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DISTRICT BRIEFING
ADAMS MORGAN
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Officials Grilled Over Water Mains
City water officials faced pointed questions last night from Adams Morgan residents concerned about antiquated water mains and adequate flow to fire hydrants after a major fire early Monday on the roof of an apartment building.
At an advisory neighborhood commission meeting, about 40 residents questioned the coordination between the city's water authority and the D.C. fire department, after firefighters were forced to run thousands of feet of hose to obtain adequate water pressure to extinguish the fire in the building in the 2600 block of Adams Mill Road. No one was injured, but the blaze took hours to extinguish because of the water shortage, authorities said.
Neighbors said they fear that firefighters lack adequate information about which hydrants are hooked up to larger water mains and that many older pipes are too small to provide adequate water pressure and volume to fight large fires.
Bryan Weaver, chairman of the neighborhood group, told D.C. Water and Sewer Authority General Manager Jerry N. Johnson that if a similar fire had broken out on 18th Street during a busy weekend night, "it would have been a tenfold tragedy."
Johnson told residents that the agency provides the fire department with all the mapping information it has and that officials would conduct tests on hydrants to ensure adequate pressure. He also said the agency would consider amending its plan to replace aging pipes in older areas of the city.
D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the area and heads the council's public works committee, will host a roundtable hearing on the issue today. "It's clear the system didn't operate as effectively as it should have," Graham said.
-- Clarence Williams
VIETNAM MEMORIAL CENTER
ConocoPhillips Donates $2 Million
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center has received a pledge of $2 million from Houston-based energy company ConocoPhillips, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's president, Jan C. Scruggs, announced yesterday.
