DC Archives_The Washington Post_Sunday, January 29, 1922_..”KNICKERBOCKER THEATRE COLLAPSES; RESCUERS BATTLE STORM THAT PARALYZES CITY”
For original photo click here (Meta Filter)
Original can be found via microfiche at the Washingtonania Division of Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library
National Guard escorts MPD around city streets
- National Guard patrol the city following the 1968 riots. Courtesy Sam Smith
Information was provided to The Syndicate via the H-DC listerv.
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2010 More than 100 soldiers and airmen from the District of Columbia National Guard were on duty yesterday and today supporting the district’s emergency response to a weekend blizzard.
The Guard members are transporting patients and doctors to area hospitals, taking Metro Police officers to and from work throughout the city and even transported Metro Police Chief Cathy Lanier to a shooting scene on Stanton Avenue.
Officials said Guard personnel are expected to remain on duty through Feb. 9 in support of one of the worst blizzards in the history of the national capital region.
This is our job, and this is what we do, said Army Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, commanding general of the D.C. Guard Joint Force Headquarters. We have always answered the call for help from the District of Columbia at a moments notice, and our people have done a tremendous job in supporting emergency missions during this historic blizzard.
D.C. National Guard personnel were needed to drive a dozen Humvees to Metro Police precincts throughout the city today, and they proved to be invaluable as the storm worsened and roadways became impassable. In addition to the Humvees, support personnel were stationed at the districts armory and at the D.C. Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency, which was the hub of the city’s response to the storm.”
Feds & DCPS closed; DC Gov says report to work 1 hour later
Record snowfall has closed all above ground Metro stations. Photo Washington Syndicate
7:25AM _ The Syndicate has been watching NBC4 this morning since 5am. The streets within the beltway in DC and Maryland are treacherous with an earlier accident being reported at Georgia and Connecticut Avenue in Aspen Hill we can see the treachery out there.
The Syndicate urges everyone to take it easy and don’t go around doing something stupid like trying to get Route 50 westbound.
Mayor Fenty announced yesterday at 4:30pm that DCPS would open two hours late, but around 8:30pm the decision was reversed. The Syndicate knows of no charter or speciality school open today. All area school systems including area colleges are closed with many already announcing closure for Tuesday according to DCist.
With an estimated 5 – 10 inches expected for Tuesday/ Wednesday it could be well into mid or late February that suburban areas are cleared.
Metro continues to only run underground stations with trains running every 30 minutes. Limited bus service on only the mainest of main thoroughfares are running and service is limited. Also from the ist.
Although the Syndicate does embrace and applaud Mayor Fenty’s esprit de corps the decision to open DC gov’t (an hour later) is misdirected and places the safety of American worker Bee inspired municipal workers, such as librarians at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, at risk. We appreciate the city’s rebellious spirit, but it is not business as usual. Take the day off and be safe.
From the Examiner, “Along with the sheer volume of snow — more than 32 inches at Washington Dulles International Airport — the storm deposited wet, heavy underlayers that packed down into hard, icy strata that defied road crews’ best efforts. Winds then caused the top layers to drift, covering some already cleared areas. The little that melted was expected to refreeze overnight.
The ice and drifting snow also afflict Metro, which on Sunday kept its buses and disability access vehicles off the roads and its aboveground Metrorail stations closed for a second day. It was not clear Sunday afternoon when regular service could resume, even on the rail system.
“It’s slow-going, just like the roads,” Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato said. “It’s going to be a long recovery period for everybody.”
Also from the Wash Examiner:
“Snowmagedon vs. history
The weekend storm hit near-record snowfalls, with as much as 40 inches falling in Colesville, Md., just north of the Capital Beltway. Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport clocked in its highest two-day snowfall ever, but only the second-highest was recorded at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
And overall the storm was only the fourth-highest two-day snowfall in Washington since 1871, according to the National Weather Service, in part because Reagan National Airport is now used as the official measurement spot.
1. Knickerbocker storm, Jan. 17 and 18, 1922: 26.0 inches
2. Feb. 12 and 13, 1899: 19.0 inches
3. Feb. 18 and 19. 1979: 18.7 inches
4. Snowmagedon, Feb. 5 and 6, 2010: 17.8 inches recorded at Reagan National Airport“
The North American blizzard of 2010 from Wikipedia
DC Archives of the Day_ Sam Smith, “Fire”
Excerpt from ”Fire” from Multitudes: the Unauthorized Memoirs of Sam Smith
Larry Rosen behind the counter of Smiths Store on 14th Street NW before the riots burnt the store to the ground. Doc Jones also pictured behind the counter. Photo Courtesy of Larry Rosen
Sam Smith is a legendary DC /American journalist and political activist. Smith, always steps ahead of his peers, was an early pioneer in alternative media with the longtime national journal, Progressive Review which has moved its headquarters from Washington DC to Freeport, Maine.
“It was a city in which the American dream and the American tragedy passed each other on the street and did not speak. It was, finally, a city that had suffered a form of deprivation known primarily to the poor and the imprisoned, a psychological deprivation born of the constant suppression and denial of one’s identity, worth, or purpose by those in control. Washington to those in power was not a place but a hall to rent. The people of Washington were the custodian staff. And the renters were as likely to visit the world in which this staff lived as a parishioner is to inspect the boiler room of the church. The purpose of Washington’s community was to serve not to be. Its school children were not taught the history of their city; they were told little of its significant men and women. There was no city festival or parade.
In fact, this repository of national history didn’t even have a local history museum. The city’s present was suppressed, its future was a hostage, and its past was ignored.
This was the city that civil rights activists and other reformers determined to – and did – change. This change was cultural as well as political and increasingly the old ways and the new found themselves in conflict. For example, having discovered that there were more African-American books in the libraries in the white parts of town than in the black city, I decided I better check out the meetings of the library board of trustees. There I found not only an all-white board but a chair in his 90s serving his colleagues tea and cookies.”
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