A power outage swept the Washington
area Tuesday, hitting the White House, the Capitol and the State Department and
knocking out electricity for thousands around the US capital.
Outages stretched from downtown
Washington into neighboring Maryland, knocking power out for more than 2,500
people, according to area power companies.
Most outages were brief, but
computer sy
The White House
stems were downtown offices and
access to Metro trains were disrupted.
Washington power provider Pepco said
the outage was caused by a dip in voltage as a result of an issue with the
transmission line.
“There was never a loss of permanent
supply of electricity to customers,” Pepco said.
Electricity was back to normal by
mid-afternoon and the company had dispatched teams to look into how it
happened.
“Customers should be able to operate
their own equipment at this time. There are no current supply problems. We have
crews on site investigating the cause.”
Outages were reported at more than
2,100 premises and households in Washington, according to Pepco, and more in
Maryland suburbs southeast of the capital
Major government buildings were not
spared, including the White House, which lost power briefly.
Back-up generators kicked in
promptly to restore lights and computers that were knocked out for several
seconds, according to an AFP reporter.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest
said there was no indication that the outage was as a result of a security
breach.
“I do not currently see a nexus to
terrorism,” he told reporters.
The State Department went dark in
the middle of a press briefing, which continued on for a time in the dark, a
spokeswoman reading from her notes with the light from her cellphone.
“The State Department was among the
buildings affected today by a power outage,” spokesman Jeff Rathke said.
“The department has continued to
carry out its essential functions throughout the outage.”
Lights had returned to the building
by mid-afternoon.
Power at Capitol Hill flickered on
and off intermittently but was later restored, an official there said.
The Department of Homeland Security
ruled out foul play, and said it was “closely monitoring the reports of power
outages affecting parts of Washington, DC.”
“At this time, there is no
indication that this outage is the result of any malicious activity,” DHS
added.
– Portraits in the dark –
Elsewhere, several Smithsonian buildings were evacuated as they went dark, including the Air and Space museum and the American Art museum, which was closed. They later reopened.
Elsewhere, several Smithsonian buildings were evacuated as they went dark, including the Air and Space museum and the American Art museum, which was closed. They later reopened.
The Portrait Gallery was also lights
out, posting a photo of a darkened hall on Twitter.
“In case you wanted to see what a
museum looks like when there’s a power outage,” the caption read.
Dan Kuntz, visiting from DuBois,
Pennsylvania, was winding up his visit to the National Portrait Gallery when
the lights went out.
“The power started flickering, and
then boom,” he told AFP as he enjoyed a soda on the steps of the National Air
and Space Museum, which had also been affected.
Museum staff corralled most visitors
into the open-air cafeteria space, said Kuntz, who himself made a bee line to
the exit and proceeded to the National Museum of Natural History, which
remained open.
Several metro stations lost power
and were on emergency lighting, but trains continued to run in the nation’s
capital.
Metro police said on Twitter “units
responding to assist at all stations affected by power outages. No elevator
entrapments reported at any station.”
Power had returned to most metro
depots by afternoon.
The hashtag #dcpoweroutage was one
of the top trends after the cut, with some users posting photos of darkened
subway tunnels and the lights-out State Department briefing.
By later Tuesday afternoon, the
regional power company, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, said only seven
people were without power in the region.
