Reply to Heartbreaking situation at District Dogs

Forum Index » Pets

Reply to "Heartbreaking situation at District Dogs - flooding on Rhode Island ave"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The mayor answered some questions but she seems to think this was just a fluke, and had somebody talk to the crowd about global warming, etc.  I don't deny global warming of course but there's more to this story, and bits of blame in all directions:

FEMA: their flood map for this area was last updated in 2010, stating minimal flood risk despite years of history of flooding at this spot.

DCRA (now DOB) didn't question the FEMA map when signing off on the plans, despite ample evidence of past flooding.

Anti-development activist Chris Otten singlehandedly tied up every single DC planned unit development (PUD) in court for years (or for payoffs) which forced some developers like this one to abandon the PUD, and just build as-of-right, preventing any meaningful scrutiny (or community benefit.)

Developer MRP used every square foot to make up for the fact that building as-of-right restricted allowable sq. ft of development.  A storefront facing Rhode Island Ave looked great and improved the pedestrian experience...but

The designers, in particular the civil engineer changed what had been a gradually sloping curved drive down to the Avenue, into a straight shot, dumping stormwater right down into the Avenue, without any of the previous measures to absorb or slow that water from the rest of the development.  At the very least, that wall facing Rhode Island Avenue should have included a masonry kneewall as a sensible precaution, instead of a glass storefront.  Did they visit the site or take a look at the contour map?

DC Water: after last year's repeated flooding, the completion of the NE Boundary tunnel was to have been completed by March earlier this year.  It wasn't.  And while they say they inspected the storm sewers, as the owner begged them to do before the storm, did they?

District Dogs' owner: while perhaps relying on DC Water's expected tunnel completion, he didn't terminate his lease but apparently put in some measures he thought would alleviate the problem, not expecting the rising water to exceed last years height.  It exceeded it by a lot.  Neither he nor the staff are trained to handle this kind of thing and he had assurances from multiple sources that things were under control.  Still, an abundance of caution would have been to gather the dogs on higher ground.

Fire/EMS: Were they quick enough on scene?  Someone will find out. But the call may have sounded less urgent before the wall crashed in,  and once it did, it would have been hard to call 911 while swimming for survival.

The staff: are you kidding me?  Heroes.  Thank heavens they are safe.

[/quote]

Wow, so much of this is egregious. I just keep thinking what if this had been a daycare full of young children? I’m a huge pet lover and am horrified this happened to dogs FWIW. Just pointing out that the city could have potentially approved this building and allowed a childcare center to open. Are there any other buildings that are at risk of something like this happening? [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics