L’Enfant Plaza Metro closed due to smoke in station http://images.scribblelive.com/2015/...a9477d_300.jpgSmoke fills L'Enfant Plaza Metro station on Monday, Jan. 12. (Courtesy Lesley Lopez via Twitter)
- Dozens injured including 2 in critical condition
- One woman has died
- Commuters faced long delays to get home Monday afternoon
- Green Line service suspended between Gallery Place and Navy Yard
- Yellow Line service suspended between Gallery Place and the Pentagon
WASHINGTON - A woman who was on a Metro train that filled with smoke near the L'Enfant Plaza Station Monday afternoon has died.
Metro General Manager Richard Sarles says the woman was in distress on the stopped train. She has not yet been identified.
"My heart goes out to her family," Sarles says.
Two other people were taken to a local hospital in critical condition. A busload of 40 people were taken to Howard University Hospital; 20 to 25 others were taken to Washington Hospital Center, Sarles says.
What caused the heavy smoke, which passengers described as an orange-black, is under investigation, Sarles says.
The L'Enfant Plaza Station was evacuated about 3:20 p.m. when a box alarm sounded for heavy smoke inside the station. Hundreds of people poured out of the busy downtown station coughing, throwing up and struggling for breath. Many had black soot under their noses. Some reported trying to breathe through hats or shirts.
A six-car train was stuck south of the station headed toward Virginia. The cars filled with smoke -- one passenger said it came through the air vents -- and in raw video taken by a passenger it is difficult to see the riders on the floor through the heavy haze. Some people said they were on the train for 20 minutes or more before the doors opened. Sarles says of reported delays, "These details will come out in the investigation."
At about 11:30 p.m., a representative of the National Transportation Safety board said that the train stopped about 800 feet after the station. About 1,000 feet on from there, "an arcing event" involving the third rail and power-supply cables was detected, which caused the smoke.
He said that arcing events happen when a current begins arcing to a conductor it's not designed to connect with" -- it happens fairly regularly, and "you'll see a pop or a flash" while riding a train -- but in certain cases, "that arc can start feeding on itself, and it generates gases that are conductive." That produces a situation where, he said, "the worse it gets, the worse it gets."
He added that there was no fire on the train, nor did it derail. The investigation had just begun, he said.
Jeff Marion, of Alexandria, was riding that Yellow Line train when smoke began entering his car.
"People were slowly getting down on the floor. People were throwing up around me. People coughing, people spitting up. It was awful. I was afraid," Marion says.
"The first thing (I thought of) was my wife. Then my life to be, and what's going to happen. But luckily I'm here."
D.C. Fire & EMS set up a triage area outside the station to help sort through the sick riders, setting tarps and chairs out in the middle of D Street for riders to be evaluated. Firefighters and EMS staff evaluated more than 200 people, some on Metro buses set up for the purpose. They took more than 84 patients to area hospitals. One firefighter was injured, according to the fire department.
Meanwhile, confused Metro riders tried to navigate a line of shuttles parked outside the Navy Yard Station. Metro Transit Police and Metro officials were trying to help passengers get on the right bus. But riders complained they had no idea which bus to board.
The closure of the station suspended Green and Yellow line service between Gallery Place and Navy Yard or the Pentagon. Orange, Blue and Silver line service was restored shortly after 8 p.m.
The NTSB official said that the final report on what happened could take a year.
WTOP's Megan Cloherty, Andrew Mollenbeck, Mike Murillo and Kate Ryan contributed to this report.
