608,000 homes and businesses still without power in East Coast after storm

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
7/2/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Power customers on the East Coast continue to swelter in the darkness

About 608,000 Washington-area businesses and households, or one in three of the region's electric customers remain out of service after a summer storm. The highest level of outages, approximately 60 percent was reported for Pepco service to Montgomery County. There, about 184,000 customers swelter in the darkness.

Officials say that most customers will have power by Tuesday - although still many will not have electricity restored until next weekend. BG&E officials also said it would take most of the week to get all the power up running.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Across Prince George's County, about 84,000 Pepco customers and 35,000 Baltimore Gas and Electric customers are still without power. Across Northern Virginia, Dominion Virginia Power reported that about 27 percent of customers were without power, with about 227,000 total affected. In the District, Pepco reported nearly 66,000 without power, a staggering one in four.

Officials say that most customers will have power by Tuesday - although still many will not have electricity restored until next weekend. BG&E officials also said it would take most of the week to get all the power up running.

Local officials vowed to press utilities to restore service more quickly.

"I will not accept the timetable of July the 6th, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett said. "Having our citizens go seven days without utilities in my opinion is not the kind of service we should expect."

School officials in the District, Montgomery and Prince George's counties have announced that the schools would be closed Monday for summer sessions and other events. Maryland also declared liberal leave for all non-essential state employees. However, all federal agencies are set to open Monday.

District government is expected to be open on Monday, officials said. While dozens of city traffic signals remain without power, Paul Quander, the District's deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said traffic control officers will be in place at anticipated trouble spots for the Monday morning commute.

The impatience and disappointment of public officials here is very much in evidence. "Nobody will have their boot further up Pepco's backside than I will," said Md. Gov. Martin O'Malley.

Pepco regional president Thomas H. Graham declined to be more precise other than to offer a "global" estimate that power would be restored to 90 percent of interrupted customers by this Friday night.

Crews from Missouri, Oklahoma and New Brunswick, Canada, are en route to assist with restoration efforts, but it could be days before some arrive.

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: Maryland, Virginia, power outage, public officials

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1 - 1 of 1 Comments

ccs
10 months ago
Pepco is always a mess. Dominion got our power back on at 6am this morning - after 3 nights without power and temperatures rising to at least 85F indoors on the main floor of our house. The hottest weekend of the year is not the best time for a major power outage. It's a good thing we have a very cool finished basement. It was habitable... and even comfortable.

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