At 1 p.m., several buildings in the Washington D.C. area went dark due to a power outage.
The outages caused afternoon delays for several commuters, and the residual effects from the outage may make it difficult for Prince William, Manassas, and Stafford residents to get home this evening.
In a statement made by Pepco, the power company responsible for the outage, it occurred due to an issue with a transmission line.
“There was never a loss of permanent electric supply but the dip in voltage caused equipment at some facilities to transfer to their backup systems. We are currently working to repair the transmission equipment fault in Charles County, Maryland,” said Pepco in a release.
Metro
According to a media spokesperson for the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA), while all stations are running trains on schedule right now, 13 stations are currently only running on back-up power.
“It’s not closing any stations – it’s not disrupting our transit operations. Trains are running normally. We have several stations – about 13 – that are running on back up power. So what [commuters] will notice is the [stations] will be a bit dimmer, as not all of the lights are on,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also stated that some of the escalators and elevators were not working at the metro stations.
PRTC
According to Christine Rodrigo, PR specialist for the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission (PRTC), there was an assessment of bus services made, but there are no anticipated service delays at this time.
VRE
The Virginia Railway Express (VRE) experienced delays earlier this afternoon, but according to Bryan Jungwirth, Director of Public Affairs & Government Relations for the VRE, stated that all late afternoon and evening trains should be running on schedule.
“There was about a 45-minute outage…it did cause our two early afternoon trains to run about 20 and 30 minutes late. But everything is good for this afternoon – the power has been restored. There shouldn’t be any effect on our train services this afternoon,” Jungwirth said.
The original VRE delays occurred when Union Station lost power and signals, which caused the 301 train to be 30 minutes late, and the 325 train to be 10 minutes late.
Potomac Local will keep you up to date on the latest information about the impact on commuting out of Washington D.C.
