Community Corner
Pepco: Power Restoration Could Take Until Sunday
Some residents still left in the dark and heat nearly a week after Friday's damaging derecho storm.
It may take until Sunday to restore some remaining power outages in Montgomery County, according to Pepco.
Nearly a week after Friday’s violent storm, 17,200 remained in the dark in the county Thursday, with concentrations near Bethesda, Potomac, Rockville, Silver Spring and Wheaton, according to Pepco Spokesman Clay Anderson.
By Wednesday, the utility had achieved 90 percent restoration – a number initially projected to take until Friday night.
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Thursday, Pepco had reached 98 percent restoration, and expected to be “very close to 100 percent” by Friday, Anderson said.
“Overwhelmingly, our customers have been restored,” Anderson said. “But that in no way diminishes our efforts. In fact, it accelerates them, because we want everyone to be restored.”
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The projections, however, come as little comfort to some families who say they’re still out of power and have been given an estimated restoration time of Sunday by Pepco.
“I was really holding out hope for a Friday restore date but that seems to be off the table now,” wrote Bethesda resident Laura Arbelaez Shure in an email to Patch.
Her home in the 20814 ZIP code has been given an estimated restoration time of 11 p.m. Sunday, she said. Shure wrote that she’s watched with frustration as the status of her outage restoration changed from “crew assigned” to “no crew assigned” twice.
“If it were just my husband and me we'd be fine (well, maybe not quite fine), but with a 4-year-old AND this heat, it makes things much harder,” Shure wrote.
Potomac resident Brenda Serna-Johns, who said she has also been given a Sunday estimated restoration time, wrote in an e-mail to Patch that her family has been using a makeshift outhouse in the backyard.
“Being in a well that is powered only by electricity means no water, and no water means no toilets, showers or anything that we always take for granted,” Serna-Johns wrote. “Today I took my kids to the sports and health club which I'm the only member and they were nice to let us all take showers.”
A Patch reader reported that every home on Aspen Avenue in Takoma Park remained out of power, and residents there were also given an estimated restoration time of 11 p.m. Sunday.
The later restoration times for some families are due to “the individual restoration situation, based on the amount of damage to that individual customer’s supply,” Anderson said. “While it may not be a feeder per se, it could be wires, trees, re-construction of poles, different things that have to be done for those few customers.”
Anderson encouraged families still without power to check back with Pepco, adding that restoration could come earlier than Sunday, the “latest” time power is projected to be restored.
“We’re trying to get everyone back by Sunday, absolutely,” Anderson said.
But local officials continue to push Pepco to get the job done faster, The Gazette reported this week.
“People are pissed,” Councilman Marc B. Elrich (D-At large) of Takoma Park, told The Gazette. “People don't understand why it is taking this long.”
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