Via Pepco.
Second update: DHS says there is no indication of malicious activity. The Post reports that a piece of metal broke loose and hit a power line, causing the surge and alarm across many parts of the city.
Update: Officials with the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency say that an explosion at a power plant in southern Maryland may be to blame for the mass power outages in the area.
Original:
You might have noticed your power is out. Don’t worry, it’s happening all over the D.C. area, from College Park, Md. to downtown, and including The White House, the University of Maryland campus. many Smithsonian museums on the National Mall, and a lot of other Very Important Buildings. The outage is also affecting a number of Metro stations, but WMATA says they’re running on backup power generators.
Actually, with that wide of an outage, maybe you should worry.
BREAKING: PEPCO utility is looking into power outage affecting White House, US Capitol, DC metro, U. of MD » http://t.co/nq0lRfyOd4
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) April 7, 2015
Power outage at the Air and Space Museum. Sitting here with tickets to “Hidden Universe 3D” and one seriously disappointed 7-year-old.
— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) April 7, 2015
There is a campus-wide power outage. Crews are working on addressing the problem. Thank you for your patience.
— Wallace D. Loh (@presidentloh) April 7, 2015
.@barnardfox5dc says power went out at @DCWarnerTheatre while @Oprah was speaking. If you’re out, tweet us where #replytweet #DCpowerout
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5newsdc) April 7, 2015
@nbcwashington people being evacuated out of their buildings downtown due to a power outage 20th st nw and e st nw pic.twitter.com/HrOlrzvLkb
— NBC PHOTOG (@bforte22) April 7, 2015
Power outage sweeping DC including State, Capitol, Metro stations. Source unknown
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 7, 2015
Pepco says the scattered outages, which have affected as many as 8,000 customers, are for “unknown reasons” and are working to fix the problem. There’s no estimate as to when the power will be restored. In the meantime, you can track all of the outages here and speculate wildly as to what’s causing them.
