Just before the planned start of a vigil at Alethia Tanner Park Thursday night, a crowd of mourners, community members and their dogs stood underneath a building’s awning as a sudden burst of rain soaked the area.
The heavy rain only lasted a few minutes, but it served as a somber reminder of the devastating downpour that caused the deaths of 10 dogs in a flash flood just three days earlier.
Water had crashed into the District Dogs canine day care on Rhode Island Avenue NE, after about two inches of rainfall fell over just 45 minutes late in the afternoon on Aug. 14, according to DC Water officials. Community members in and around Eckington quickly organized a vigil in support of the 10 families that lost pets and the District Dogs staff members who rescued dozens of dogs while in danger themselves.
Elaine Sierra-Rivera hugged her small pug, Captain Han Solo, tight to her chest as she stood in the crowd at the evening vigil.
“He was one of the ones rescued by the staff, and I’m ever so grateful to them,” she said. “My heart goes out to the ones that lost their pets because I just cannot imagine how it would’ve been without him. … Again, I’m just so grateful — six feet of water, and he’s not a swimmer. And he’s not a big guy.”
More than 50 people, and dozens of dogs, showed out for the memorial event. One District Dogs staff member brought a cardboard poster with photos of all the dogs who had died in the flood. Organizers brought candles for everyone to hold and white roses for the 10 families grieving.
After the formal ceremony ended, Teffiney Worthy embraced one District Dogs employee — who hadn’t been on shift that day — for a long time, both women crying. Worthy had lost her almost 1-year-old dog Memphis in the flood.
“He was very, very lovable,” she said in an interview the next day. “He was very in tune to people and their feelings — you know, he knew when to give me a cuddle, when I was sad.”
Memphis had become a regular face at Whittier Elementary, where Worthy works as a special education teacher. She brought him in for “Memphis Mondays,” and said the young dog was calm and loving with both kids and staff. Worthy had gotten Memphis for company in her new condo when she moved to D.C. from Mississippi about a year ago.
“He loved to jump, loved snuggles. … He gave the sweetest kisses,” Worthy said. “It’s very different not having him around.”
Worthy said she hadn’t heard anything, before this week, about flooding issues on that stretch of Rhode Island Avenue. Knowing what she knows now, she said the city should not have allowed a business to set up shop there if the flooding problem couldn’t be handled.
Jocelyn Lobos-Segura, another pet parent who lost a dog, said she plans to take legal action against the business, with the hope of preventing a similar disaster in the future. Her “rambunctious,” “silly and goofy” 1-year-old dog Mona had only been going to the Northeast day care for about two months before the flood happened.
“All of this could have been avoided,” Lobos-Segura said. “I don’t want any other pet parents to have to hear or even think about those last moments that their dogs may have gone through.”
She said it’s not just the business that could have prevented the tragedy: the city could have revoked District Dogs’ certificate of occupancy after the location flooded multiple times last year. Reporting from NBC4 and other outlets Thursday revealed that 20 minutes passed between the first 911 call and the dispatch of an emergency team.
DC Water says the Northeast Boundary Tunnel, which will run about 1.5 miles underneath Rhode Island Avenue from 6th St NW to almost 10th St NE, will help alleviate the issue at this location and others by creating 90 million gallons of storage space underground where excess water can flow. Construction is scheduled to be complete by the end of September.
The agency said that the new infrastructure “will not prevent all flooding from intense storms but will lessen their impact.”
The people who brought their dogs to the vigil, many of whom often used the Rhode Island District Dogs, all expressed the same sentiments: this could have been my pet.
“Our dog Ulysses, we’ve boarded him at District Dogs quite a lot, and it’s actually really only an accident of scheduling that he ended up not being there that day,” said Joe Bishop-Henchman, ANC Commissioner for Eckington. “That weighs on me.”
