Dominion Energy says there were no major outages in Fairfax or Prince William counties on Friday. A system glitch made it look like thousands of customers were dark, including a false reading of 13,450 out in Fairfax, Woodbridge and Warrenton, according to Northern Virginia spokeswoman Aisha Khan.
“We had no major outages in Fairfax and Prince William Counties yesterday. However, we did have a glitch within the system that made it look like we had large outages in Fairfax, Woodbridge and Warrenton (13,450),” Khan wrote Saturday in response to questions from Potomac Local News.
Khan said the real outages in Woodbridge were far smaller and tied to two failed transformers:
The largest, she said, left 25 customers without power for about six hours. Those customers were restored by 9:30 p.m. Friday. A second failed transformer around 7 p.m. Friday cut power to 73 customers. They were back on by 3:30 a.m. Saturday.
That official account conflicts with what Dominion’s public outage tools showed on Friday and with at least one resident’s report on Saturday morning.
What the public map showed Friday
On Friday morning, Dominion’s own outage table listed 6,376 customers without power in Prince William County out of about 90,288 the utility serves here. Manassas City showed 0. The map had clusters in Nokesville, Aden and Brentsville; Gainesville and Haymarket near I-66, Heathcote Boulevard and Pace West School; and the Dumfries–Woodbridge–Leesylvania–Triangle corridor, including Anden the Woods.
Dominion’s system-wide map at the time listed 14,685 customers out across 106 projects. Fairfax County also appeared to have outages, including in the Fair Oaks area.
By Saturday morning, that same public table showed 0 of 90,288 Prince William customers out. Nearby jurisdictions were also at zero.
What a reader reported
On Potomac Local’s Friday outage post, Kathy Grant Guymond wrote Saturday morning that her power had been off since about 4:30 p.m. Friday and that Dominion’s estimate was restoration between 8 and 11 a.m. Saturday. “Power still out,” she said.
Dominion’s Saturday statement says the Woodbridge outages it is confirming were restored overnight, the later of the two by 3:30 a.m.
If your power is still out, Dominion asks customers to report it at 866-366-4357 or outagemap.dominionenergy.com. NOVEC customers can call 703-335-0500. City of Manassas Electric customers can call 703-257-8353.
