D.C. area utilities report few power outages as storm passes through
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Version 0 of 1. The storm that entombed the region in snow may have set records, but utility companies were feeling fortunate Saturday evening that it had not yet delivered a major blow to the power grid. For the most part, the lights stayed on in the Washington area on Saturday — a relief to millions of people marooned in their homes. It also was a welcome surprise for utility companies that on Friday had warned of potential multi-day power outages that would have resulted in a long spell of darkness in a region that has seen its share in recent years. There were isolated outages. During the height of the storm, more than 500 Pepco customers in Takoma Park were without power after a fallen tree snapped a line. More than 650 Dominion Virginia clients in Fairfax County had no electricity as of 4:30 p.m. Saturday. And 370 Baltimore Gas and Electric customers in Baltimore were out. But the numbers were far lower than utilities had feared. Officials were reluctant to claim victory before the storm had passed. In North Carolina, by contrast, 145,000 people had lost power by noon on Saturday. In New Jersey, there were 49,000. “So far, nature has smiled on us,” Chuck Penn, spokesman for Dominion Virginia, said Saturday afternoon. “The dynamics have combined such that we dodged a bullet.” The type of snow — not the amount — was a critical factor to the limited damage. Forecasts had called for the wet, heavy kind that sticks to limbs and weighs them down, posing a threat to nearby transmission and distribution lines. But the snow from this storm was lighter. “That’s been hugely helpful,” said Vincent Morris, spokesman for Pepco, which provides electricity for the District and parts of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. “We’re pretty pumped things have held up as well as they have.” The District had fared well most of Saturday. As Morris spoke around 4 p.m., he noted there were only two customers in the District without power. “We usually have a few people without power even on a June day,” he said. Pepco touted tens of millions of dollars in maintenance and upgrades to its system, which covers 640 square miles and serves 2.3 million people. The improvements, it said, hardened the grid to severe weather. In the past four years, the company said it had trimmed more than 9,000 miles of trees near vulnerable lines. It upgraded 1,300 underground lines and more than 350 feeders, the wires that connect substations and transformers. It replaced old lines with thicker ones that are less susceptible to failure by contact. And it invested in projects to expand the system’s load-carrying capacity and to route electricity around problem areas. Those improvements were little help to the 500 customers in Takoma Park. A tree cascaded into a utility pole on Carroll Avenue just before 11:30 a.m., according to Pepco. Officials estimated that the power would be restored after midnight, but it was not clear Saturday if that goal would be met. Pepco sent more crews than it normally would to that location because it had called in up to 200 outside contractors and 200 tree crews to respond to a potential crisis, said Michael Maxwell, the company’s vice president of asset management. Uncertain about the effects of the remainder of the storm, Pepco officials continued to warn that it could take 24 hours or more to restore power if it goes out. Most of Dominion Virginia’s approximately 2,000 outages late Saturday afternoon were in the southeastern part of the state, in Richmond or Hampton Roads. The snow accumulation may have been historic. But through most of the storm, the outages paled compared to past events. Pepco, in particular, has been criticized for the widespread failures of its grid and its slow response in the past. In January 1999, for example, an ice storm cut off power to 230,000 Pepco customers, about one-third of its customer base, over five days. During the 2010 storm known as Snowmaggedon, nearly 98,000 Pepco clients were out. In January 2011, a major snowstorm that saw rain and sleet followed by a buildup of heavy and wet snow left 221,000 Pepco customers powerless. The company had seven major outages — defined as a loss of power for more than 10,000 people for more than 24 hours — between 2010 and 2012. Most of those were in the summer months. “These outages have been minuscule compared to past storms,” said Morris, the Pepco spokesman, before adding that even one outage is too many. |