B8 ez sU the washington post.friday, april 3 , 2020
AVERAGE RECORD ACTUAL FORECASTPREVIOUS YEAR NORMAL LATEST<–10–0s 0s 10 s20s 30s 40 s50s 60s 70 s80s 90s 10 0s 110+T-storms Rain Showers Snow Flurries Ice Cold Front Warm FrontStationary FrontNATIONAL Today TomorrowHigh
Low
Normal
Record high
Record lowReagan Dulles BWIReagan Dulles BWIToday’s tides (High tides in Bold)
WORLD Today TomorrowSources: AccuWeather.com; US Army Centralized
Allergen Extract Lab (pollen data); airnow.gov (air
quality data); National Weather Service
* AccuWeather's RealFeel Temperature®
combines over a dozen factors for an accurate
measure of how the conditions really “feel.”Key: s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, r-rain,
sh- showers, t-thunderstorms, sf-snow flurries,
sn-snow, i-iceMoon Phases Solar systemNATIONOFFICIAL RECORDRise SetREGION
Past 24 hours
Total this month
Normal
Total this year
NormalRichmondNorfolkOcean CityAnnapolisDoverCape MayBaltimoreCharlottesvilleLexingtonWashingtonVirginia BeachKitty HawkHarrisburg PhiladelphiaHagerstownDavisOCEAN:OCEAN:OCEAN:OCEAN:TemperaturesPrecipitationfor the 48 contiguous states excludes AntarcticaYe sterday's National63° 5:00 p.m.
42° 3:18 a.m.
62°/43°
89° 1963
23° 190 762° 5:00 p.m.
37 ° 6:00 a.m.
62°/38°
86° 1967
21° 196463° 2:30 p.m.
39° 5:48 a.m.
60°/39°
88° 1963
23° 190 7Washington 4:19 a.m. 10:59 a.m. 4:33 p.m. none
Annapolis 1:10 a.m. 7:35 a.m. 2:14 p.m. 8:36 p.m.
Ocean City 3:55 a.m. 10:22 a.m. 4:21 p.m. 10:28 p.m.
Norfolk 5:51 a.m. 12:19 p.m. 6:21 p.m. none
Point Lookout 3:23 a.m. 9:58 a.m. 4:58 p.m. 10 :21 p.m.
61
°
47 ° 62
°
47 ° 68
°
52 ° 71
°
53 ° 74
°
57 ° 73
°
54 °Sun 6:49 a.m. 7:34 p.m.
Moon 2:21 p.m. 4:16 a.m.
Venus 8:39 a.m. 11:33 p.m.
Mars 3:46 a.m. 1:32 p.m.
Jupiter 3:15 a.m. 12:56 p.m.
Saturn 3:36 a.m. 1:26 p.m.Apr 7
FullApr 14
Last
QuarterApr 2 2
NewApr 30
First
Quarter0.00"
0.00"
0.23"
8.31"
9.23"0.00"
Tr ace
0.24"
8.56"
9.13"0.00"
Tr ace
0.24"
9.14"
10.19"Blue Ridge: Today, mostly sunny, windy. High 48–52. Wind
north 12–25 mph. Tonight, clear. Low 33–37. Wind north
7–14 mph. Saturday, partly sunny. High 49–56. Wind north
6–12 mph. Sunday, partly sunny. High 53–57. Wind west
3–6 mph.
Atlantic beaches: Today, partly sunny, windy, shower. High
53–62. Wind northwest 15–25 mph. Tonight, mostly cloudy.
Low 44–49. Wind north 10–20 mph. Saturday, partly sunny.
High 50–56. Wind north 10–20 mph. Sunday, increasingly
cloudy. High 54–62.
Pollen: High
Grass Low
Tr ees High
Weeds Low
Mold LowUV: High
6 out of 11+Air Quality: Good
Dominant cause: Particulates66 /4462/ 4953/ 4658/ 4554 /4553/ 4658/ 4467 /4466 /3 860 /4759 /4855/ 45 54 /4657 /4352/31 61/ 47
48°48°51°50°Waterways: Upper Potomac River: Today, small craft advisory,
partly sunny. Wind northwest 10–20 knots. Waves 1–3 feet. •
Lower Potomac and Chesapeake Bay: Today, small craft advisory,
partly sunny. Wind northwest 15–30 knots. Waves 2–4 feet on
the Potomac and 3–5 feet on the Chesapeake.• River Stages: The
stage at Little Falls today will be around 4.2 feet, falling to 4.0 feet
Saturday. Flood stage at Little Falls is 10 feet.
Albany, NY 52/41/sh 58/43/c
Albuquerque 67/43/s 70/47/s
Anchorage 39/27/sn 41/33/c
Atlanta 75/54/pc 76/56/pc
Austin 77/52/t 60/54/r
Baltimore 58/44/pc 60/44/pc
Billings, MT 43/28/pc 50/26/pc
Birmingham 76/53/pc 79/58/pc
Bismarck, ND 31/11/pc 43/20/pc
Boise 52/32/pc 57/40/c
Boston 45/39/r 43/37/c
Buffalo 46/39/c 54/43/pc
Burlington, VT 51/36/r 53/38/pc
Charleston, SC 74/51/s 74/53/s
Charleston, WV 65/35/s 67/45/pc
Charlotte 74/46/s 73/49/s
Cheyenne, WY 34/21/pc 52/31/s
Chicago 63/43/c 51/36/sh
Cincinnati 67/44/c 67/50/pc
Cleveland 50/33/s 57/43/pc
Dallas 67/43/t 57/49/t
Denver 42/26/c 58/35/sDes Moines 39/26/r 50/31/pc
Detroit 59/35/s 58/42/pc
El Paso 80/55/s 80/57/c
Fairbanks, AK 37/21/sf 36/30/sf
Fargo, ND 25/3/sn 36/25/pc
Hartford, CT 50/41/r 54/40/c
Honolulu 81/68/c 81/70/sh
Houston 79/62/t 71/61/t
Indianapolis 66/48/c 60/44/sh
Jackson, MS 77/57/pc 76/59/c
Jacksonville, FL 79/52/s 82/58/s
Kansas City, MO 39/29/sh 53/36/s
Las Vegas 73/53/s 78/56/s
Little Rock 70/56/t 68/54/t
Los Angeles 71/53/s 71/58/s
Louisville 70/49/c 72/54/pc
Memphis 68/55/c 72/56/c
Miami 84/66/s 84/68/s
Milwaukee 53/39/c 48/34/sh
Minneapolis 35/22/sn 46/29/pc
Nashville 71/51/pc 74/53/pc
New Orleans 82/66/c 81/66/c
New York City 51/44/r 56/44/pc
Norfolk 62/49/pc 56/45/pcOklahoma City 43/34/c 56/42/s
Omaha 39/24/i 50/31/s
Orlando 84/59/pc 87/63/s
Philadelphia 54/46/r 57/43/pc
Phoenix 84/59/s 84/58/s
Pittsburgh 55/36/s 60/45/pc
Portland, ME 48/37/r 48/35/pc
Portland, OR 52/36/r 52/42/r
Providence, RI 48/40/r 47/36/pc
Raleigh, NC 70/44/s 66/45/s
Reno, NV 60/35/s 56/40/c
Richmond 66/44/pc 62/43/pc
Sacramento 68/44/s 57/50/r
St. Louis 64/44/t 53/45/t
St. Thomas, VI 85/76/t 84/75/pc
Salt Lake City 53/35/pc 62/46/pc
San Diego 67/56/pc 66/58/pc
San Francisco 60/49/s 60/51/r
San Juan, PR 87/74/t 86/74/pc
Seattle 48/34/r 52/40/c
Spokane, WA 44/27/pc 48/33/c
Syracuse 47/39/c 55/40/pc
Tampa 83/63/s 84/66/s
Wichita 46/30/c 54/38/sAddis Ababa 79/54/c 81/54/pc
Amsterdam 49/36/c 55/41/pc
Athens 57/50/sh 59/54/r
Auckland 72/57/s 72/55/s
Baghdad 85/58/pc 86/58/pc
Bangkok 98/83/pc 99/83/pc
Beijing 77/47/s 65/37/s
Berlin 51/32/c 51/33/pc
Bogota 69/50/t 69/50/t
Brussels 52/33/c 58/41/s
Buenos Aires 70/61/s 75/63/s
Cairo 83/67/s 94/79/pc
Caracas 74/68/c 74/68/pc
Copenhagen 47/35/pc 48/40/pc
Dakar 78/67/pc 76/66/s
Dublin 51/40/c 53/45/pc
Edinburgh 48/40/sh 53/42/pc
Frankfurt 56/36/c 58/39/s
Geneva 56/36/s 60/39/s
Ham., Bermuda 66/62/sh 68/63/sh
Helsinki 41/27/r 41/26/pc
Ho Chi Minh City 100/79/s 100/79/sHong Kong 75/68/c 75/66/t
Islamabad 81/54/pc 84/58/pc
Istanbul 51/45/pc 54/49/r
Jerusalem 67/50/s 76/64/s
Johannesburg 66/53/c 62/51/sh
Kabul 67/40/pc 69/44/pc
Kingston, Jam. 84/75/t 86/75/pc
Kolkata 99/75/pc 98/75/pc
Lagos 92/79/pc 91/79/t
Lima 75/69/pc 75/69/pc
Lisbon 66/50/s 62/56/sh
London 52/38/c 58/44/pc
Madrid 62/39/s 66/48/pc
Manila 95/77/s 95/77/s
Mexico City 77/55/t 76/55/t
Montreal 47/35/r 50/37/c
Moscow 49/32/pc 46/27/pc
Mumbai 93/80/pc 92/79/pc
Nairobi 78/60/pc 79/61/pc
New Delhi 88/63/pc 91/64/pc
Oslo 43/28/c 43/36/pc
Ottawa 47/34/r 49/37/c
Paris 58/41/c 63/43/pc
Prague 48/33/c 50/31/sRio de Janeiro 86/73/pc 80/71/pc
Riyadh 96/65/s 92/68/pc
Rome 59/39/pc 64/42/s
San Salvador 84/69/pc 86/70/pc
Santiago 83/51/s 84/53/s
Sarajevo 54/30/pc 53/29/pc
Seoul 60/42/s 56/32/s
Shanghai 64/48/pc 68/46/pc
Singapore 90/79/t 90/79/sh
Stockholm 43/25/c 44/28/pc
Sydney 80/69/r 80/56/t
Taipei City 73/65/r 68/61/r
Tehran 70/52/pc 69/48/pc
Tokyo 62/51/s 67/51/s
Toronto 49/38/pc 53/41/c
Vienna 59/36/pc 57/31/s
Warsaw 51/32/c 50/29/pcToday
Windy, partly
sunnySaturday
Partly sunnySunday
Partly cloudyMonday
Partly sunnyTuesday
Partly sunny,
showerWednesday
Showers
possibleSu M Tu W Th F Sa Su M Tu W Th F Sa Su
through 5 p.m.yesterdayDifference from 30–yr. avg. (Reagan): this month: –1.1° yr. to date: +5.7°High: Zapata, TX 90°
Low: Stanley, ID –14°World
High: Matam, Senegal 114 °
Low: Summit Station, Greenland –43°Weather map features for noon today.WIND:NW 12–25 mph
HUMIDITY:ModerateCHNCE PRECIP:0%FEELS*:56°W:
H:P:FEELS:62°NNE 6–12 mph
Moderate10 %
W:
H:P:FEELS:66°SSW 6–12 mph
Moderate20 %
W:
H:P:FEELS: 73 °NNW 4–8 mph
Moderate20 %
W:
H:P:FEELS: 75 °SW 4–8 mph
Moderate40 %
W:
H:P:FEELS:74°WNW 6–12 mph
Moderate30 %Clouds could take over
The movement of a big ocean storm
could allow clouds to take over, but
we’ll have to watch that as it
happens. Highs should reach the
upper 50s to near 60. Winds are
from the northwest around 15 to 20 mph and
gusting past 30 mph. They’ll begin to relent late.
The Weather
washingtonpost.com/weather. twitter: @capitalweather. facebook.com/capitalweathernews conference and asked her
what people like him should do.
She told him to call the hotline,
where he had to wait hours for
assistance.
“I’m not mad at anybody, but
just show me how the game is
played, and I’ll play the game,”
said mcfadden, who usually
works temporary jobs in con-
struction and software testing.
The city has dealt with mass
confusion among applicants un-
sure how to handle standard
questions that no longer make
sense because of the pandemic,
including queries on whether
they are searching for new work.
There are also references to a
seven-day waiting period before
receiving benefits. Both of those
requirements were scrapped un-
der an emergency law that took
effect march 17 but won’t be
removed from the website until
friday.
Euan mcLaughlin, an assistant
general manager at St. Anselm, a
restaurant near Union market in
Northeast Washington, said ap-
plicants had no idea how to an-
swer the questions on the weekly
report about their job search.
“There are a lot of panicked
people out there,” s aid mcLaugh-
lin, who was still waiting for his
money on Thursday.
“I have a degree of money
cushion, b ut it’s starting to go
down. And this unemployment
benefit, as small as it is, is money
that I can use for groceries and
bills, so that as my savings dwin-
dle away due to the crisis, I can
still keep my head above water,”
he said.
The city contracted with a call
center to process claims filed by
phone and is in the middle of
negotiating another contract.
The employment services agency
is also looking to pilot a program
that would allow claims-takers to
work remotely, which could ad-
dress the issue of workers not
coming into the office.
morris-Hughes said she is sym-
pathetic to the complaints from
District residents.
“We have people working every
single day around the clock to
help District residents and if they
can just exercise a little grace and
patience with us, that would be
great,” s he said. “Have confidence
in us.”
[email protected]
[email protected]halt the “custom build” claims
portal while looking to other
states for ways to completely
overhaul the system.
City officials have urged resi-
dents to use Internet Explorer — a
browser discontinued in 2016,
but still maintained — to access
the portal on laptops and desktop
computers. But many of the city’s
poorest residents rely on their
phones for Internet access, espe-
cially with p ublic libraries, where
they could use computers, all
closed.
Wayne mcfadden, a 64-year-
old disabled veteran, said he has
been struggling to figure out how
to file a claim. His laptop is
busted, and the veterans services
office with computers is closed, as
is the unemployment office.
While walking around North-
east Washington last week, he
happened upon Bowser holding adelay that further.
“There have been shifting
timelines, changing budgets, a
lack of a detailed spending plan,
and contradictory information is
given every time we ask about it,”
said Council member Elissa Sil-
verman (I-At Large), who over-
sees the employment agency. “ We
are spending a lot of money
maintaining an archaic outdated
system.”
morris-Hughes declined to an-
swer questions about whether
her agency could have done any-
thing differently in its handling of
the modernization project.
Lorsbach, the contractor, said
his company had built a modern-
ized portal to file claims that was
tested and ready to go.
But he said former managers at
the Department of Employment
Services — before morris-Hughes
took the job in 2018 — decided tofinished by the end of next year.
“We are on track,” the agency
director testified. “right now
there is no need for concern or
worry.”
By february 2019, the agency
said a new website would go live
in July that could work on phones
and make “accessing benefits eas-
ier.”
Two months later, morris-
Hughes said the city would miss
that deadline.
“The progress on the benefits
development work has slowed
down a little bit,” she testified at
an oversight hearing.
This february — when the
coronavirus had reached the
United States but before cases
were confirmed in the capital
region — the unemployment of-
fice said the project would start in
spring 2020 and finish in 2022.
The covid- 19 crisis threatens tomissed internal deadlines that
could have better prepared the
city for the worst unemployment
crisis in modern history.
During a march 25 news con-
ference, D.C. mayor muriel E.
Bowser (D) said the state of the
unemployment website was not
acceptable.
“It needs to be updated,” Bows-
er said. “It’s been funded and
planned. Unfortunately, this pan-
demic happened before this new
system has been in place.”
The first infusion of federal
funds to modernize the system
came in 2012, in the aftermath of
the Great recession.
But the city did not start
spending money on the project
until 2016, according to budget
documents.
In the spring of 2018, morris-
Hughes said the new unemploy-
ment benefits system could beCity officials urged workers un-
able to access the website, and
those without laptops or desktop
computers, to instead call the
unemployment office, where they
faced waits of up to six hours. The
debacle exacerbated growing
anxiety among workers strug-
gling to make ends meet.
Brittany Sullivan said she tried
to log in to the unemployment
website 20 times and tried to file
a claim over the phone. After
several attempts, and five hours
waiting on the line, the 29-year-
old reached a person and pre-
vailed.
“Beyond just being unem-
ployed, you’re concerned that if
you don’t get this application
through quickly, you’re going to
be without any funds, potentially
indefinitely,” said Sullivan, who
was furloughed from her job at
the mobile phone pouch maker
Yondr.
Unique morris-Hughes, the di-
rector of the D.C. Department of
Employment Services, said tech-
nical challenges in overhauling
the portal contributed to the de-
lays.
“The system is very antiquated
and very complex,” morris-
Hughes said. “I’ve seen anywhere
between a million-plus different
code changes required to mod-
ernize and enhance the system.”
Those responsible for the D.C.
site note that other unemploy-
ment offices across the country
also have outdated websites and,
in many cases, are struggling
under a crush of claims. Long call
times are not unusual.
“A ll first-line citizen support
systems across the country... are
struggling with this tsunami,”
said mike Lorsbach, the founder
and acting chief executive of
on Point Te chnology, t he contrac-
tor responsible for the District’s
unemployment website. “We
have anecdotal information that
new or old, systems are proving
incapable of processing the high-
est transaction load in the history
of the UI program.”
But the District has no way to
quickly fix its website, according
to the contractor and city offi-
cials, and the agency is addition-
ally hampered because some of
its workers have not been report-
ing to the office. records show
the government repeatedly
unemployment from B1
Delays in updates to D.C. unemployment site add to turmoil
Michael Robinson chavez/the Washington Post
A woman wearing a mask and gloves walks past a shuttered business monday in Anacostia. With the coronavirus pandemic forcing many
businesses to shut down, D.C. workers filed nearly 4 4, 000 unemployment claims in the past month, compared with 27 ,0 00 in all of 201 9.