Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Pepco: No Rest for the Weary

We've all been reading about, or experiencing,  Pepco outages. I just saw the following comment from a reader:


I live near 13th and H, and I have been without partial power INCLUDING AC since 10:30 PM Last Night ....this is getting ridiculous and I could barely sleep last night and its sweltering now as we speak...I really can't afford to book a hotel, but I may have to so I don't suffer heat exhaustion!-the heat is just unbearable and all the items in my refrigerator has gone bad on top of that .....awesome

The first reports of an outage in this area came in at 8pm last night. Pepco appears to be working on it, but some people have clearly been without power (or full power) for at least 26 hours. This is during a massive heatwave. I hope everyone can at least power their fans. I do urge people to check in on their elderly neighbors.  This kind of heat can kill under certain conditions, and the very young and very old are most at risk. 

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

We're still without power to run the fridge/AC and no word on when it will be fixed. It's really really awful.

John said...

Where are you at?

We live in the house directly adjacent to the AutoZone, right where the brunt of the Pepco digging and repair work is happening. Our power was restored last night (Tuesday, July 6) at about 11:30PM, just a little over 24 hours after the original outage.

The Pepco guys were out all night and there this morning working to get things up and running so I can't imagine it'll be much longer until you're up and running again.

Steamed on G St said...

Unfortunately PEPCO has NO idea how long it will be. Last night I got an estimate of 7:30, 9:30, 10pm. This morning they estimated 9:30am. Now the WashPost is reporting 2pm. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/dc/more-than-3000-without-power-i.html?hpid=newswell

At this rate, we'll be lucky to have full power and A/C by sunset tomorrow.

Steamed on G St said...

Here's an update: If you check out PEPCO's outage website, the details on the location indicate a restoral at 10pm tonight http://www.pepco.com/home/emergency/maps/stormcenter/default.aspx

Simply amazing, its not how many people they have working on it, it's their inability to understand the problem.

Anonymous said...

We're close to the corner of 13th and Linden and have had little to no power since about 10:30pm Monday night. Its been miserable. We were told this morning that the new projection for having power restored is midnight tonight. I'm not holding my breath.

Steamed on G St said...

Now they're saying 5am on Thursday.

http://www.pepco.com/home/emergency/maps/stormcenter/default.aspx

If you're hot under the collar like I am call PEPCO at (202) 833-7500

Cap Conservative said...

It's an election year, call the mayor and Tommy Wells to let them know what conditions your living in without electricty. Someone should hold Pepco accountable for the problem. We don't have enough electricty on the 1200 block of G Street, NE to use the microwave -- let alone the A/C.

Terry on 13th said...

OK, everyone... call PEPCO CEE, Joseph Rigby's office. Dial 202/872-2000. You'll get a computer asking to whom you would like to be transfered. Say "Joseph Rigby". Carolyn answers the phone. She was very nice and seemed to understand that it's frustrating that we have no information and no reliable estimates of what's going on. If nothing else, word will get to the leadership that the community is mad.

Terry on 13th said...

Shoot, I just posted, but it didn't seem to work. If this is a repeat, I apologize.

PEPCO CEO Joseph Rigby's phone number is: 202-872-2000. A computer will answer the phone asking to whom you would like to be directed. Say "Joseph Rigby". Carolyn answers Joe's phone. She was very nice and seemed sympathetic. If nothing else, clogging Rigby's phone lines will show that we know how to reach them and we're mad.

Steamed on G St. said...

If you are worried about health conditions of your neighbors, especially during the day, DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency will check in on them. Call and leave their name and address with DCEMA at (202) 727-6161.

Latest from the Pepco Website, restoral at 10am Thursday.

PS Thanks Terry, I spoke with Carolyn

terry on 13th said...

Another person to call: Nicole Fernandez @ Pepco. She's the person who was instructed by the PEPCO CEO's office to respond to calls. 202-872-3338. At 3:21PM She says that there are only 50 impacted customers and that they believe it will be resolved by 10:00pm tonight.

terry on 13th said...

Mr. Fenty's and Gray's offices have both contacted PEPCO have have been told 10:00pm as well.

Anonymous said...

My house on Linden had enough power last night to run the AC starting around 3 am, but at 6 am the A/C was off and we were back to what PEPCO called "half power" which basically means everything you want to work doesn't but most of what needs to work does (aside from the A/C). I don't trust PEPCO's estimates since they've so far been pretty unreliable about the timing of power restoration. It certainly is an awful time of year to have this sort of power problem.

Cap Conservative said...

Pepco has charaterized the problem as we are using too much electricity: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Pepco_Investigates_NE_D_C__Power_Outages_Washington_DC.html

Anonymous said...

I'm away, but for those of you south of us, no power powers shots for $4 , and cold bud tall boys for $3. Good luck.
Tonyt
thepug

Anonymous said...

10:10. Still not at full power. Awesome.

tonysmallframe said...

Got full power back around 530 this morning. It's too late for the food, but the AC was on and humming before I left the house. Despite my frusturation at PEPCO as a company, I made sure to thank the workers everytime I went past. It was bad enough laying around in the heat in my house, but working 24 hour days running new cables in swampy, hot tunnels underground had to be more than awful.

Anonymous said...

9:58 am on Thursday and we're still at half power.

I talked to as many people as I could last night who are on the crews and all of the answers were the same, they have no real idea what's wrong and they have tons of engineers working on it. I asked what they would do in this situation if they lived here and they said "find somewhere else to live for a couple of days"

Currently I seem to still be at half power here on Linden.