Nearly 3,800 Manassas residents and businesses lost power Sunday night, the third major outage in just over a week to darken parts of the city and renew questions about grid reliability.
As of 9:50 p.m., the city reported 3,731 customers without power, concentrated in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. Streets affected include Main, Center, Church, Battle, Grant, and Prince William Streets — covering much of the city’s historic core. Power was also out along portions of Wellington Road, Euclid Avenue, and Mathis Avenue.
City crews were dispatched after multiple calls to the Electric Department’s 703-257-8353 outage hotline. The city’s Power Outage Mapper showed broad service interruptions, but no restoration time had been released as of press time.
The National Weather Service forecast for the area called for thunderstorms and wind gusts up to 28 miles per hour Sunday evening, and utility officials said the severe weather could have contributed to the outage.
A String of Power Problems
Sunday’s blackout is the third outage in nine days to hit Manassas.
On October 16, a blown manhole near Church and West Streets caused a short circuit on the city’s internal distribution system. That incident cut power to parts of downtown for about two and a half hours before most service was restored by 3:23 a.m.
Just five days earlier, on October 11, a Dominion Energy transmission failure knocked out two of the city’s main substations — Battery Heights and Prince William — leaving roughly 6,000 customers without power. City crews rerouted some customers to alternate substations while Dominion restored service.
City spokesman Jeremy Beale told Potomac Local News last week that the October 16 outage was “unrelated to Dominion’s earlier feed failure,” noting it originated within the city’s own system. He described the October 11 event as “a transmission issue outside the city’s control.”
Reliability Questions Return
Manassas owns and operates its own electric distribution network but relies on Dominion Energy for its high-voltage feed into the city. The system has undergone upgrades since a 2023 series of transformer and relay failures at the Battery Heights Substation, which city leaders said would improve reliability and backup capabilities.
Sunday’s widespread outage again raises questions about whether those investments are enough to protect against external feed disruptions.
As of late Sunday, no official cause had been identified for the latest blackout. Potomac Local News has requested comment from Manassas City Utilities and Dominion Energy on whether the incident originated within city lines or at the Dominion connection point.
Residents in the Dark
The outage shut down traffic lights across parts of downtown and left restaurants, shops, and apartment buildings along Center and Main Streets in darkness.
City officials advised residents to avoid downed power lines, use flashlights instead of candles, and report continuing outages or hazards through the Power Outage Mapper or by phone.
Editor’s note: This story will be updated as more information becomes available from city and utility officials.
