Photo by @mayorvincegray
Coming back from a weeklong trip to China, Mayor Vince Gray returned home over the weekend to find that like tens of thousands of other D.C. residents, he, too, lost power during last Friday’s thunderous derecho storm. And, like many others affected by the punishing storm, the mayor is quite displeased with the pace at which Pepco is restoring service.
At a press conference today at the District’s emergency management headquarters, Gray said he would seek “consequences” against Pepco, which is projecting that it won’t be until late Friday evening until 90 percent of its customers in D.C. and Maryland see their lights turned back on. About 443,000 Pepco customers lost power in the storm, and as of 10 a.m. today, the utility had reconnected about half. Of the 236,000 customers still in the dark, 46,000 are located in D.C. The Hillcrest neighborhood in Ward 7, where Gray resides, shows one of the heaviest concentrations of outages on Pepco’s service map.
Gray’s spokesman, Pedro Ribeiro, said that the District is still “reviewing our options” when it comes to those consequences that the mayor mentioned. But among Pepco’s current interests is a request to raise in D.C. by 5 percent, or about $5.50 a month for the average residential customer. Pepco first presented the rate hike to the D.C. Public Service Commission last year, a request that, unsurprisingly, has not been warmly received. (The company is also pushing to raise its rates on Maryland customers, too.)
“Ironically enough, Pepco is asking for a rate increase,” Gray said at the press conference, adding that people are likely to feel “shortchanged” by the ongoing outages. He’s also not the only District official to still be without power at home nearly three days after the derecho. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) is also in the dark, her office said on Twitter.
Gray isn’t the only regional executive to voice his displeasure with Pepco. Though the District accused the utility of prioritizing its Maryland customers, Gov. Martin O’Malley has not been particularly forgiving toward the company. Reacting to the timetable that will leave some residents lingering in the dark during a prolonged heatwave, O’Malley warned that he would hold Pepco to its promise.
“Nobody will have their boot further up Pepco’s backside than I will to make sure we get there,” O’Malley said at a news conference yesterday.
Oddly, not all bureaucrats are as peeved with Pepco as Gray and O’Malley. Metro General Manager Richard Sarles sent a nice letter to Pepco today, thanking the generally unloved company for its speedy attendance of Metrorail’s needs during the storm.
“Your respective teams prioritized work needed to keep Metro service operating, ensuring efficient use of manpower and resources, and helping us ensure the safety of customers and employees,” Sarles wrote. “Thanks to your efforts and collaboration with us, we were able to operate the Metrorail system throughout the storm and weekend.”
An outlier, to be sure.
