a saga

So if you haven't heard, you probably have your head in the sand...but there was a huge crash on the DC metro system on Monday.

It was on the red line, which is the line I take to and from my internship. Apparently one train rear ended another and the force knocked the train on top of the first. In total there were 9 fatalities and many many injuries. Luckily I was not on either of those trains, I was however about 30 minutes behind the crash.

The following is a play by play:

I entered the metro, and people were casually saying that there was some sort of delay at fort totten.

I wait forever to board the red line. It was probably 30 minutes, and the trains usually come every 5 so people just kept piling in without any way to leave.

A red line train arrives, and everyone freaks out. Seriously it was like a concert, or when wiis are on sale the day after thanksgiving or something. People were pushing forward and there was nothing to do but go with it, no way to not get on this train.

The train sits at the station for about 15 minutes with the doors closed and no air conditioning (or at least I couldn't feel any). The conductor comes on the over com and says we are experiencing a slight delay due to mechanical difficulties at fort totten.

The train finally moves, we go one stop and the conductor says the train is out of service and everyone should exit the train and wait for the next one.

Then I repeated that process 2 more times.

I finally got on a train that was going some where (3 more stops) packed in like sardines, people were standing everywhere they could. I was probably touching 8-10 people at that point.

We arrived at the rhode island ave. stop and were told the metro would not be going any further, but reassured that a complimentary shuttle service was provided. I finally get above ground and have a million voicemails and texts. Look out to see where the shuttles are and there was a sea of people, probably 400-500. Pandemonium breaks out as people begin to realize what has happened. Everyone is on there phones, people crying worried about loved ones, people screaming irrate about the delay and chaos.

Then I boarded a shuttle to silver springs, but we went to every metro stop in between, and the traffic was horrible. Ambulances and cop cars kept flying by as we inched along, and I was still not entirely sure of the story - I knew a crash, but not that anyone had died. And I liked being a sardine so much the first 3 times, I did it again.

After a long time on the bus we arrived at the silver spring metro station where we were instructed to get back on if we wanted to go further north (I did because I am living off the last stop.)

I boarded the metro like normal and arrived at the metro station, where Nina graciously picked me up, almost 4 hours after I began my trip.