D.C. Metro Fills with Smoke for Third Time in Two Days

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

For the third time in only two days a station in Washington, D.C.’s underground train system filled with smoke causing commuters to flee.

D.C. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel reported that the L’Enfant Plaza station filled with smoke around 11AM on Sunday morning due to a mechanical issue.

The station, which is only about a block away from the series of Smithsonian National Museum buildings on the National Mall in Washington, may have been affected by the harsh winter conditions besetting the nation’s capital.

This wasn’t the first time that smoke filled the Metro over the weekend. The day before firefighters were called to the Foggy Bottom station in Rosslyn when a fire started due to a malfunction with the system’s third rail.

Also on Saturday the Woodley Park Metro station filled with smoke forcing an evacuation.

This is the fourth time a D.C. Metro station has filled with smoke recently. Thankfully this weekend’s incidents didn’t end in any fatalities as did the incident on January 12th.

Last month was the first time the L’Enfant Plaza station filled with smoke. The incident killed one Metro commuter and sent 84 others to local hospitals.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com

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