Photo by MudflapDC.

Good morning, Washington. We certainly paid a price for yesterday’s beautiful weather, with a wicked storm that whipped its way through the area at 80 miles per hour last night. The worst of it appears to be over, but its still about as gloomy as one could imagine out there. Flooding, downed trees and debris are slowing the morning commute, natch. Though it appears as if D.C.’s power held up relatively well — Pepco is only reporting 14 outages at this time. Not too shabby for what one meteorologist is calling “one of the busiest 24 hour periods of severe weather in the past 10 years.” (I choose to think Kurt Cobain, who died 17 years ago today, would have had it no other way.)

Virginia Is For Liars: Advertising isn’t allowed inside national parks, so many were surprised when an installation of large white letters spelling “LOVE” inside Dupont Circle turned out to be nothing but a commercial for Virginia tourism. The National Park Service, which manages the Circle, was surprised too, according to Lydia DePillis. NPS spokesperson Bill Line told DePillis that the Virginia Department of Tourism “misrepresented itself in the application process” by telling NPS that the letters were “political free speech.” The letters have now been removed from the Circle.

Feds Investigate Sex Abuse In D.C. Schools: Here’s yet another investigation for new D.C. schools chancellor Kaya Henderson to deal with — the Post reports that the federal government is looking into how the city’s schools respond to reports of sexual violence inside its walls. The investigation was prompted by an incident at Dunbar High School last fall when a female student said that six of her classmates assaulted her. Criminal charges were eventually dropped in that case, but it raised enough eyebrows at the U.S. Department of Education for them to open a probe. The move comes in concert with a push from the Obama administration to expand civil rights law enforcement on education campuses across the country.

Are You A Lawyer?: The D.C. Board of Elections and ethics needs you for the special election!

Briefly Noted: Escalator issues at Dupont Circle and Foggy Bottom this morning…Pedestrians struck at 19th and Q Streets NW, 16th and K Streets NW…2010 Pepco outages were mighty costly…Prince George’s County fleecing foreign teachers…Man shot on 400 block of Burbank Street SE…Man found dead at Metrobus stop in Bowie…Fenty to speak at Georgetown tonight…Secretive National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency moving…Bears taking over Prince William County.

This Day in DCist: Last year, Top Chef began filming in D.C., Barack Obama threw out the first pitch at Nationals Park and “Snowpeepalypse” was robbed.