Washington Post – “In dozens of cases, Metro crews copied and pasted language from prior years’ structural inspection reports for the Rhode Island Avenue station and skipped inspections of hard-to-reach and low-visibility areas, culminating in a steel beam and concrete chunks falling from the ceiling on two consecutive days in 2016, Metro’s Office of the Inspector General concluded in a new report released Thursday. No one was injured, but Rhode Island Avenue and Brookland stations will be shut down for 45 days starting July 21 to permanently address the structural failures that came to light when concrete came tumbling from the station’s ceiling on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 2016. [Read the report here] The audit comes more than a year after Metro abruptly fired a third of its track inspection department for widespread record fabrication that the agency said contributed to a derailment near East Falls Church in summer 2016. And it raises new questions about the agency’s ability to ensure the safety and reliability of the system.The audit found 49 times over three years where the annual inspection reports for Rhode Island Avenue contained the exact wording as the prior year’s reports, the IG concluded in its year-long review. In 29 of those cases, the inspector general could not determine what Metro crews had inspected, while in 20 other cases, inspectors simply said nothing had changed since the prior year’s inspection, according the report…”