“Dear PoPville,

I was wondering if you’ve heard anything DC residents having unexpected and inexplicably high pepco bills in the last few months. Long story short, starting early December (specifically the week of 12/6), our Pepco bill doubled from historical levels. I am rather… frugal, and I watch this bill religiously, so this did not go unnoticed. I also am in data analytics, Read More

Photo by Joanna Hiatt Kim

Ed. Note: If interested in following these events as they unfold – you can follow our twitter feed @PoPville here.

We received the first report at 10:09pm last night (Wednesday):

“Seriously, what’s with the explosion sounds (similar to a generator blowing) that we’ve heard several times in Fort Totten? The power has gone out several times again.”

“Same! We are without power near Fort Totten metro – two or three huge booms tonight. Same thing earlier this morning, but luckily power just flickered then.”

“The loud bangs are continuing. In the past the loud bangs came first, then we lost power. Tonight I only heard the bangs after we lost power. Intermittent sirens somewhere nearby.”

“It’s a transformer or some power line on 12th between Allison and Buchanen, it’s been exploding every couple days. Pepco was working on it earlier today after it happened, but just happened again minutes ago” Read More

“Dear PoPville,

I live on 7th&F, not far from H St Whole Foods. In NE DC we have been facing days of power fluctuations. 5+ times a day the electricity goes out. It’s only for a second, but enough to reset the internet, which is not ideal in this era of Work From Home zoom meetings. Pretty awkward to get kicked out of work calls in the middle of a presentation. My neighbors and I have been calling Pepco, but this continues. (2 cases already today). Thought I would reach out to the PoPville community – have others been experiencing this? Any suggestions?

Update: Just had our 3rd outage of the morning…”

explore map here.

Getting tons of reports @PoPville on twitter about a power outage hitting Hill residents. Pepco says 3,700 are affected with at 3am restoration time estimated. Read More

Thanks to Stephanie for passing on:

“A little PSA – just had a phishing scam. Someone “from Pepco” calling to reduce my bills by 30%, they just needed me to provide my Residential-R service number. Got off the phone and called Pepco to ask about it. Supposedly with that number they can hijack your account.”

Thanks to all who messaged us. Fingers crossed for a 3pm restoration. You can view the pepco power outage map here.

Update from Alert DC:

“PEPCO reports the power outage has spread to the following neighbor hoods in addition to Lanier Heights: Mount Pleasant, Park View, Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, Cardoza, and Kalorama. There are approximately 2277 customers affected with an estimated restoration time of 2:00 PM.”

Update #2: “PEPCO has updated their reported outages to be only Mount Pleasant with 419 customers affected and Adams Morgan with 272 customers affected. There is an estimated restoration time of 5:00 PM.”

Update #3: “PEPCO has updated their reported outages to be only the Adams Morgan area with 272 customers affected. There is an estimated restoration time of 5:00 PM.”

Thanks to Christina (and everyone else) for sending:

“1414 17th St NW (Brunswick House) residents and neighboring buildings were evacuated at 4:30AM due to underground explosions. A loud bang (presumably a manhole cover blowing off) that shook the building woke up residents, followed by fire alarms and lights flickering. The police were keeping residents on P street and discouraged anyone from standing close to any manholes in the area. We were allowed to re-enter the building around 5AM, although there is no electricity.” Read More

via Pepco

From Alert DC:

“Pepco reports a power outage affecting approximately 2650 customers in Petworth, Brightwood Park and Fort Totten neighborhoods. Current estimate time of restoration is 7 PM.”

Been getting tons of messages over the weekend and this one pretty much sums it up:

“Power went out in Capitol Hill for the fourth time in a week. What’s going on??”

Last message I saw from AlertDC said: “PEPCO crews continue to work on restoring power to the affected customers in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The estimated restoration time is 9AM.”

power outage at DCUSA by Rachael Senning

I’m getting messages from people who have lost power in Columbia Heights, LeDroit Park, Bloomingdale, Shaw, Woodley Park, Mount Pleasant, U Street, Cleveland Park and Dupont.

see outage map here

Early reports of restoration are for 7pm. Updates as more is known.

U Street metro dark by Rob Tricchinelli

Thank God for DCFD. Photo by Holly Gerrity

Update 3:15pm from Puck Buddys: “Power just restored at 13th & U.”

Getting reports 17th and U, Mount Pleasant and parts of Columbia Heights have also been restored.

From Alert DC:

“Pepco reports multiple power outages in the NW quadrant of the District due a possible failure at a substation located at 13th St NW at Florida Ave NW. Approximately, 31,000 customers are impacted. There is no restoration information to report at this time. Updates are to follow.”