Mysterious Stench Nauseates Northeast

By Del Quentin Wilber and Nia-Malika Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 29, 2005; Page B05

Olive Taylor first noticed the odor Tuesday night outside her Northeast
Washington home. By yesterday morning, the smell had turned into a stench
so bad that it woke her up.

"It was so unlike anything that should have been in my home," said Taylor,
71. "It wasn't really a gas smell. My son said it was a propane smell, but
a neighbor said it didn't smell like propane. Maybe it was kind of gassy.
It was in fact giving me a headache."

Scores of people in the District called authorities yesterday to complain
that a similar odor was invading homes, businesses, a dozen schools and
two police stations. Many mistakenly thought the trouble was a natural gas
leak, and at least two schools were evacuated for a time.

Firefighters and work crews shuttled from place to place during the day
and tested air to find the cause of the odor. The number of complaints
tailed off as the afternoon wore on, but the cause of the smell remained a
mystery last night.

Most of the complaints came from Northeast Washington, where the odor
seemed to come and go for no discernible reason. There was no consensus on
what it smelled like, only that it was nasty.

Some top fire officials initially worried about a major gas line rupture
or equipment failure. They settled on two less-menacing potential
culprits: a clogged sewer line in Prince George's County or extra-smelly
city storm drains. Officials said the storm drains may not have been
properly flushed out by rainwater in the recent dry spell.

Alan Etter, a D.C. fire department spokesman, said the stench apparently
traveled through the sewer pipe or storm drains -- "or a combination of
both" -- and became concentrated in poorly ventilated buildings. In other
words, the smell was most noticeable in D.C. public schools and two
District police stations. "There's not good ventilation in the older
buildings, and you have lots of people to notice it," Etter said.

Not everyone agreed with the fire department's theories. Officials at the
Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission said their sewer pipe was not
responsible.

Lydia Wilson, a commission spokeswoman, confirmed that work crews were
repairing a large section of 75-year-old pipe that was found crushed
underground in Capitol Heights, near the D.C. line. But she said the
workers believed that the broken pipe had "nothing to do" with the stench.

"We have no idea what caused the smell," Wilson said.

Washington Gas received more than 150 calls about possible gas leaks,
officials said.

D.C. Battalion Chief Brian Lee was in his office yesterday morning when
his fire department radio began barking: Gas leak at Smothers Elementary
School. Gas leak at the 6th District Police Station. Gas leak at Orr
Elementary School. Gas leak at a Safeway supermarket.

Firefighters responded to more than 35 calls for gas leaks within 12
hours. The vast majority were unfounded, Lee said.

"We usually get several calls like that a day, but not 30," Lee said.

Keturah Anderson, a 16-year-old 12th-grader at Spingarn Senior High
School, in the 2500 block of Benning Road NE, said she noticed the odor
yesterday morning while on her way to homeroom. "In the hallways, you
could smell gas throughout the school; it was strong," she said.

Spingarn Principal Reginald Burke evacuated the school and called the fire
department. Firefighters found nothing hazardous in the air. Students
returned to classes after about 30 minutes.

Seven miles away, people were talking about their experience at Curtis
Chevrolet, in the 59oo block of Georgia Avenue NW. Switchboard operator
De-Borah Kidd was forced to stand at the door to get fresh air.

"It smelled like skunk, rotten eggs and sulfur," she said, adding that her
description might not have done the odor justice.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802417.html

It's those damn demons in the White House and Congress!!! Read this
excerpt --

There was a long, black hallway down there. It was lit with glowing red
lights. The hallway was littered with bones. They took Craig down the
seemingly endless hallway, which sloped downwards at a slight angle, until
they reached a green door. The smell became progressively worse. One of
the shadow men opened the door. A horrible smell of sulphur and rotten
eggs wafted from the room. The room was the same rotten, green color as
the door. They took Craig into the room. Red hooks on rusted chains and
rusted metal crosses appended from the high ceiling. There was a rusted,
dull Roman short sword on the floor in the center of the room on a
pentagram, which was burned into the wood, floor boards. One of the shadow
men picked up the ancient sword. It began to saw Craig's head off with it
slowly. The shadow men all chanted verses from the Book of Satan as Craig
bled and screamed a high-pitched, terrified sound. Craig died in agony and
horror about minute after they started sawing his head off with the
ancient sword, which had been in use the day Christ died. The shadow men
hung Craig's corpse on a metal cross. They left him there.

The sign on the Old Scenic Route 66, directing people to Damon's
Roadhouse, vanished into nothing. Then, the roadhouse disappeared
completely. The demons running the roadhouse began waiting again for next
insane unknown, with a dark past to drift by. Sometimes, even in recent
history, they had to wait over a decade between victims. They were
patient. They had been here in different versions before the original
Route 66 was here. They had been here in different versions before the
wagon trains rolled westward. They knew there would be another victim
coming. The roadhouse wasn't ready to close for the last time just yet.