mangled wreckage...

Several of the dead were crushed, their bodies not located until a crane removed part of the striking train this morning."

Last night, three local news outlets had reported that nine had been confirmed dead. The news orgs had cited the fire department and Metro as sources. [The Fire Department refused to confirm that number late last night when City Desk called]. The Washington Post would only say the death toll was expected to rise to nine.

After work yesterday my wife saw my next door neighbor and asked if her son was all right. It was around 6 pm. He's a Metro driver, and works the Red Line. The crash had been all over local TV and new media for a while by then. My neighbor, however, hadn't heard about the train wreck yet. But she knew her son was working when it happened, so my wife's question launched a long, nervous search for the answer. At 9 pm, I heard her yelling in the backyard. Happy yells. "He's ok! He's ok!" I figured variations on that same theme were playing out all over town.

Fire Chief Dennis Rubin with Adrian Fenty at a press conference yesterday

Fenty is expected to make remarks on the red line crash this morning at 8:00 a.m. We'll be live-blogging the press conference here.

8:01 a.m. Mayor Adrian Fenty, Fire Chief Dennis Rubin, Councilmember Jim Graham step up.

8:02 a.m. Fenty says he wants the country to know that his first efforts are with the families and friends of the victims. 76 people were taken off of the train to the hospital. Yesterday, six were confirmed dead. This morning, the number of confirmed dead is seven. Not nine as previously reported.

Read More "Fenty Press Conference #3: Liveblog" »

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---"Red Line Trains Collide Near Fort Totten: Deadliest Crash In Metro History"; "On the Scene: Metro Collision Eyewitness Accounts"; "Rammed Train Had Been Stopped for 10 Minutes"; "Old Questions About Crashworthiness of Metro Cars"; "District Revenues Keep Falling, Gandhi Says"

Morning all. LL thought yesterday's big news was going to be Nat Gandhi's new revenue projections. Sadly, he was wrong: Minutes after 5 p.m. yesterday, a Red Line train heading inbound toward Fort Totten careened into the rear of another train stopped on the tracks underneath the New Hampshire Avenue NE overpass. The impact killed nine (as of this writing), including train operator Jeanice McMillan, 42, and injured scores. It is the worst accident in Metro's 33 years of carrying passengers. Please do check City Paper's coverage of the collision, including LL's interviews with train passengers and Darrow Montgomery's aftermath photographs. A lot of very, very good journalism was being done yesterday. That includes the WaPo lede-all, WaPo rider accounts, WaPo blog, Examiner lede-all, Examiner rider accounts, WaTimes lede-all, WaTimes rider accounts, WaTimes on emergency response, NYT, LAT, ABC News, AP, NC8, WRC-TV, WUSA-TV, WTTG-TV.

AFTER THE JUMP---More Metro collision reports; where to find $340M in three weeks?; Fenty pulls out the line-item veto; Kevin and Michelle on the town!

Read More "Tragedy on the Red Line: Loose Lips Daily" »

Check out these must see photos of yesterday's Metro crash aftermath. Read our interview we posted last night with a Deputy Fire Chief who was on the scene and ended up driving an ambulance. LL wonders: Are DC Metro cars safe? Need help with your commute? WMATA notes that red line service will be severely altered.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Metro Crash Aftermath" »

WUSA is reporting that nine people have died from this evening's Metro crash:

"9NEWS NOW has confirmed there are nine dead from the collision, and officials say there are 67 people injured. The Fire Department Chief said that up to six of those people sustained life-threatening injuries, another 14 have less threatening injuries and more than 50 people have what officials call 'walking injuries.'"

WTOP confirms nine dead.

The New York Times has President Obama's statement on the crash:

“Michelle and I were saddened by the terrible accident in Northeast Washington, D.C., today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy. I want to thank the brave first responders who arrived immediately to save lives. My staff has been in touch with Mayor Fenty’s office and will continue to monitor the situation.”

As of midnight, both the Times and the Washington Post have yet to report on the increased fatalities.

WJLA now confirms that nine passengers have died. Its source: Metro.

"The official death toll rose to nine from six about 11:30 p.m., Metro confirmed.

Crews will remain on the scene overnight, using cutting tools and the jaws of life to disentangle and separate the twisted cars which were ripped open and smashed together by the force of the collision."

Just after midnight, City Desk contacted D.C. Fire Department Deputy Chief Kenneth Crosswhite who says he called the command post regarding the death toll. He says the death toll is still listed at six. "They are still at six," Crosswhite says. "I don't know where they are coming up with that number."

Read More "Breaking: Nine Confirmed Dead In Red Line Metro Crash" »

Read More "Photos: Metro Accident, The Aftermath" »

Read More "Photos: Metro Accident, Triage" »

At the early date, not quite four hours after this evening's deadly Red Line collision, there is little information to be had at this point about the type and age of the cars involved in the crash. [UPDATE, 9:05 P.M.: Metro General Manager John Catoe said in a press conference that the last car on the stopped train was a relatively new 5000-series CAF-built car; the lead car on the moving train was a 1000-series Rohr-built car---the oldest type in the system.] However, it is worth reviewing some historical criticism of the structural integrity of certain Metro cars levied in the past by the National Transportation Safety Board.

In January 1996, two trains collided at the Shady Grove station at between 22 and 29 mph; in that crash, the moving train "telescoped" 21 feet over the stationary train, "severely compromising the occupant volume of the striking car." Almost nine years later, in November 2004, a Red Line train, its operator asleep at the wheel, slid backward and struck a train stopped at the Woodley Park station---again, the moving train telescoped some 20 feet over the stopped one. According to the subsequent NTSB report [PDF], "Almost half of the passenger occupant volume of the striking car...was also severely compromised."

Today's crash, based on the extreme "telescoping" seen in photographs, seems to have taken place at higher speeds. But the survivability of the crash might have something to do with the type and age of the cars involved.

In response to NTSB questions about the 1996 incident, Metro conducted a review of its cars' structural strength. This is how the NTSB, in the wake of the 2004 crash, described the response:

Read More "Old Questions About Crashworthiness of Metro Cars" »

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty: Reports scene as being "as horrific as you can imagine." Describes one train as being "almost squeezed completely together."

Confirms the figure of six fatalities, as previously reported by WJLA-TV. Calls that a "working number," meaning that the hospitals haven't been cleared and the scene hasn't been cleared. Fire officials continue searching the scene.

Fire Chief Dennis Rubin says that there's a total of 76 people transported.

Also: Responder injuries: two, minor.

Rubin: One of trains is compressed 85 percent. Will make certain train is clear of living and dead before turning over the train to investigators. They're doing a "primary search."

Police Chief Cathy Lanier: There's a reunification center set up for families. Please call 3-1-1.

Nine NTSB investigators are on the case. FBI evidence response team is on the case as well.

Fenty: Largest fatality count in four-decade history of Metro.

FBI guy: Team will be assisting NTSB. Evidence-response people are completely on top of this. Cautions against jumping to any conclusions about what happened.

NTSB promises to gather "factual information" about the accident.

Jim Graham: Metro board will meet tomorrow at 2 p.m.

From our correspondent-in-the-field Mike DeBonis:

Olga Bryant, who works at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was on the rammed train this afternoon. She said that the train had been stopped for around 10 minutes and that the operator had reported that they were having some electrical difficulty. She says that the train's lights and the power were on prior to the accident. Bryant was in the second car of the rammed train, and thus fairly well removed from the impact. She stayed on the train for about 20 minutes after the crash.

She was traveling with Garrett Dorsey, another Walter Reed employee. Dorsey said that despite the crash, he'd get on another train "tomorrow."

Bryant said, "I'd have to get on it."

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is talking right now about the accident. He started out with some boilerplate about working with Metro, and Metro working with the feds. Said the response from first responders was six minutes.

Fire Chief Dennis Rubin states that at first it was believed to be a minor incident. Then it became a huge multijurisdictional cataclysm.

Have treated 70 people.

Four black tags, meaning they have succumbed to their injuries: Four dead.

Chief speaks of "stellar job" by other agencies. Says "many people" have simply left on their own and thus are not part of the official count.

Fenty says that Metro boss John Catoe will address transpo impact.

Catoe gives condolences to families of those who lost their lives---four people. What happened at 5:02 is that one train was stopped and was awaiting orders to continue. Then was plowed into by another train.

Catoe says "we will try to find out exactly what happened."

Catoe defers question on "standard procedures" for a train that has been stopped on the tracks.

The line will be out of service until the investigation is complete.

Catoe also says that he won't give info on the driver who was killed until the family has been notified.

Family members looking for information on what happened to their loved ones are being urged to call 202-727-9099. Do not go to the scene of the accident.

NBC 4 Washington has the live video.

Mike DeBonis is calling in from the site of the Red Line collision near the Fort Totten station.

UPDATE 6:40 p.m.:

One Red Line train had been stopped on the tracks. It had just begun to move when it was struck from behind by a speeding train.

Brenda Payton was on the speeding train. "We just felt a big crunch and saw smoke and stuff. We got off the train as fast as we could." Payton is from Fort Washington, and she was heading home. Another woman on that train, Anastasia McKeown, says that just before the impact, the ramming train slowed down. "Then we felt an impact just after that. You could tell we hit something that wasn't an animal."

Though McKeown was in the last car, she saw one of the plastic partitions in the ramming train fall on someone's head. McKeown had back and neck injuries. A triage area for victims has been set up outside Jarvoe Jarboe Printing Co. People there are mostly folks who've been injured but are not in critical condition.

As for the stopped train, here's one account of what happened. Dennis, who declined to give his last name, says his train had just barely started to move when the impact happened. Dennis stepped out of the train and could see "three or four people on the ground, all bloody." Dennis was in the fifth car, one removed from the impact. After staggering out of the train, he spotted a woman on top of that sixth car, and blood was streaming down. "The interior of that car just got crushed," said Dennis.

Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser is now being interviewed on WRC-TV about the deadly train crash on the Red Line. "We have seen the police department and the fire department respond in a very coordinated way," says the councilmember, who represents the area in which the collision occurred.