Passenger Trains > Amtrak zapped in Washington DC

Many VRE, MARC and Amtrak trains arriving and departing Washington Union Station are disrupted due to signal outages. Signals are reported down between Washington and Baltimore. Many commuter trains are departing from stations outside Washington with passengers using transit to reach the originating stations. Amtrak service north of Washington is stopped.

Amtrak is not teporting a cause; however, both MARC and VRE report that a lightning strike disabled the signal system.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/22 01:27 by GenePoon.

3 people were killed by a lightening strike last night in DC.

Posted from Android

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> 3 people were killed by a lightening strike last
> night in DC.
>
> Posted from Android
Reportedly standing under a tree for cover.  Most people understand that's a no-no but sometimes in moment's of panic they forget.

boejoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> joemvcnj Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > 3 people were killed by a lightening strike
> last
> > night in DC.
> >
> > Posted from Android
> Reportedly standing under a tree for cover.  Most
> people understand that's a no-no but sometimes in
> moment's of panic they forget.

Right across the street from the White House.

Lightnings always have your name on them, sad that happened tough!

Posted from Android

boejoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> joemvcnj Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > 3 people were killed by a lightening strike
> last
> > night in DC.
> >
> > Posted from Android
> Reportedly standing under a tree for cover.  Most
> people understand that's a no-no but sometimes in
> moment's of panic they forget.

I've heard that advice my whole life and never really have found myself 'caught' in a lightning storm.  Last summer in the White Mountains of Arizona, myself and the rest of the family found ourselves in exactly that situation.  What did we do?  We ran for the biggest tree around for cover.  It wasn't until after we were safely in the car that we realized what we did.  Boy did we feel stupid.  And lucky.   

Natural human/animal instinct is to seek cover. 
With the tall buildings in a city, rather rare it still came down to strike pedestrians.

FWIW, if you're out in the open during a lightning storm, you need to make yourself the smallest target you can. If there's a drainage ditch or other depression nearby, go into it and crouch down as low as possible and put your arms around your lower legs. That's to ensure if you are struck, the energy goes through your arms and legs to ground and minimizes the energy hitting the heart.
I've had to do that on bike touring rides in New Mexico and Wyoming. It may look odd to passing cars, but it might save your life.

Would touching the steel of the drainage ditch or manhole cover make you more of a target ? 

If you mean barefooted or touching with your hand, I would think so because it ensures that your body is at ground potential. If you mean standing on it with shoes, I'm less certain. But beware, manhole covers are often struck because they are at ground potential even though they are at ground level.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/22 10:19 by ctillnc.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> Natural human/animal instinct is to seek cover. 
> With the tall buildings in a city, rather rare it
> still came down to strike pedestrians.

No tall buildings in DC (at least by normal skyscraper standards).  Buildings can be no higher the width of the street they face (more or less).  This happened in a large park.

wilewil Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> joemvcnj Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Natural human/animal instinct is to seek
> cover. 
> > With the tall buildings in a city, rather rare
> it
> > still came down to strike pedestrians.
>
> No tall buildings in DC (at least by normal
> skyscraper standards).  Buildings can be no
> higher the width of the street they face (more or
> less).  This happened in a large park.

I thought the limit on building height in Washington was based on a rule that nothing other than the Washington Monument could be taller than the Capitol dome.
 

toledopatch Wrote in part:
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>
> I thought the limit on building height in
> Washington was based on a rule that nothing other
> than the Washington Monument could be taller than
> the Capitol dome.
>  
I believed that was the case as well but courtesy of wikipedia I have just discovered that is an urban myth:-(

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_of_Buildings_Act_of_1899

The Height-of-the-Capitol-Building Myth
An urban myth holds that the buildings in Washington D.C. are currently, or were at one time, restricted to the height of the U.S. Capitol building.[6] In fact, the 1899 law set the maximum height of any building to 130 feet (39.6 m),[7] the height limit that firefighting equipment could effectively reach at the time,[2] and not the 289 feet (88 m) of the Capitol building. Articles repeating the myth include one in The Washington Post in 2006,[8] and one in The American Surveyor in 2012.[9] A 2009 article suggested that the 1899 act "established that no building could be taller than the Capitol" but that the 1910 act further restricted heights to 20 feet above the width of the adjacent street.[10]

The House of Representatives Report from December 1898, along with the Senate Report from the following year, show that when the bill to restrict the height of buildings was debated on the floor of Congress, no mention had been made of the U.S. Capitol building, or the height of its dome.[2][11][original research?] None of the related House and Senate bills, or the Height Act itself made any mention of the Capitol building.[

 

That is interesting. My wife and I lived and worked there from '82 to '94 and were always told that about the Washington Monument...
Which we climbed up to the top!

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

MojaveBill Wrote:
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> That is interesting. My wife and I lived and worked there from '82 to '94
> and were always told that about the Washington Monument...
> Which we climbed up to the top!

I heard a tour guide telling their group about the small statue of a person at the pinnacle of the Washington monument. Uh, no.

On my trips to the monument I was fortunate to ride the elevator.