Tens of Thousands of D.C. Residents Left in the Dark Due to Power Outage

Tens of thousands of Washington, DC, residents were left in the dark due to a Saturday afternoon power outage.

Power company Pepco confirmed there was an outage via its social media accounts Saturday, saying that about 39,000 of its customers had been without power.

An issue at Pepco’s Florida Avenue substation has impacted service to approximately 39,000 customers in the District of Columbia. We are working to restore service to customers as quickly and safely as possible and are investigating the cause of this incident.

— Pepco (@PepcoConnect) July 27, 2019

“An issue at Pepco’s Florida Avenue substation has impacted service to approximately 39,000 customers in the District of Columbia. We are working to restore service to customers as quickly and safely as possible and are investigating the cause of this incident,” Pepco tweeted.

Democrat Deputy Mayor Kevin Donahue confirmed the power outage stemmed from “an issue” at a Florida Avenue substation, and that only 33,000 people were without power as of Saturday afternoon.

.@PepcoConnect reports outage reduced from 40,000 customers without power down to 33,000 customers. Power restoration will take a few hours. Outage is due to issue at Florida Ave substation.

Restoration updates here: https://t.co/IISGA0afsk

— Deputy Mayor Donahue (@SafeDC) July 27, 2019

NBC 4 Washington reported that Howard University Hospital and Washington Hospital Center both lost power while city fire officials responded to many emergency calls throughout the city, most of them being due to trapped elevators.

No initial injuries were reported as a result of the power outages.

The issue affected areas in Wards 1, 2, and 3— encompassing the Shaw, Mt. Pleasant, and Adams Morgan neighborhoods.