WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Washington Capitals are back on the ice Thursday night in hopes of defeating the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5.

The breakdown:

As an organization, the Washington Capitals have orchestrated what some would describe as a dream season. 

From Alex Ovechkin becoming the NHL’s all-time goals-scoring leader to the Caps finishing with the best record in the Eastern conference, coupled with the team advancing to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2018. But if Washington doesn’t find a way to win tonight, the dream will have come to an end.

It’s game five of the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes’ best-of-seven series, and after taking games 3 and 4 at home, the Canes hold a suffocating 3-1 lead. In game three, Carolina staved off the Caps’ strong start to ultimately win a shutout. In game four, the Hurricanes flexed their collective muscle from the start, holding on for a 5-2 victory. 

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And that brings us to tonight. The Washington Capitals are facing elimination. A team that has defied the odds all season long now has the inevitable task of needing to win three games in a row to advance to the conference finals. In what has already been a season, the likes of which could be the plot of a blockbuster movie script, pulling off that task would be a fitting ending. But this is the NHL playoffs, not a Hollywood movie set. The Caps must claw back against the Canes, one game at a time. 

The Washington Capitals host the Carolina Hurricanes tonight at Capital One arena. The puck drops at 7 p.m. and it’s win or go home.

A hotline between military and civilian air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., that hasn’t worked for more than three years may have contributed to another near miss shortly after the U.S. Army resumed flying helicopters in the area for the first time since January’s deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter, Sen. Ted Cruz said at a hearing Wednesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration official in charge of air traffic controllers, Frank McIntosh, confirmed the agency didn’t even know the hotline hadn’t been working since March 2022 until after the latest near miss. He said civilian controllers still have other means of communicating with their military counterparts through landlines. Still, the FAA insists the hotline be fixed before helicopter flights resume around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Defense department officials didn’t immediately respond to questions Wednesday about the near miss earlier this month and the steps it is taking to ensure helicopter flights in the area are safe. The FAA didn’t immediately answer follow-up questions after the hearing about how that hotline was supposed to be used.

“The developments at DCA (Reagan airport) in its airspace are extremely concerning,” Cruz said. “This committee remains laser-focused on monitoring a safe return to operations at DCA and making sure all users in the airspace are operating responsibly.”

The Army suspended all helicopter flights around Reagan airport after the latest near miss, but McIntosh said the FAA was close to ordering the Army to stop flying because of the safety concerns before it did so voluntarily.

“We did have discussions if that was an option that we wanted to pursue,” McIntosh told the Senate Commerce Committee at the hearing.

January’s crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people – making it the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001. The National Transportation Safety Board has said there were an alarming 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the crash that should have prompted action.

Since the crash, the FAA has tried to ensure that military helicopters never share the same airspace as planes, but controllers had to order two planes to abort their landings on May 1 because of an Army helicopter circling near the Pentagon.

“After the deadly crash near Reagan National Airport, FAA closed the helicopter route involved, but a lack of coordination between FAA and the Department of Defense has continued to put the flying public at risk,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth said.

McIntosh said the helicopter should never have entered the airspace around Reagan airport without permission from an air traffic controller.

“That did not occur,” he said. “My question – and I think the larger question is – is why did that not occur? Without compliance to our procedures and our policies, this is where safety drift starts to happen.”

The NTSB is investigating what happened.

In addition to that incident, a commercial flight taking off from Reagan airport had to take evasive action after coming within a few hundred feet of four military jets heading to a flyover at Arlington National Cemetery. McIntosh blamed that incident on a miscommunication between FAA air traffic controllers at a regional facility and the tower at Reagan, which he said had been addressed.

WASHINGTON – Showers and thunderstorms are raising flooding concerns across the Washington, D.C. region on Wednesday, with isolated flash floods possible through the afternoon and evening.

Storms increase flood risks

What we know:

FOX 5’s Taylor Grenda says that while rainfall won’t be as widespread as Tuesday, saturated ground conditions could heighten flood risks along portions of central Maryland, northern Virginia, the District and parts of West Virginia. Many areas have already received more than 1.5 inches of rain in the past 24 hours.

Scattered storms are expected to continue throughout the day, with pop-up thunderstorms keeping conditions unsettled. Highs will reach the upper 70s, with drizzle clearing by mid-morning. Extreme humidity and increasing instability could increase storm development into the evening.

Unsettled weather continues

Early Wednesday morning, high standing water was reported along a section of I-495 between I-95 and US 1, with multiple reports of downed trees adding to travel hazards.

The National Weather Service advises motorists to use caution while driving and to turn around when encountering flooded roads. They also advise being especially cautious at night when flooding hazards are more difficult to detect.

The unsettled weather pattern is expected to persist through the week, with a hot and humid start to the weekend and more storm chances ahead.