Juxtaposition: Red line crashes in DC

bioephemera — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:23:00 +0000

Red Line crash, June 22, 2009, between Takoma Park and Fort Totten stations
Photo from Fox5 News, via DCist

As many of you already know, DC's Red Line suffered a fatal crash this evening during rush hour. One train had stopped. A second train behind it failed to stop, overtook the first train, and ran up on top of it, shearing off the front end of the first car and crushing the last car of the first train underneath. It is still totally unclear how or why this happened.

The second train's driver is deceased, as are at least five others (the situation is being updated as I write this). About 70 people were injured. Fortunately, the trains were inbound - coming downtown to pick up commuters - so they were fairly lightly loaded. During the evening rush hour, one expects outbound Red Line trains to be packed with hundreds of commuters. I commute on the Red Line every day, and I am still in some shock at how many more injuries there could have been if the trains had been outbound shortly after 5pm (or inbound in the morning).

This is not the first accident on DC's Red Line. Although WMATA actually has a fairly good safety record, in 2004 there was a strikingly similar accident in which one train rode up on top of a second.

Red Line crash, November 4, 2004, at Woodley Park Zoo station
photo by Michel Ducille, Washington Post, 2004

Red Line crash, November 4, 2004, at Woodley Park Zoo station
photo by Gerald Martineau, Washington Post, 2004

In that case, a parked train began rolling backward down a grade and crashed into a train parked in the Woodley Park Zoo station. It's remarkable how similar the images of that crash are to the images of today's crash; basically, the main difference is that the 2004 crash was underground, in a station, while today's crash was outside.

My heart goes out to my fellow Red Line passengers and to the drivers of the red line trains. I know I must have taken trains with the driver who passed away many times. To the families of the victims, many people are thinking about you and your loved ones tonight. We are so very sorry.

Update: The Washington Post is now saying that 9 people lost their lives in yesterday's wreck. (Earlier today the total went back to seven, but now seems to be at nine again.) In addition, they have a new photo gallery that more clearly shows the damage to the trains. You can see in these new photos that most of the damage was confined to the top car - instead of squishing the car below it, its floor was ripped out, and the sides "telescoped" around the newer train in front/underneath. This also suggests why the top car stayed aligned with the train underneath, instead of derailing as one might intuitively expect: it was partially wrapped around the car underneath it, which was still on the rails.

bioephemera Mon, 06/22/2009 - 14:23

Love and condolences to the Urbano and Kane families

terrasig — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:02:57 +0000

Love and condolences to the Urbano and Kane families

UPDATE (Wed 29 April): As friends and family of the Urbanos and Kanes have been arriving here via web searches, I wanted to provide a compendium of individual obituaries and plans for visitation and funeral.

Visitation for all will be at Thiele-Reid Family Funeral Home, 585 Belgrove Drive, Kearny, NJ 07032, (201) 991-1031 on Thursday, 30 April, and Friday, 1 May from 2:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Funeral liturgy will be offered for all, at St. Stephen's Church, in Kearny, on Saturday, 2 May, at 11:00 a.m.

The Urbanos will then be laid to rest at St. Nicholas Cemetery in Lodi; the Kanes will be laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington.

Individual obituaries:

Jeanette Urbano
Salvatore Urbano
Anna Kane
Francis Kane
Rose Kane

Each obituary contains information for making memorial gifts in lieu of flowers.

I just received terrible news last evening from one of my Jersey homeboys regarding the family of our beloved St. Mary's High School classmate, Rose Urbano Olcese. Rose's parents, two aunts, and uncle were killed this weekend when hit by a tractor-trailer on the New Jersey Turnpike while heading to a family wedding near Philadelphia.

The full story is here if you are so inclined but suffice it to say that this is an unimaginable tragedy for this wonderfully loving family and all who know them. Rose's father, Salvatore, came to the US from Sicily just after World War II and had been a researcher at Hoffmann-LaRoche at the US headquarters of this Swiss-based pharma giant. Rose's mother, Jeanette, was, like my own Mom, a nurse at Passaic General Hospital, the place where pretty much all of us were born. They would have celebrated their own wedding anniversary today, 41st or 48th depending on the press reports.

I have a quick happy memory of Rose's mother, one of a great many that are being shared among all who were fortunate to know this family. Rose was/is smart and beautiful and, as such, was avidly sought by suitors in our small class of 72 students. I received the grace of being invited to go with Rose to our Sadie Hawkins dance during sophomore year. Since the tradition is that the girl does the inviting and arrangements, it was up to her Mom to pick us up and take us to the dance. She showed up at my house in their station wagon wearing a chauffeur's cap with Rose sitting in back where I was to join her and be transported for one of the high points of my high school memories.

As social networking would have it, Rose and I caught up again on LinkedIn over the last year to share professional info as she was moving to the Dallas, Texas, area and in need of some employment contacts. We exchanged family photos - she has three adult children, all successful themselves - and she ended up with gainful employment down there. We lamented the years that have passed with everyone falling in and out of touch, as life just simply is.

And as with many old relationships, we come back together at weddings and funerals.

I cannot imagine having to get together to deal with the aftermath of this far reaching tragedy. As I suspect that Rose and her brother, John, are too overwhelmed to set up Legacy.com pages, I'd like to at least offer our little piece of the blogosphere for Urbano and Kane family members to register their memories and express their condolences.

[Many thanks to the chain of Joe, Emil, Mark, Steve, and Tommy to be sure I got this news]

terrasig Tue, 04/28/2009 - 02:02