Red Line and the DC Metro: Too close for comfort.
June 23, 2009 by Tellie
Filed under Featured Content, My Inner Kindlings
I heard about the crash on the red line, a line I am too familiar with. My mom rides the red line, and so do countless friends. I immediately went to the metro map to see exactly where on the red line the accident occurred. It was definitely the route my mom took to and from work. And the route to my friends’s apartment.
DEADLY CRASH: Two Red Line Metrorail trains that collided between the Fort Totten and Takoma Park stations during the evening rush hour June 22, 2009 in Washington, D.C., killing at least six and injuring over 100. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
My mom was the first person I called, her phone was off, but she picked up the house phone. Apparently she had driven in to work.
A friend of mine wrote on twitter “I’m in the train, HELP!” I tweeted them back, but I guess he had no service, and I didn’t get a reply for almost 3 hours. Apparently he wasn’t on the collided train, he didn’t know what had happened, but he had been stuck in a tunnel for hours. He apologized for almost giving me, and countless others heart attacks.
A lot of my friends happened to be on the train behind the one that actually collided, and I refreshed my facebook status filter 1000 times, making sure that everyone was indeed okay. I have never been so thankful for social networking before in my life.
I still have not gotten in touch with everyone I know in the area. But it’s impossible for me to do so. I just feel incredibly blessed that my mom drove instead of taking the metro, and my friends didn’t decide to go home 5 minutes earlier.
If I weren’t spending my summer in Indiana I would definitely be spending it in DC. That’s where I work…and I’d be taking the red line. Yes, too close for comfort, I agree.
