A contractor working in Bethesda was struck and killed Wednesday afternoon by a vehicle, police said.

Montgomery police were called to the incident on the 5300 block of Albemarle Street around 2:20 p.m., said Officer Rebecca Innocenti, a police spokeswoman.

Concepcion Zavala, who lived in the District, was working on a house when he noticed his 2000 Chevrolet Silverado began rolling down Albermale Street. He had parked it on the street hours earlier, police said.

Zavala tried to the stop the unoccupied truck, but the vehicle continued moving, police said. When the truck stopped along a stone wall, Zavala was pinned between the stone and the driver’s door.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Virginia’s oyster harvest has grown tenfold in the past decade to 236,000 bushels in 2011 and a dockside value of $8.2 million, state officials announced Tuesday.

Gov. Bob McDonnell credited the rebound to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and its promotion of sanctuaries, targeted shell plantings in public oyster grounds and other measures.

“Virginia oysters are not only delicious, they are also profitable,” McDonnell said in a statement. “Our oysters are hitting tables all across the nation and the world, on the half-shell, fried, steamed, roasted and in stew.”

In their heyday, oyster reefs were so thick in the bay some likened the catch industry to a mining operation rather than a commercial fishery. While improving, the harvest is still puny compared to historic highs in the 1950s and 1960s when Virginia’s oyster harvest peaked at 4 million bushels in 1958-59 and remained near or above 1 million bushels into the 1970s, then steadily declined through the decades.

With snow in the forecast, here are some of the closings and delays on Wednesday.

10:35 a.m. update:

Federal agencies in the Washington, D.C. area are open. Employees have the option for unscheduled leave or telework.

Frederick County, Va. public schools are on an early dismissal schedule.

All Fauquier County Public Schools are closed today. Administrative offices are open on time and liberal leave is in effect.

You can find more closings and delays for schools, organizations and businesses in our listings here.

School closings in the D.C. region also can be found on district web sites.

D.C. Public Schools

Virginia schools:

Alexandria

Arlington County

Falls Church

Fairfax County

Fauquier County

Manassas

Manassas Park

Maryland schools

Anne Arundel County

Charles County

Calvert County

Howard County

Montgomery County

Prince George’s County

St. Mary’s County

If you handle weather-related closings for schools and organizations in the District, Maryland or Virginia, be sure you’re included in our listings. To register, click here.

The Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building was built in 1881 but "shuttered in 2004 after years of neglect and underuse." The building is one of the 11 most endangered historically significant sites in the United States, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said in 2006. (The Associated Press)

This post has been updated.

Workers using a giant construction crane Wednesday began dismantling and removing an elegant, 10-foot-tall metal statue from the roof of the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, which is currently undergoing external renovations on the Mall.

Starting about 10 a.m. crews removed the first element of the three part, 130-year-old sculpture titled “Columbia Protecting Science & Industry,”

The first segment, a statue depicting science, was hoisted into a chilly gray sky and lowered to a flatbed tractor trailer parked beside the building.

The white statue is made of sand cast zinc and shows a seated woman reading a huge book as an owl perches on a globe beside her.

The statue had small cracks in the metal and was soiled in places, but appeared to be in generally good condition.

The operation was observed by a small group of Smithsonian employees, including the institution’s secretary, G. Wayne Clough.

He said he was delighted to be able to see the statue up close, and that the deteriorated but elegant old brick building on which it sat was getting a much needed facelift

The three-part cast zinc statue has been atop the ornate north entrance to the 19th-century brick building since it was constructed in the late 1870s and early 1880s, said T. Scott Kreilick, head of an Oreland, Pa., conservation firm.

The building, which had been endangered by deterioration, has been closed since 2006 and is now encased in construction scaffolding.

Once the statue is removed, the piece is to be trucked to a Swedesboro, N.J. facility used by Kreiland’s firm. There, the old paint will be removed, damaged metal will be repaired and the statue will be repainted, Kreilick said.

The statue was created for the building by influential Czech sculptor Caspar Buberl, who also crafted the dramatic 1,200-foot frieze of hundreds of Civil War figures around what is now the National Building Museum.

Buberl also made the somber statue of the Confederate soldier in Alexandria and numerous other monuments on the battlefields in Gettysburg, Richmond and elsewhere. He died in New York in 1899.

An ambulance was called for D.C. city council member Marion Barry Tuesday night after he appeared ill at Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s State of the District address, authorities said.

But the call for an ambulance was soon canceled, said D.C. fire/EMS spokesman Lon Walls.

Barry, a diabetic, took his medicine to control his insulin level, and he was eating at a restaurant late Tuesday, said Joyce Clements-Smith, his chief of staff.

Barry, a Democrat who represents the District's Ward 8, is a former four-term mayor.