Business & Tech

Pepco Outages Roundup

Wind posed a persistent problem for utility crews on Friday.

Here are the outage numbers that Pepco was reporting at 5:45 p.m. on Friday for in and around Rockville:

ZIP Customers Out Customers Served 20850 5,612 20,715 20851     95 5,250 20852 3,797 17,353 20853 2,725 9,475

Pepco reported that 27,554 of its 306,735 customers in Montgomery County were without power at 5:45 p.m.

Customers around Rockville reported that their power had gone out and then been restored within hours on Friday afternoon. Power was lost in the Manor Woods neighborhood, near the frequently-problematic Aspen Hill area, as the winds grew strongest around 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon. Power was restored to at least parts of that neighborhood by 5:45 p.m.

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Pepco's Web site included the following message on Friday afternoon: "Due to high winds today, Pepco is experiencing power outages. We have brought in additional crews to work around the clock to restore service as quickly and safely as possible. We strongly urge all customers to stay away from any downed wires and take extra precautions to be safe during this weather event."

The wind is making it tricky for utility crews, Pepco spokesman Bob Hainey said earlier Friday afternoon.

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"The guys can't go up in those buckets once the winds hit about 40 mph," Hainey said. "Where they can, they will go up. We expect it to start subsiding sometime between 4:30 and 5 [p.m.]" 

Pepco called in "more than 650 on crews, support people, in the call center, tree trimming crews" in preparation for the high winds, he said.

The crews are working as much as safety allows but, until the winds subside workers are fighting a potentially growing problem, Hainey said.

"What happens is as we're restoring people, the winds are knocking more people out," he said.

Colesville Patch's Whitney Teal contributed to this report.


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