That smoke is and was terrible. It burned our throats and our eyes. We are looking at the origin of the fire. This is an apartment building. Primarily for the students, garage on the first floor. Retail on the front. Not complete. In college park, brad bell, abc7 news. Michelle thank you. You heard brad mention you could smell the smoke from miles away. Imagine the intensity for a danger for a building that is filled with the Senior Citizens next door. The building is now evacuated. Stephen tschida joins us live with how seniors are coping. This is ho Senior Citizens. Still smoke billowing over the spelman house and the Senior Citizens are still a long way from home. Within minutes the thick and smell of smoke tore through the house for the Senior Citizens. So much smoke. We cant stay in there. It choked off the stairwells and the seniors inside got word to evacuate. Keith grabbed cody his calt and took off. I got out of there. We found a you if dozen residents of the spelman house at a nearby rec center. Some wondered when they would return to the apartments while others dealt with the effects from the smoke they endured. My eyes are burning. Everybody eyes i spoke to a fire chief 15 minutes ago and he said there is still no timeline for when the Senior Citizens will return home and he hopes that its a matter of hours and not a day or so. Reporting live, stephen tschida, abc7 news. We will take a closer look at the effect of the fire on the university of maryland coming up at 5 30. Right now on wjla. Com, you can get up close look at the fire. We posted the video from the skytrak7 as well as the photos and the slide show to show you detailed pictures. Larry the other big story were following tonight, relentless rain that is becoming a fixture in the area. Stormwatch7s meteorologist brian van de graaff joins us now. This is more than a sprinkle. Brian this is not moving out anytime soon. Its with us tonight and even into the day tomorrow and most likely on the early wednesday before we will start to transition. This is chilly. Average high 69 to 70 but not there. Looking ahead for the evening. More rain on the way tonight. Breezy and cool. Notice winds pick up out of the northeast at 10 to 20. There may be a lull overnight. By the rush, more. The period of the heavy rain off and on through tuesday. We will look at the rest of the week coming up in a bit. Michelle we will see you then. Thank you. Anxiety growing over the risk of a government shutdown. We are following this developing story. Are they any closer . It seems to be get the senate will go back to work tomorrow after a twoweek break. They have until the end of the week to secure funding and keep it operational. Sean spiceer says he is confident a shutdown will be averted but he cant make any guarantees. I am hopeful that it wont happen. The season employees have seen this drama before. We dont think it will happen. Bradford who worked for f. A. For 25 years says the move for the government workers under the Trump Administration is different than the years past. More anxious. We still dont know what to expect. The government funding expected to expire friday the possibility of shutdown emerged as President Trump signaled desire to include funding for a wall along the mexico that could complicate negotiations in congress. Thousands of workers could be asked to work without pay. The essential Services Like the law Law Enforcement would stay on the job. Im an rehenceive. The membership is apprehensive. The president of the American Federation of Government Employees represent 700,000 federal workers nationwide. Loud and clear. Our people want to go to work. They dont want a vacation. They want to be on the job. They estimate that the border wall would cost 20 million. President trump continues to insist that the Mexican Government will pay for the wall at some point, federal government needs something to get it moving. Coming up we hear what the white house says about the possibility of a shutdown. Until then live along the national mall, jeff goldberg, abc7 news. Larry thank you. A man is behind bars accused of being the one who rob a bank in Fairfax County. Kevin costello walked in a wells fargo and left with unknown cash. The photos from the Surveillance Video show a man that they believe costello is in a hat demanding money. He is facing charges. Michelle the death of three people in maryland have authorities bracing for overdoses from a powerful opioid. Two people died after taking carfentanil. Its more potent than heroin or morphine. Its to sedate large animals like elephants. Larry metro is making a push is the culture of safety. But its not on the workers. This is on the riders. Brianne carter joins us to explain. Brianne this campaign is expected to launch in a matter of days. The new Safety Campaign that riders will see around the system. This is designed to keep everyone safe. So the riders will see the stations inside the trains and the buses. Different placards like this one here is to show how to reduce the preventible injuries on the system. This comes when metro released quarterly safety report. This is something they will discuss later this weekend. The customer injury rates are down from the same time last year. Its looking at the other issues on the track related to derailment and fire. There were two derailments in First Quarter of this year that involved the maintenance machines. They are looking to number of the debris and cable fires and the arcing insulateddors on arcing insulators as well. When it comes to the other like systems metro had the second highest number of fires compared to other systems. The new Safety Campaign, and we will see the posters in may. Larry m coming up at 52 00, the streets become rivers in the south. What we can learn about the future growing troubles there. Larry consumer alert after the fitness watch burst into flames. Michelle a mother disappears and the big clue the family received via service. Larry with will follow the fivealarm fire. Isjust wanna see ifa again . My score changed. You wanna check yours . Scores dont change that much. I havent changed. Oh, really . Its girls night they said business casual. I love summer weddings oh no. Yeah, maybe it is time. Maybe i should check my credit score. Try credit karma. Its free. Oh woah. Thats different. Check out credit karma today. Credit karma. Give yourself some credit. Then youre a couple. Think of all youll share. Like snoring. Does your bed do that . The dual adjustability of a sleep number bed allows you each to choose the firmness and comfort you want. So every couple can get the best sleep ever. For a limited time find clearance prices on the cse bed. Now only 1399 save 500. Only at a sleep number store or sleepnumber. Com woman i have a masurprise for you. Are you . Man you have a surprise for me . Narrator at dominion, 1 in 5 new hires is a veteran. And when theyre away, they miss out on a lot. But they wont miss out on financial support. Because we cover any difference between their military pay and their dominion salary, and continue benefits for them and their families. Why do we do it . Because our vets sacrifice enough. Dominion. Depend on us for more than energy. Stand by me. Michelle police are asking for help to find helen johnson, the mother of singer and songwriter meshell ndegeocello. Johnsons son is pleading for her to come home. Im starting to get worried. Hard to sleep. Just pacing now. There is a possible clue. A toll violation on the dulles toll road hours after she left her home. Larry concerns tonight after a device intended to improve your health left a woman burned and scarred. Horace holmes . Horace this is a fitbit 2. This happened to mitchells device. She is from wisconsin and was given it for a present and opened it about two weeks. She claims she was st it exploded and caught fire. She said the device was defective or mad she had been sitting for a long time. Treated for the seconddegree burns. 7 on your side contacted the Consumer ProductSafety Commission who is investigating this. They did order the recall of the fitbit 4 in 2014 because of the skin irritation becaused by stainless steel casing but they have had no Previous Report of fires with any of the products. A mystery. Larry be careful. You are wearing yours. Cleanup after storms left the massive damage behind. Weekend caused a t topple in a womans yard as she made it out in time. A road gave way in the storms and dozens of homes and buildings were damaged. Michelle in North Carolina a man had to be rescued from the pickup truck stuck in floodwaters. Another man with him was able to swim to safety to get help. Parts of wilks county were hit with the six inches of rain in the course of two days. The same storm system and the floodwaters are so deep that the road is unrecognizable. That didnt stop cars to drive through it. That is what we warn people not to do. Brian turn around and dont drown. That is part of the same system over the carolinas to the east sending rain our way. Moved in far enough south on sunday we dried out but it tomorrow and wednesday morning. We will be in the 80s and the 90s later in the week. Michelle talk about a turnaround. Brian we have not seen the temperatures move much today. This week the average high should jump to 70. That is wednesday. Today, the best is 57 downtown. Upper 50s in quantico. Warrenton is 55. These are the days with the clouds and the moisture mean temperatures stay flat. Cloudy and damp and period of rain. What you see is what you get. There will be High Pressure off the north to have stronger there is waves of rain and it is going to bring it north. From the south and to the north that we see rain is going to lift northward. That is the story, the driving force for the weather pattern for the next 36 hours. By tonight is sitting there over the North Carolina and south carolina. When we have a settedup, its cloudy and cool. The rain may linger and get stops and the breaks from time to time. Tomorrow morning commute there are period of rain off and on for the midday. This is slowly riding up the eastern seeboard. By wednesday it will move off the coast. Still close enough wednesday that we have clouds by the morning and the cool breezes. Notice the sunshine. Southwestern virginia. West if it keeps the pace by wednesday we will see the sunshine breaking out in the afternoon. To carry us to the sunny skies and the warm temperatures through sunday. Cloudy and the clouddy rain showers off and on. Tomorrow nigh is gray like today. Sun up tomorrow at 7 07. Part of the remainder of the week. Wednesday is when it starts to break. I dont want to oversell it. If the clouds linger too long for wednesday, we could see sunshine break out. Temperatures could stay in the low 70s. But we could be in the mid80s on thursday. Thursday and friday appear to be warm day. That is good news as far as the temperatures are concerns. Drying out as well and the humidity. We could see a 80degree day. Maybe a popup variety of thunderstorms but nothing widespread. Next week after monday we cool down. Michelle that will make up for the weekend we had. Larry right. Brianen brian extremes. Larry im ready for the consistent 76, 77, sunny. Brian i just want to be average, okay . Larry one week thanks, brian. A community swallowed by smoke. Michelle it all traces back to what could be one of the difficult fires in the Prince Georges County history. Breaking coverage continues with the college canceling classes to protect student. Larry making history 240 miles above the earth. Now a record shattering astronaut gets oneonone time with the president. What she said and had the president quip better you the stars is back tonight with boy bands versus girls roots. That is at 8 00, followed by quantico at 10 00. And abc7 news at 11 00. A tremendous day for america. U. S. Astronaut Peggy Whitson breaking the record for the most time in space by a u. S. Astron 534 days and counting. That is a long time. We have if historic moment and the special phone call she received. President trump this is a special day in the glorious history of the American Space flight. With his daughter ivanka and kate rubens by his side, President Trump congratulated Peggy Whitson. Overnight she broke the record for the most days spent in space by an american. 534. Its a huge honor to break a record like this. But an horror to me to be representing the folks at nasa. Who make the space flighted possible and who make me setting this record feasible. Interstellar dreams on the radar since she was a girl in iowa. At 9 she watched the moon landing and was hooked. She landed a job with nasa. But it was ten years before they stuff. In the Conference Call with the president she described the mission and then the moment. Water is such a Precious Resource up here that we also are cleaning up our urine and making it drinkable. Its not as bad as it sounds. President trump thats good. Im glad to hear that. Better you than me. By the time she lands she will have more spacewalks than any other female astronaut. The world record held by the russian who announced the retirement. Abc news, new york. Michelle thank goodness my gosh. I once did a week on a cruise. Ready to get back to land. Congratulations. Great accomplishment. Still ahead look if you dont turn bus around, its a police matter. 7 on your side iteam goes to toe to toe with a bus company that the customers say took the money and threw them under the bus. Michelle plus, back in the spotlight. Former president obamas message three months after he left washington. Six smoke from the massive fivealarm fire canceled classes. Find out what is still open and wh hey allergy muddlers are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool . Its starts working hard at hour one and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. For years, fios has been promising fast internet to small businesses. But for many businesses, its out of reach. Why promise something you cant deliver . Comcast business is different. We deliver superfast internet with speeds of 250 megabits per second across our entire network, to more companies, in more locations, than fios. We do business where you do business. Announcer youre watching abc7 news at 5 00. On your side. Michelle back to breaking news now in college park. A massive fire gutted a large apartment complex being built near the university of maryland. Fire Officials Say it may be the biggest response the county has ever seen for a fire. The smoke so thick it prompted a Senior Center to evacuate and the university of maryland to cancel classes. Ryan hughes joins us live from the campus with what is being done for the students. Ryan . Ryan it was bad out here. Students were telling me the eyes were burning and the throats were scratchy. You can feel the smoke. We are outside ghosttown out here. There are students that board a bus and head home. This place cleared out. The students receiving an email. The university letting them know that the campus is closing down at 1 00. Show you video from earlier. This is why. They tell us that due to the poor air quality from the massive fivealarm fire. The baltimore is closed north bond. The students are told to stay inside and close windows and doors. The told me that the smoke was coming to the classrooms through the a. C. Unit and at times it was hard to breathe. Listen to them. It was really strong. You could see it everywhere. It was bad. I dont have breathing problems but even i was struggling. The classrooms whether or not to shut off the air systems. There is smoke in the classroom. The rec center is open until 8 00. All other are canceled. The parking lots are restricted until 7 00 tomorrow morning. Thats the latest. Michelle be the first to know when the news breaks. Go to wjla. Com text to sign up and the breaking news sent to your phone. Larry the work underway to get utilities back after an apartment complex but damaged in a weekend fire. 11 homes damaged. Some had to jump from the balconies after being trapped. No one was seriously hurt. The search for a cause continues tonight. The investigators say there are no working smoke detectors in a home that caught fire in queens sundays afternoon. That fire killed five people. Four under the age of 18. One person managed to escape jumping out the second floor window. There is no word on the cause. Michelle a pile of rubble is all that remains of the savopoulos home in northwest d. C. Crews began demolishing the mansion two years after four people were murdered inside. Wangdarren went is the man accud of killing them will go on trial in september. Larry barack obama is back in the spotlight with his first public appearance and speech. We have more on the message. The former president took the stage and there was a familiar trend to the message. Hope. He said the country needs to get past the red and the blue state labels that have people divided and losing faith in democracy. People arent they get cynical and give up. We have some of the lowest voting rates of any advanced democracy. And low participation rates that translate to the further gap between who is goffing us and what we believe. He avoided talking about the successor. He only spoke in the generalities about the political issues. The final piece of the advice was to talk to people. Different beliefs and listen to understand instead of listening to respond. Michelle thank you. Wearing the bulletproof vests protected by the Police Snipers the workers dismantle the first of four confederate monuments in new orleans. Wearing masks to protect identities there a protests. They used the tape to black out name on the vehicles after veeving receiving death threats. This is showing to the world we are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile. Choose a better future. The first monument to come down was eacted in 1891 near canal street. It will be placed pl