Declarations

Civil justice
“If the criminal system is not going to follow through and make them accountable, the only thing we have left is the civil system.”

James Gahan, whose 21-year-old son, Jimmy, died in The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island. Now that the criminal case has ended with a plea deal for the club’s owners, the families of some of the 100 people killed in the blaze are looking to a massive civil case for accountability. The federal lawsuit, filed by nearly 300 people who were injured or lost loved ones in the fire, names dozens of defendants, including everyone from the rock band Great White, whose pyrotechnic display sparked the fire, to a salesman who sold flammable polyurethane foam used as soundproofing.

Flood reservoirs
“It’s not going to stop flooding. But our hope is that it will reduce flood losses in the future.”

Clarke Rupert, spokesman for the Delaware River Basin Commission, in announcing that New York City has agreed to periodically lower the water level in three of its upstate reservoirs to ease flooding along the Delaware River. By leaving the reservoirs below capacity, experts believe they could be used to capture far more runoff from a major storm, lessening the severity of flooding in riverbank towns in the Catskills and northeast Pennsylvania. In the past, the city has tried to keep its Cannonsville, Pepacton and Neversink reservoirs as full as possible during the summer to guard against droughts, but that has meant that deluges spill directly into the Delaware.

Senior degraduation
“There’s no leeway at all now. We don’t want to take someone’s independence from driving until it’s absolutely, 100 percent necessary.”

New Hampshire motor vehicle chief Virginia Beecher in explaining a “degraduated” licensing system for elderly drivers. Drivers over 80 would be tested every three years instead of after five years as is the case now. A license examiner could renew a license for less than the five-years currently in law, allowing some drivers to keep driving longer. The state has 31,000 licensed drivers who are 80 and older while 2,800 are 90 and older. There are 19 licensed drivers who are 99 and 15 who are at least 100. Drivers aged 75 and older must take a road test and pass a vision test to renew their license.

On target
“The targets are all here.”

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton listing the White House, the Capitol, major monuments and other government facilities in northern Virginia and suburban Maryland at a ceremony opening a state-of-the-art communications center in the District of Columbia that will serve as a command post in the event of a regional emergency. The 127,000 square-foot center, five miles east of the U.S Capitol, could be used to coordinate rescue and recovery operations, mass evacuations or other response efforts. The building was designed to meet federal blast-resistance standards set after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and its air filtration system is designed to resist biochemical contamination.