Updated at 9:45 a.m. on 11/4/2020 — The Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department says the vehicle crash on Hunter Mill Road at Water Falls Lane in Vienna involved a dump truck that rolled down an embankment. Crews responded to the incident at approximately 1:18 p.m. yesterday (Tuesday).

Updated at 2:15 p.m. on 11/3/2020 — Fairfax County police say Hunter Mill Road has now reopened.

A vehicle crash that occurred before 2 p.m. today shut down Hunter Mill Road at Water Falls Lane in the Wolf Trap area of Vienna.

While the incident is still under police investigation, Fairfax County police spokesperson Tara Gerhard says that the crash involved a single vehicle, possibly a truck that turned over on the road. One person has been taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The crash has closed Hunter Mill Road in both directions, and the Fairfax County Police Department is advising drivers to find an alternate route.

“It looks like the road is going to be tied up for a little while,” Gerhard said.

TRAFFIC ALERT: Hunter Mill Road is closed in both directions at Water Falls Lane in Vienna due to a crash. Please use an alternate route. #FCPD pic.twitter.com/biPsfNOGew

— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) November 3, 2020

Updated at 2:55 p.m. — Voter turnout in the City of Falls Church has now topped 80% with residents turning in 8,573 ballots total as of 2 p.m., according to city elections officials.

The city is seeing its highest voter turnout ever with this year’s election easily surpassing the 7,860 votes cast in 2016, which previously saw the most number of votes, according to David Bjerke, the director of elections and general registrar for the City of Falls Church.

The 87.4% of active registered voters who cast ballots in 2012 remains the city’s high watermark for the percent of voters participating in a general election, but with 80.1% of voters having already cast their ballots by 2 p.m., 2020 could still potentially set a new record in terms of percentage as well as numbers.

2pm
CAP: 7552 (added mail and drop box)
Ward 1: 388
Ward 2: 318
Ward 3: 279

8573 ballots for 80.1%

4/5 of the City has voted. Less than 5 hours to break the record.

— Dave Bjerke (@davebjerke) November 3, 2020

The vast majority of ballots that both Falls Church City and Fairfax County have received so far were cast before Election Day after early voters turned out in droves, thanks to state legislation permitting no-excuse absentee voting took effect this year.

The City of Falls Church has received 7,552 absentee ballots, including ones delivered by mail and dropboxes, while in Fairfax County, more than 404,000 votes were cast early, according to county election officials.

As of 2 p.m., Fairfax County was seeing an estimated 16.1% voter turnout for Election Day. With absentee ballots constituting about 51% of the county’s voting population, that means 67.1% of the county’s 787,000 registered voters have cast ballots in this year’s general election.

Despite concerns about voter intimidation in the lead-up to Election Day, Fairfax County public information officer Brian Worthy said this morning that the county has not experienced any issues with voting at its 244 precincts, and turnout has been “light as expected” due to the high levels of early voters.

“There are no lines that I’ve heard of, although I witnessed a very small one around 6 a.m. at the Fairfax County Government Center,” Worthy said. “No lines now and very few voters.”

2 p.m. Turnout Update
✔️ Today: 16.1%
✔️ Early Voting: 51% (404,000 votes)
✔️ Estimated Total: 67.1% of 787,000 registered voters in Fairfax County

Vote or return mailed ballots by 7 p.m.#vote #vote2020 #electionday #election2020 #2020election pic.twitter.com/GbRq3OMrCK

— Fairfax County Votes (@fairfaxvotes) November 3, 2020

Photo via Fairfax County government/Twitter

The Town of Vienna Police Department collected 309 pounds of expired or unused medications on Oct. 24 as part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s 19^th National Drug Take Back Initiative.

That is a noticeable increase from the department’s previous two drug take-back events. Vienna citizens dropped off 234 pounds of expired and unused medications for an event in April 2019 and 281 pounds for an event last October, Vienna Police Department public information officer MPO Juan Vazquez says.

For this year’s October drug take-back day, the Vienna Police Department set up a collection point for citizens to drop off old, expired, unused, or unwanted medications between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The site was placed in the front parking lot of the department’s Center Street station instead of inside to allow for social distancing.

The DEA typically organizes two take-back days every year in an effort to combat prescription drug abuse, but concerns about COVID-19 led the federal agency to cancel this year’s scheduled April event.

“Many citizens volunteer feedback and said they were really appreciative of us hosting this event again,” Vasquez said.

More than 4,000 local and state law enforcement agencies participated in the 2020 National Drug Take Back Initiative, including 140 agencies in Virginia that collected 25,706 pounds of drugs at 179 sites, according to the DEA.

The Fairfax County Police Department collected 1,696 pounds of prescription and over-the-counter medications on Oct. 24, including 102 pounds from the McLean District Station, which had the second-lowest total this year after collecting the second-highest amount during last year’s National Drug Take Back Day.

In addition to hosting eight collection sites for this year’s one-day initiative, Fairfax County now has permanent drug take back boxes at each of its eight police stations, and community members can pick up drug disposal kits from the county’s health department offices.

The county accepts prescription medications and ointments, over-the-counter medications, and medications for pets, but needles, liquids of any kind, illegal drugs, non-prescription ointments and lotions, aerosol cans, and inhalers are prohibited from the collection boxes.

“This important initiative addresses vital safety and public health issues,” the FCPD says. “Unused or expired over the counter or prescription medicine left unsecured can be prone to misuse and may contribute to overdoses and accidental poisonings.”

Information about safely disposing of expired or unwanted medication, including a map of all the permanent drug collection boxes in the Fairfax County area, can be found on the Fairfax County Health Department website.

Like many other parts of Virginia and the U.S., Fairfax County is seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases as the weather gets cooler.

The county has a rolling seven-day average of 133.9 cases as of Nov. 2, the highest since mid-June when an average of 137 cases was recorded on June 12.

After adding 937 cases over the past seven days starting on Oct. 27, including 167 new cases just on Nov. 2, Fairfax County now has a total of 24,642 COVID-19 cases and 2,317 hospitalizations.

The latest data from the Virginia Department of Health shows that the Fairfax Health District, which includes the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church as well as Fairfax County, now has a total of 620 COVID-19 deaths, with 605 deaths in Fairfax County, eight in Fairfax City, and seven in Falls Church.

Fairfax County’s case rate of 2,120 cases per 100,000 people is roughly in line with those of surrounding localities, surpassing Arlington (2,012) but remaining under the City of Alexandria (2,718) despite its significantly larger population.

Virginia’s northern region as a whole saw a steady upward trend in cases throughout October, but it has become more pronounced over the past week, when the region’s seven-day moving average rose from 234.3 cases on Oct. 25 to 322.3 cases today.

While that still falls far short of the 685.3 seven-day average recorded when the pandemic was peaking in Northern Virginia at the end of May, the upward trajectory reflects an overall surge in reported COVID-19 cases throughout Virginia.

The 1,306 seven-day moving average that Virginia reported today is the highest that the state has ever seen since the novel coronavirus first emerged in the Commonwealth in March.

The regional and statewide climb in COVID-19 cases will continue to draw scrutiny as Fairfax County Public Schools plans to bring more students back into physical classrooms throughout November.

FCPS started returning small cohorts of students to in-person instruction at the beginning of October, and students in early Head Start through second grade, along with students in special education and students with intensive support needs, are all tentatively scheduled to return to school by Nov. 30.

117 employees and 26 students have reported contracting COVID-19 to principals, program managers, or administrators since early September, according to a weekly COVID-19 case dashboard compiled by FCPS.

Because the case count is based on self-reporting, FCPS notes that the data “should be interpreted with caution…and may not be aligned to future epidemiological investigations.”

Staff Photo by Jay Westcott; image via Virginia Department of Health

Flashing beacons have been installed at the Washington & Old Dominion Trail crossing on Shreve Road in Falls Church, offering a glimmer of hope that bigger changes are coming to a road that has been plagued by safety and traffic issues for years.

The Virginia Department of Transportation added two solar and battery-powered flashing yellow lights to existing yellow bicycle-and-pedestrian warning signs facing each direction on Shreve Road on Oct. 28.

The new beacons are temporary, intended as a “second warning” after drivers pass permanent warning beacons that can be found several hundred feed prior to the crossing, according to VDOT spokesperson Kathleen Leonard.

Operational around the clock, the temporary flashing beacons were installed to quickly address concerns about bicycle and pedestrian safety on Shreve Road. Community members have been particularly adamant about the need for improvements since a female pedestrian was killed in a crash in August 2019.

“This is a positive safety development for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists accessing the Shreve Road corridor,” Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik said. “The flashing light will improve visibility and operate on solar and battery power.”

Palchik also announced on Wednesday that a more substantial change for Shreve Road is closer to fruition with the Commonwealth Transportation Board’s approval of a Safe Routes to School grant for Fairfax County’s proposed Shrevewood Elementary School project.

With the Safe Routes to School grant, the Fairfax County Department of Transportation plans to add three new marked crosswalks:

• Across Shreve Road at Fairwood Lane
• Across Shreve at the elementary school’s eastern driveway
• Across Virginia Lane at Virginia Avenue

Each crosswalk will include connections to existing sidewalks and paths, signs, markings, and curb ramps and extensions.

According to FCDOT, Shreve Road currently has no marked crosswalks for over half a mile that provide access to the school from northern neighborhoods and the W&OD Trail, despite an abundance of pedestrian and bike facilities along the road and many nearby streets.

The Shrevewood project was driven by the community and has gotten support from the school’s parent-teacher association and principal as well as the Falls Hill Civic Association and other homeowners’ and civic associations, according to FCDOT communications head Robin Geiger.

Geiger says the project has not been developed enough for a timeline to be established.

By improving safety, Safe Routes to School aims to encourage students to exercise instead of taking cars to school. About 30 percent of Fairfax County’s elementary and middle schools take part in the program.

“These improvements will help students become more physically active and healthy and make Shreve Road safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists alike,” Providence District School Board representative Karl Frisch said.

VDOT is currently exploring additional safety improvements along Shreve Road through its Shreve Road Corridor Study, which launched earlier this year after months of advocacy by the Shreve Road Community Working Group.

With the National Park Service considering improvements to the W&OD crossing, VDOT’s study team is refining its recommendations based on public input after presenting them at a virtual public meeting on Oct. 7.

“At this time the study does not set construction dates for any of the alternatives,” Leonard said. “The purpose of this study is to develop proposed improvements that localities can pursue for funding, and to consider including in their comprehensive plans.”

Photo via Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik/Facebook

Updated on 10/30/2020 — The Virginia High School League announced that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has signed an executive order allowing high school students to start playing sports in December.

“Keeping our student athletes safe is critical during this pandemic,” Northam said. “I know I join many parents in looking forward to the safe return of school sports.”

Earlier — The Virginia High School League is currently working with the governor’s office to potentially get a waiver that would let public school students compete in sports starting on Dec. 7, even if the state remains in Phase 3 of its reopening plan.

Signs point to Virginia public schools “likely” getting permission to proceed with a truncated winter sports season, Fairfax County Public Schools student activities and athletics director Bill Curran said in a virtual town hall on student athletics hosted by Hunter Mill District School Board representative Melanie Meren on Wednesday (Oct. 28).

“VHSL has worked very closely with the Virginia Department of Health and governor’s office with regard to opening back up and what guidance and changes would need to be made so we can have high school sports on Dec. 7,” Curran said.

Virginia has been in the third phase of Gov. Ralph Northam’s Forward Virginia plan for guiding the Commonwealth through the COVID-19 pandemic since July 1.

Under Phase 3, both indoor and outdoor recreational sports are limited to 250 people, including players, staff, and spectators. Those individuals are also expected to maintain 10 feet of physical distance “where practicable.”

As it is now written, Phase 3 “basically does not allow for high school sports” beyond optional workouts for individual teams, Curran says.

As the nonprofit that serves as Virginia’s governing body for student athletics and activities, the VHSL has spent the past several months developing guidelines that it hopes would enable high school sports to resume this winter with Phase 3 restrictions in place.

After voting on July 27 to delay all sports and activities until mid-December, the VHSL executive committee unanimously agreed on Sept. 17 to adopt a condensed schedule with winter, fall, and spring sports.

The proposed “Championships + 1” Condensed Interscholastic Plan would generally unfold as follows:

• Dec. 7-Feb. 20: winter sports, including basketball, gymnastics, indoor track, swim and dive, wrestling
• Feb. 4-May 1: fall sports, including football, volleyball, golf, field hockey, cross country, and competitive cheerleading
• Apr. 12-June 26: spring sports, including baseball, softball, tennis, lacrosse, soccer, and track and field

Trying to resume sports when FCPS is still wrestling with how to reopen schools for in-person learning might raise some eyebrows, but Meren says she believes it is an important discussion to have.

“I know how important it is for kids to be active,” Meren said. “Sports can be a gateway to scholarships, academics, and careers.” Read More

(Updated at 8:05 p.m.) The tennis courts at Glyndon Park, a wooded expanse separated from bustling Maple Avenue by a bend in the road, have a new look.

The cracks and other signs of age are gone, erased by the Town of Vienna’s resurfacing efforts, but perhaps the boldest change is the grid of yellow lines that reconfigures Glyndon Park’s two tennis courts into four pickleball courts.

Joined by members of the Vienna Pickleball Club and representatives from the USA Pickleball Association (USAPA), the Town of Vienna hosted an opening ceremony for the new Glyndon tennis and pickleball courts on Oct. 27.

COVID-19 social distancing rules limited attendance at the ceremony to 24 players, but their enthusiasm for the new courts and the sport of pickleball was evident not just in the speeches and ribbon-cutting, but also the games that followed.

“In normal times, these four courts may support a community of 30, 40 people coming out to play pickleball together with enjoyment, satisfaction in exercise, the challenge of growing their skills, friendly competition, and a welcoming social community,” Vienna Pickleball Club founder Sally Unger said.

Unger first encountered pickleball, which loosely resembles tennis, badminton, and ping-pong, when looking for sports that she could play while traveling, something she regularly did in pre-COVID times to visit her children in Los Angeles and Chicago.

With rules that would be familiar to anyone who has played tennis and games that can be played in 20 minutes, pickleball has been gaining popularity nationwide since emerging in Washington state in 1965 as an improvised form of badminton.

However, because it is still relatively niche, facilities dedicated to pickleball are difficult to find.

When they learned that the Town of Vienna was planning to update the tennis courts at Glyndon Park, Unger and other local pickleball players saw an opportunity to advocate for their sport to be better incorporated into the renovated facility.

“We have a lot of residents in town who love to play pickleball,” Vienna Mayor Linda Colbert said. “…We want our citizens to be happy with our parks and keep them up in good shape. So, it was a need that they helped us identify.” Read More

Fairfax County teenagers are vaping less than their peers nationwide, a county survey of middle and high school students found.

15.1% of the 48,915 students who responded to the 2019-2020 Fairfax County Youth Survey reported vaping within the past 30 days, compared to 22.5% of teenagers in the U.S. overall. The survey results were released on Oct. 20.

Nicotine remains the drug most frequently used for vaping, which involves the inhalation of an aerosol through a battery-powered device, but its usage declined from 16.7% in 2018 to under 12% in 2019.

About half as many students reported using flavoring in this year’s survey (5.5%) as they did in the previous year’s (10.3%), but the use of marijuana rose from 8% in 2018 to 9% in 2019.

The number of Fairfax County teens who say they have vaped within their lifetime dropped from 28% in 2018 to 25% in 2019, according to the survey, which is given annually to Fairfax County Public Schools students in sixth, eighth, 10^th, and 12^th grades.

Fairfax County did not add questions about vaping to its annual youth survey until 2018, making it hard to determine whether the decline in reported vaping is a real trend, but county officials are encouraged by the results.

“The rates for vaping among Fairfax County youth went down considerably from 2018 despite the upward national trend,” Fairfax County Office of Strategy Management for Health and Human Services public information officer Shweta Adyanthaya said. “This is a promising sign that our youth are heeding the concerns regarding vaping in general.”

County officials say they remain concerned about the health effects of vaping, especially during a pandemic caused by a coronavirus that attacks people’s lungs.

Research on how COVID-19 affects people who have used e-cigarettes is limited, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked a contaminant found in e-cigarettes to an outbreak of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injuries (EVALI) that had killed or hospitalized 2,807 people in the U.S. as of Feb. 18.

Though it is a potential benefit, the CDC says the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as an aid for helping adults quit smoking is unknown. The agency warns against vaping for youth, young adults, pregnant adults, and adults who do not currently use tobacco products.

“We know that the brains of adolescents continue to develop until about the age [of] 25 and that nicotine can have harmful effects,” Fairfax County Health Director Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu said. “Now, with evidence that vaping may be linked with worse outcomes of COVID-19 infection, it’s more important than ever that we offer solutions to help young people.” Read More

The Virginia Department of Transportation will provide updates on the construction work that it has been doing on Interstate 66 at two virtual community meetings as October draws to a close.

The first meeting will take place tonight (Wednesday) from 7-8:30 p.m. and will focus on activities between Bull Run and Waples Mill Road, including the Route 28 corridor. A second meeting scheduled for the same time tomorrow (Thursday) will cover activities between Jermantown Road in Fairfax and the Interstate 495 interchange outside of Vienna.

Information for joining the meetings can be found on VDOT’s Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project website at outside.transform66.org/events. Questions can be submitted in writing through the WebEx chat or by calling 703-662-3892.

The meetings will be streamed live on VDOT’s YouTube Channel and will be posted to the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway website the following day.

The Transform 66 project will expand I-66 with new express lanes along a 22.5-mile stretch. VDOT also plans to enhance the corridor outside the Capital Beltway by adding more than 4,000 park-and-ride spaces, 11 miles of new bicycle and pedestrian trails, interchange improvements, and improved bus service and transit routes.

Construction on I-66 outside the Beltway has been ongoing since 2017, commencing shortly after new express lanes opened on I-66 inside the Beltway on Dec. 4 of that year. The outside-the-Beltway portion of the express lanes are not expected to be completed until late 2022.

Photo courtesy Virginia Department of Transportation

A Capital One Bank in McLean was robbed Tuesday afternoon, Fairfax County police reported at 2:20 p.m.

Officers from the Fairfax County Police Department are currently on the scene at 6890 Elm St.

The department says the suspect is believed to be a white man who was last seen on foot. He is reportedly 5’9″ and wearing white ballcap and dark clothing.

Our officers are on scene of a bank robbery at the Capital One Bank, 6890 Elm St. in McLean. Suspect believed to be a white male, 5’9”, white ballcap, wearing dark clothing, last seen on foot. Please avoid the area. #FCPD pic.twitter.com/ltchNnrACn

— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) October 27, 2020