Sommer Mathis takes to the pages of the Atlantic Cities to talk about the decline of @dcfireems, the Twitter account for the District's fire department. On the removal of Pete Piringer, the fire department's public information officer, Mathis writes:
The hiring and firing of individual public information officers is the kind of story that only journalists [...]
Yesterday, Mayor Adrian Fenty fired DYRS' interim-director and replaced him with AG Peter Nickles' "top aide" Robert Hildum. In today's WaPo story, the controversial attorney general had high praise for his side kick:
"Nickles said that Hildum's experience as a prosecutor is an asset at a time when some critics have said that the agency's [...]
The AP is reporting that a 14-year-old skateboarder grabbed a hook-and-ladder truck as it was leaving the scene of a fire for a joy ride. This was a bad idea. The kid got himself run over by the fire truck Thursday evening. Details are still sketchy. But here's what the AP wrote:
"It happened Thursday [...]
Today, I wrote up a piece about how Office of Attorney General lawyers were/are furious with fire department brass. What's the reason for their anger? A shoddy investigation into the Georgetown Library fire that has become the subject of a massive lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court. The shoddy investigation means a lot of problems with [...]
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Morning all. Late last night, we published a piece on the latest mystery woman in Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry's life: Sharon Bowen. Bowen, who resides in Ohio, received [...]
The one thing you don't mess around with in a tragedy is the body count. But yesterday morning during a press conference on the metro crash, Mayor Adrian Fenty did just that. Even though Metro and the Fire Department had confirmed that nine passengers had died in the Red Line accident, Fenty overruled those officials [...]
Today, the Nats lost more than just a game (the team got blanked 7-0 vs. the Mets), the Nats also lost use of its pyrotechnics. D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin put at least a temporary end to the stadium's fireworks displays. Rubin attended today's game, and after a fireworks display for the National Anthem ordered [...]
Via the Fire Department's Alan Etter.
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Earlier this morning three houses burned on the 2200 block of Douglas Street NE [fire department tweets are wrong on location]. It started at 2210 and spread into 2208 and then 2212. Here are some amazing pictures captured by a city source.
Yesterday's massive water main break in Adams Morgan stressed out Monique Lecomte and Joseph Currie. They reside at 1748 V Street NW. Today, they are dealing with contractors assessing the damage to their basement dining room and kitchen. Industrial dehumidifiers are at full blast. A contractor rips at the bottom of the walls in the [...]
Few in public service have fallen harder. Recently, we chronicled Greg Bowyer, a fire department whistleblower who had been demoted from arson investigator to hydrant checker. Today, his hydrant checking duties were temporarily suspended in favor of rescuing some flooded bathrooms. This morning he attended to the Florida Avenue NW water main break–which still appears [...]
The Fire Department just tweeted: "person dangling from the woodrow wilson bridge water rescue assignment dispatched."
First CFSA lost its spokesperson powers to the Mayor's Office. Now, it's the Fire Department's turn to refer all calls to Fenty spokesperson Mafara Hobson. At this point, I feel sorry for Hobson. Her job is busy enough with the on-going budget debates, the travel issues, etc. Now, she gets to field inquiries about the [...]
