The Wire

A sophomore said he is happy to be alive after being hit by a transit bus outside of his fraternity house this morning.

Tyler Fishbone, a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, was taken to the GW Hospital around 8:30 a.m. with injuries to the feet and head after being hit by a Maryland Transit Administration bus, he said. While Fishbone said he has severe bruising on his feet and lacerations on his face, he is otherwise unhurt.

“I’m okay,” Fishbone said. “Actually, I feel great. I didn’t even break any bones.”

Fishbone was attempting to cross 23rd Street “against the cross walk sign” from Townhouse Row to Ivory Tower, University Spokeswoman Michelle Sherrard said.

MTA media representatives did not immediately return requests for comment. The bus was traveling south on 23rd street when it struck Fishbone.

About seven fire trucks and two ambulances have been dispatched to Fulbright Hall on 23rd and H streets because of smoke and a sprinkler activation in the building’s trash chute. No fire has been reported, but the building has been evacuated and a variety of agencies are investigating.

Sophomore Mark Amoroso, a Fullbright resident who lives on the 8th floor, said he smelled smoke on his entire walk down the stairs of the building.

“It also smelled like rubber,” Amoroso said.

Residents are being taken to Columbian Square because it is beginning to rain, but Residential Property Management officials said they do not expect them to have to spend the night there.

Update 9:59 p.m.: Trucks have left the scene however students are not yet allowed to enter the building.

Update 10:25 p.m.: Residents are still not allowed back into the building, according to Thomas Dwyer, managing director of Residential Property Management.

“We are trying to get the fire light safety systems reset and then that decision [to allow residents into the building] will be made by a staff director here on site,” said Dwyer, adding that he expects students to be able to enter the building at some point this evening.

11 p.m.: Fullbright residents are still not allowed into the building, according to UPD.

Sophomore Paul Patafio and his roommate Eric Lane have been waiting in the Marvin Center for more than an hour to be let back into their room on the 6th floor of the building.

Both Patafio and Lane were in their room when the alarms went off.

“The fire alarms went off and I was a little nervous so i opened the door and the hallway was filled with smoke,” Patafio said.

“Eventually we got out of there okay though,” he added.

Lane said he assumed the fire alarm was just a drill, until he stepped into the hallway.

“They had a bunch of fire alarms earlier in the year but they were all fake, so we were thinking about not going out, but we decided to for this one,” Lane said. “Then there was smoke in the halls, so we hustled out.”

Although Lane has been waiting in the Marvin Center for more than an hour, he said he is confident he will be let back into the dorm tonight.

“Unless they start rolling cots for us, I think we’re okay.”

-Emily Cahn and Becky Reeves contributed to this report

photo by Jonathan Ewing/The GW Hatchet

The way political campaigns communicate with the masses is rapidly changing, former Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn told a group of GW students and public relations professionals Tuesday evening.

“Everything is going to be different,” said Penn, who is also the chief executive officer of Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations firm. “I think the communication system is gonna be different, the participation levels, I think the fundraising is gonna be different. The question is how the system will or will not change to accommodate what we’re seeing in terms of these levels of participation.”

Political participation levels increased across the board in the 2008 election, Penn told around 40 audience members. Coupled with a more technologically-oriented audience, this increase has forced a change in the way political information gets to the public, he added.

Instead of traditional news cycles where the news outlets would push stories throughout the day, issues in the 2008 Election moved through a process where stories would come from the mainstream media, drive traffic to the Internet, and then work their way back into newspapers and onto cable television, Penn said.

Penn cited Clinton’s “3 a.m.” television ad — which he created — as an example of this phenomenon. The TV spot ran for just a single day in Texas, but became a national story through publicity from the mainstream media and Web browsing, Penn said.

“It was all made with stock footage for about twelve dollars,” he said.

Penn also told the audience that President-elect Barack Obama has done an “absolutely superb job” during the first few weeks of his transition to office, praising Obama’s selections for his cabinet.

Business Week correspondent Keith Epstein also spoke at the event, which was hosted by the Graduate School of Political Management and the Arthur Page Society.

A motor vehicle accident occurred at 23rd and H streets at about 9:40 p.m. between a sports utility vehicle and a car.

The occupants of both cars – the drivers and two passengers in the SUV – appeared unhurt, and all were walking around the scene before emergency personnel from D.C. Fire Department arrived.  The driver of the SUV was transported by EMeRG to the GW Hospital.

This marks the second accident in two days at 23rd and H streets.  Though not as serious as yesterday’s crash, the front-ends of both vehicles were heavily damaged.

-Andrew Nacin contributed to this report.