More than a hundred emergency responders and volunteers from across the Washington Metropolitan region will participate in an emergency response drill for the D.C. Metro Sunday, which will severely disrupt service.
The drill will take place on the Yellow Line Bridge, situated over the Potomac River just outside of the Pentagon station and is expected to run from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. For the duration of the drill, officials with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) will shutdown the yellow line track between the L’Enfant Plaza and the Pentagon stations, reports WUSA9.
Emergency responders from the District, Virginia and Maryland will participate in the drill and a large amount of volunteers are expected.
“The exercise…will allow emergency responders to test their capabilities on the aerial structure in coordination with water rescue teams,” read a D.C. Metro press release. “In addition, the drill will simulate real-world conditions to test coordination and communication between on-scene responders, Metrorail operations staff, Metro Transit Police and support personnel.”
Metro repairs will continue through the weekend and will not be affected by the drill. Two scathing reports from federal inspectors blasting safety deficiencies in the D.C. Metro SafeTrack plan forced officials to revise their 10-month repair overhaul last week.
The additional repairs will focus on replacing switches, where trains change tracks. A faulty track switch contributed to the derailment of a train in Virginia July 29. D.C. Metro officials added seven new weekend shutdowns to the SafeTrack schedule and added numerous changes to each remaining Surge of repairs.
The system will shut down on various portions of blue line track Saturday and for three consecutive weekends, as part of the repair revisions.
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