We’ve got a major Coastal Flood Warning today, with the tidal Potomac swelling to 3-4 ft above flood level, and 5-10 ft around Georgetown. Be safe and cautious if you live or work near the Potomac River or the C&O Canal, and don’t try to drive through flood water. The National Harbour boardwalk and parts of the driveway to K Street are inundated, and as has already been mentioned, a broken C&O Canal lock may cause additional flooding in Lower Georgetown. Parts of the The Mount Vernon Bike Trail are underwater, and of course Old Town Alexandria is getting swamped as well.

After the jump, a hydrograph and some bigger photos.

NWS Potomac River Hydrograph from measurements made at Wisconsin Ave show the tide peaking at just over 10 ft a bit after noon:

And here are more photos of the inundated National Harbour boardwalk and waterfront I took earlier this morning:

Update, the next day: Pentagon shooter J. Patrick Bedell was a software engineer from California, with lots of online trails: a Wikipedia profile, a blogspot blog, an Amazon review and wish list, a Linked In page, and a SourceForge project. See DCist and Gawker for additional details on Bedell’s disturbed online presence.

(Earlier updates after the jump)

Update, 12:55AM: AP reports that Bedell has died.

Update, 10PM: CBS News producer David Singer of KNX 1070 news radio in Los Angeles tweets: I just talked with man who thinks he is father of Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell. Says his son has been slipping. He seems pretty sure, though I’m not sure what the guy thinking he is the father means exactly.

Update, 8:30PM: Official DoD statement on the shooting. The shooter, identifed in the Associated Press as “John Patrick Bedell,” is injured and in custody, though investigations into a second suspect are ongoing. Both officers who were shot have non-life-threatening injuries. Washington Post story here.

Update, 8PM: Official WMATA release says the incident began at 6:35PM. The station remains closed, but trains are passing through.

Update, 7:43PM: The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder has been all over this in detail on Twitter. “Code Red” has been lifted and the total lockdown is no longer in effect, but the area around the Metro entrance is closed off as a crime scene. Shots were fired right near the station entrance, and the two police shot were PFPA officers. Pentagon Station is still closed. Blue and Yellow Line trains are passing through, but not stopping.

Update, 7:30PM: ArlNow.com has additional details, with the earliest photo from around the scene that we can find.

Update, 7:12PM: Some additional details from FOX5: three people have been shot, two of whom were police. One person in custody. Pentagon Metro Station is now closed.

We are hearing reports of shots fired at Pentagon Metro just now. Tweet from BreakingNews: Pentagon locked down after shooting at entrance to adjacent Metro subway station – NBC News

Lots of chatter on Twitter, including this one from willrobinsoniii: People shot at the Pentagon near the buses. Guns and military everywhere. Confusion with wmata. Getting out of here asap

…and this one from ASEcmu: Just witnessed a police standoff. perp was in car cop was pointing assault rifle at him.

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Speaking of unhikable, unbikable paths, commenter Phil noted that Theodore Roosevelt Island trails are still a mess of snow and fallen trees and branches. I got to see that firsthand over the weekend; most of the island is still shin-deep in snow, and the boardwalk remains uncleared of branches and ankle-to-shin deep accumulation, with an unevenly packed path in the middle thanks to occasional daring joggers. Hard to walk, but pretty to look at.

More photos after the jump:

Full photoset here.

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The C&O Canal Towpath has been closed since last week between 31st and Wisconsin in Georgetown due to huge trees downed by the weight of Snowmageddon 2010. No word on when NPS plans to clean up the mess, so if your jogging route takes you down the C&O anytime soon, you might want to detour down to K or up to M for the time being.

Thanks to palkynetbab for the photos. Bigger pics after the jump.

Update: The towpath has been cleared:

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Remember how in 2008 Metro closed off an escalator and only had one escalator going down at rush hour, so that people escaped the overwhelming crush by running up the down escalator in a video (shot by yours truly) that made the local news? Suddenly WMATA cleaned up its act with regard to passenger traffic management, and for the next few weeks they turned off the escalators, assigned someone to guide counterflow, and put out advisories.

No such courtesies were extended this morning, almost as though WMATA only reacts when the news puts them on the spot — or a disaster kills people. Good thing there wasn’t a fire in the station this morning.

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The Washington Harbour Boardwalk in Georgetown is underwater this morning, as the muddy, debris-strewn Potomac River swells to flood level following Sunday and Monday’s rain. NWS has issued a Coastal Flood Warning for our area. Highest afternoon tides will be around 5:30PM.

The rest of the Harbour is behind a floodwall that they have ready just for these occasions, so those of you who eat at Tony & Joe’s, Agraria, Cabanas, Nick’s Riverside Grill, and Sequioa should be just fine and dry.

After the jump, a video of how fast the river is moving, more photos, and the view from Old Town:

Earlier photo of the floodwall from December by M.V. Jantzen:

And a photo of flooding in Old Town Alexandria on Monday, courtesy sbaker517 on Twitter:

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An offloaded train at Rosslyn Station in the midst of rush hour has resulted in some pretty bad delays on the Orange Line. Unsuck DC Metro Twitter is keeping watch. Thanks to Mark for the Twitpic. More details from the Post’s Get There blog.

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That’s the Senate Subway, c. 1915, just two years after it started operation, part of the whole Capitol Subway System. After the jump, you can see how the Senate Subway still uses open-air cars, though somewhat more modernized.

(Update: Well, boy is my face red; the ‘today’ photo after the jump is actually from the House subway, not Senate. You can tell I’ve never ridden either system, not having had the privilege of working on the Hill myself.)

(Thanks to Linda for the photo.)

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American Airlines Flight 331, a 737-800 originating from DC National Airport, overshot the runway on landing in Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica, with heavy rain. The plane broke into pieces and came to a stop on the beach, just short of the water. At the moment we are hearing 154 on board, no fatalities, 91 injuries, 3 reported serious. Survivors escaping the fuselage emerged into dark and rain, then had to walk down the beach to get to waiting buses. More from NPR, and discussion on Airliners.net.

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Some snow plow operation in Arlington has seen fit to pile this massive snowbank right on top of a pedestrian crossing outside Clarendon Metro, forcing walkers to walk around it, on the road, dodging ice and skidding cars to get across Wilson Blvd. Hey, Arlington, I know it’s hard to figure out where to put all this snow, but if you’re trying to encourage walkability in the county, you’re doing it wrong.

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Local pilots and planespotters will be happy to know that LiveATC has live streaming tower communications from National Airport (DCA) and Dulles (IAD). Few things are more soothing and fascinating for the aviation geek than listening to the smooth, seductive tower-and-aircraft dance of ATC broadcasts from your local airport.

• National Tower (M3U playlist format)
• Dulles Tower (ASX, requires Windows Media Player)

You can also search for the pertinent airports from LiveATC search; National is KDCA and Dulles is KIAD. Found via DCTower.net.

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Flying out of DC today? Probably not: according to the FAA, National Airport (DCA) is closed till tomorrow afternoon. Dulles (IAD) and BWI are experiencing gate, taxi, and arrival delays of “15 minutes or less,” but MWAA says most airlines have cancelled flights. Pretty much every local airport website is crawling right now, and BWI’s database server seems to have crashed. Check with your airlines, and look out there: a foot of snow so far and still coming down hard through till tomorrow? This is not good plane weather.

If you’re going out by rail, however, you’re in luck: IMGoph and Get There report that Amtrak is running just fine; though delays may intensify through the day. Getting to the station might be a problem, though, especially if you’re coming from an above-ground Metro stop.

(Thanks to America.gov for the photo.)

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Update: More details on the accident from WashCycle.

I walked by this scene at 31st and M in Georgetown last night: squad cars and yellow tape around a Washington Flyer taxi, its windshield badly cracked, a mangled bicycle under its tires. Vnangia tweets that the accident was fatal. MPD had officers directing traffic around the scene (which got a bit confusing for drivers and pedestrians alike as the traffic lights were still running at the time, nearly causing more accidents), and M Street was backed up significantly. (But then, when isn’t it?)

Also mentioned on Georgetown Metropolitan. No mention on the MPD-2D mailing list. Anyone else see what happened?

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Update: WMATA is slowly bringing back services. Metrobus fareboxes and bus radios are back in operation, MetroAccess dispatch and online reservations are working, and this morning I heard a public address system test. More info from this WMATA release.

WMATA’s communications systems suffered a major power failure early this morning, disrupting bus and rail service through the course of the DC morning rush. Buses and trains are still running, but buses have no direct communication with their operations center, Bus Smartrip scanners don’t work, debit transactions are out, credit transactions limited, the public address system is down, and other systems like NextBus and MetroAcess online reservations have failed as well.

Buses are currently free to ride, and bus drivers are literally phoning it in to communicate with control.

More info from NBC Washington, WTOP, MyFoxDC, and WUSA9.

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If you’re in the Dupont/Logan area and up for some free classical music this Sunday, dramatic soprano Alessandra Marc (accompanied by pianist David Chapman) will be giving a free recital on Sunday, 4PM at The First Baptist Church of Washington, DC at 16th and O Streets NW.

From the official press release:

Well known for her signature performances as Turandot and Aida, Ms. Marc is a frequent guest of the world’s leading opera houses and orchestras, including Opéra Bastille in Paris, La Scala in Milan, the Washington National Opera, the New National Theatre in Tokyo and the Metropolitan Opera, among others.

The recital is the latest in the long-standing tradition of First Baptist Church to offer free music to the community. For more than 50 years, First Baptist Church has hosted an annual candlelight carol concert, inviting Washington-area choirs and audience members to welcome the Christmas season in song. Since early 2008, First Baptist Church has shared its Steinway concert grand piano in free concerts by pianist Thomas Pandolfi and recitals by the vocalists who perform regularly with the church’s Chancel Choir.

Ms. Marc will perform selections from her impressive repertoire, including “Morgen” by Richard Strauss; the aria “Pace, pace mio dio” from Verdi’s La Forza del Destino; and the aria “My Man’s Gone Now” from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Accompanying Ms. Marc will be pianist David Chapman on the Steinway. Mr. Chapman, who studied and performed in Europe for many years, will separately perform three Gershwin preludes and two Chopin waltzes during the recital. He currently serves on the adjunct faculty roster at Landon School in Bethesda and as music director and pianist at Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church in Adelphi, Md.

(Full disclosure: I’m a member at First Baptist DC. I also sing bass in the choir and am a big fan of both sopranos and Steinways.)

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Update, 11am: “Normal” service restored.

Update, 10am: Red Line is now single-tracking between Farragut North and Judiciary Square. According to Dr. Gridlock, Metro spokeswoman Angela Gates says a collector shoe fell off a train car, sparking a fire under the train at Gallery Place-Chinatown. Smoke then traveled down the tunnel to Metro Center.

Most of the downtown Red Line has been virtually shut down by heavy smoke between Metro Center and Gallery Place-Chinatown — official delay announcements have been punctuated online by reports from Twitterers of a fire caused by one or two minor explosions, possibly from under a train.

@drgridlock: A collector shoe, which sends power from the 3rd rail to the train, fell off and caused a fire.

@EWebb_PYT: 2 minor explosion on the red line! We were scared as heck. Glad everyone made it out without injury! I’m walking from Metro Center

Fuzzy pic from @1THEREGG shows what looks like a small fire on the tracks:

@DCFireEMS: metro incident – Metro Ctr / Gallery Place smoke in tunnel and/or fire under train Metro Ctr being evac

@sspenguin: DC Fire/EMS: #RedLine train’s burning brakes caused electrical fire, boom at Gallery Place; smoke backed into Metro Center station.

davestroup: now people are saying “small explosion” what in the world. it was likely arcing, using term explosion is rather sensationalist.

movingmomentarily: Burning breaks caused a small fire and train was evacuated apparently. Red line is in a DO NOT USE state. I bet it smells AWFUL too…

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Workers and a crane in the mud of the drained C&O canal are building a new dry dock for the canal boat, probably to make the upcoming flurry of bridge restoration work easier.

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The Glenn Beck/FreedomWorks 9/12 DC Taxpayer Rally was on Saturday, with conservative Tea Party activists congregating in Washington to protest various things like healthcare reform, federal taxation, government deficit spending, and the President being a Stalinist Nazi Fascist Kenyan Hitler. They drew a healthy-sized crowd, by many accounts much larger than the 30,000 names registered online by FreedomWorks. DCFD estimates are said to be in the 50,000-70,000 range.

Given these numbers it seemed a bit unrealistic for a much-cited article from the right-wing Daily Mail to claim “up to two million.” This AP photo does show an impressive crowd gathered from the edge of the Capitol Lower Terrace to just west of East Capitol Circle/1st St NW/SW, filling up the entire Capitol lawn:

But that’s a wide angle shot from right behind the hedges by the Grant Memorial, much closer to the Capitol than the depth of field makes it appear. Let’s pull back a bit farther, past Grant Memorial, the Capitol Reflecting Pool, and 3rd Street, to the National Mall itself:

Not much going on in that afternoon photo, despite some protestors’ claims that the National Mall was solid with people up to the Washington Monument. In truth, the FreedomWorks event had permits only for the Capitol Grounds and not for the National Mall, prompting speakers to urge those in attendance to pull in closer to the Capitol, an announcement which at one point led to some grumbling.

Before arrival at the Capitol the real bulk of the crowd was contained in the march down Pennsylvania Ave NW, which filled up the avenue and lasted three hours, captured in this timelapse taken from an overlooking building:

Based on the density and duration of the march, rally organizers’ and supporters’ estimates range anywhere from “hundreds of thousands” range to about 1.5 million — but Penn Ave NW is much narrower than the National Mall, and fills up with people a lot faster, even for smaller marches. (This hasn’t stopped supporters from claiming that this narrow view of the march is proof that the crowd extended to the Washington Monument, even though the camera was closer to Freedom Plaza.)

Going back to the National Mall, here are two past DC rallies: the 1995 Million Man March, for which the NPS lowball estimate was in the 400,000s, and higher estimates went to 850,000:

And an aerial shot of the 1997 Promise Keepers march, for which estimates run from 500,000 to a million:

The Million Man March clearly extends well past the National Gallery of Art’s West Wing, and the Promise Keepers easily stretch from Capitol to Washington Monument. (Coincidentally, the aerial view of the Promise Keepers event continues to be passed around by somewhat more credulous linkers as being of the 9/12 rally, despite the clear absence of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the older configuration of paths around the Washington Monument.)

Now, here’s the crowd at the Obama inauguration in January, an event which NPS estimated had 1.2 million to 1.8 million in attendance:

For comparison, here’s a photo of the 9/12 rally at its peak, taken more or less from the same vantage point as the inaugural photo above, the Upper Terrace of the Capitol looking west towards the Monument:

Lots of people gathered on the Capitol lawn, around the Reflecting Pool, and reaching a few blocks down Penn Ave NW and Maryland Ave SW. Farther down the grassy Mall you can see the crowd thin out, well before reaching the tents of the National Black Family Reunion, on the Monument end of the Mall.

David Shuster tweeted his estimate that the rally had under 50,000 people, since the crowd didn’t go past 3rd Street, but considering that they had to pack in on the Capitol Grounds to keep from overflowing too much onto the Mall, and Penn Ave NW was clogged for up to a good three hours, I think the upper reaches of the DCFD’s 70,000 esimate are good; if the grounds around the US Botanic gardens, Senate Parking Garage Fountain, and Constitution and Independence avenues were packed, too, maybe even up to 100,000 is possible — a significant number.

Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks has since apologized for misrepresenting the “two million” crowd estimate as having come from ABC News, and the official FreedomWorks recap says “hundreds of thousands,” which is a reasonable statement if they got up to 100,000. This, of course, hasn’t stopped 9/12 rally supporters from continuing to insist on two million, or even “2 to 3 million.”

As a useful visualization tool, Philip Bump of Mediaite depicts the difference in rally crowd estimates in terms of pixels.

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Union Station Bike Center (AKA “BikeStation”) looks pretty much done at this point — outside, at least. The construction fences and tarps are gone, and the parking garage driveway to 1st St NE has been open now for a few weeks. Station-area bicyclists should soon have a nice, sheltered, secure spot to store their bikes here.

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Here’s some shaky video of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s hearse and procession leaving the Capitol to go down Constitution Ave. to Arlington Cemetery. Hundreds of people lined the lawn and sidewalk, with Kennedy’s staff and colleagues on the Senate steps. As the hearse left the driveway a wave of cheering and applause swept through the crowd, with some waving a final goodbye.

There’s a Flickr group for shots of Kennedy’s funeral.

A comment from kleven-stein, who was right in the middle of things:

I was there, right in front of the senate steps. I was surprised and a bit discomfited by the applause at first, but after a few seconds, I found myself joining into the applause wholeheartedly.

The initial applause occurred upon the appearances of VIPs, such as Senator Robert Byrd (92years old) in a wheelchair.

You could easily see by the homemade signs and conversations that the entire crowd was celebrating the incredible life-journey, and the enormity of his service to the nation. There was an intense air of gratitude and cheer, despite the somber aspect of his passing.

This was an uplifting experience for me, and picturesque with the low summer evening sun beaming out from behind the clouds just before his arrival. I’ll try to post some pix later..

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