Good morning, Arlington. Jo here. It’s Tuesday, September 14: National Live Creative Day and Nas’ 48th birthday.

Morning Status

• Today’s Weather: ☀️ Mostly sunny, with a high near 91.
• Tomorrow’s Weather: ☀️  Mostly sunny, with a high near 91.
• Sunrise:  6:45 a.m.
• Sunset:  7:12 p.m.

What We’re Covering Today

Morning Notes

• Dave Grohl Rocks Local Studio — “Dave Grohl doesn’t seem terribly interested in taking a day off. Shortly after the 9:30 Club announced the Grohl-led Foo Fighters would play a surprise show Thursday, the former Nirvana drummer reunited with D.C.-based punk rockers, at Inner Ear Studio — the legendary and soon-to-close Arlington, Virginia, recording studio owned by Don Zientara.” [WTOP]
• Fmr. Fire Chief on Arlington’s 9/11 Response — “‘It was truly an all-hands-on-deck endeavor,’ Schwartz said at the historical society’s annual banquet, held Sept. 9 at Washington Golf & Country Club. ‘We’re all in this together. There’s not a single agency or even a single jurisdiction that can handle this by themselves.’ Schwartz pointed to the county’s then-fire chief, Edward Plaugher, for his work building relationships with agencies like the FBI. Plaugher ‘was ahead of his time’ in being concerned about terrorism.” [Sun Gazette]
• Night Paving at Busy Intersection — “Nighttime paving continues overnight this week at the Langston Boulevard (Lee Highway)-Glebe Road intersection improvements project… lasting into Friday, Sept. 17.” [Twitter]
• Nicecream Hits Rocky Road — Nicecream, the handcrafted ice cream shop that expanded after finding success with its first location in Clarendon, is closing its Shaw store in the District. [PoPville]

The following are preview of stories we’re planning to cover later today. Note that some stories may be pushed back, depending on the day’s news. 

Tweet Prompts VDOT to Fix Road Sign Typo: A local Twitter user got VDOT to fix a capitalization error on a sign westbound Route 50 drivers see near the Marine Corps Memorial. After replacing a capital “T” with a lowercase one in “14th Street” on Friday, VDOT tells ARLnow it always encourages residents to reach out if they see any transportation-related issues, from sign typos to short-cycling signals.

COVID-19 Update: Another week, another high point for Covid cases in Arlington since the earlier winter peak. Over the past 90 days the county has averaged just under three Covid-related hospitalizations per week and just over one death per month.

New Unit Supplants School Resource Officers: Earlier this summer, the Arlington School Board voted to remove School Resource Officers from school grounds. Since then, Arlington County Police Department has formed a new Youth Outreach Unit and has started working with APS to rewrite a Memorandum of Understanding governing the unit’s responsibilities. That work began on the first day of school, and a final draft of the MOU will be posted for review and community feedback on Nov. 1.

Reporter’s Notepad

Washington Gas wrote to customers on Monday that it will be suspending customer disconnections in Virginia and Maryland through the end of the month in response to complaints about poor customer service.

That may possibly be good news for people struggling to get problems with their gas accounts settled, which I wrote about on Sept. 2. People detailed hours-long wait times only to be greeted with the other end hanging up or going to voicemail whenever they called to start up and cancel their services and otherwise do tasks they said couldn’t be accomplished online.

While some of the information in this week’s apology note was a repetition of what Washington Gas told us, the announcement about customer disconnections is new and hopefully welcome.

“While we work to strengthen our customer service capabilities, we are suspending customer disconnections in Maryland and Virginia through the end of the month,” it said in an email to customers. “In Washington, D.C., disconnections are not occurring as part of the District Government’s moratorium on utility disconnections.

We know the pandemic has been difficult for many families. That’s why we offer a variety of payment plans and energy assistance programs to assist customers. Every day, we work with our customers to help them maintain access to the critical energy services we provided.”

The Washington Post published a story on Saturday also about the service delays and problems residents have been experiencing. It included the more recent news of the disconnections ending, and Washington Gas told the Post that its staffing issues were related to switching call center providers during the pandemic, something the State Corporation Commission alluded to in our story.

All told, I’m happy to see the company respond to customer complaints after multiple media outlets — starting with us — shone a spotlight on the problems. I’m grateful for our tipsters, anonymous and named, who trust us to look into this issue and others.