From www.msnbc.com

Metro fire fallout Washington, D.C., April 24 – Metro travel returned to normal over the weekend and D.C. firefighters are defending themselves against passengers' complaints about delayed response time to Thursday's tunnel fire.

METRO SPOKESMAN Ray Feldmann says handling the trouble on the tracks was difficult and improvements need to be made so firefighters' radios work deep inside the tunnels. "This was one of the most difficult situations that you can have ... you had a car with 273 people onboard stuck in a tunnel." Fire officials say communication was a problem but defend their decision to keep passengers on the train. "We had our hazmat unit test the air quality every so often," said Brian Lee of the D.C. Fire Department. "The air quality in the train was excellent and therefore it was better to keep them on the train instead of bringing them out into the tunnel."

The fire department's conference line was overloaded with rescuers trying to save passengers and it the signal grew progressively weaker.

The train was stuck between Foggy Bottom and Farragut West stations during Thursday's rush hour. Both stations were closed for about four hours.

Metro says a cable between the two stations sparked the fire trapping hundreds of people on the train underground. Thirteen people were treated for smoke inhalation, and one for a heart attack.      The tunnel fire had a ripple effect at other Metro stations. One major bottleneck was in Rosslyn, Virginia, the closest station on the Orange and Blue lines. Shuttle buses took passengers there from the two stations that were closed, but commuters piled up there because of a shortage of vehicles.

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April 2000