This article is from the archive of our partner
Washington is experiencing a new kind of power struggle right now.
Just in time for cherry-blossom-and-school-trip season, parts of downtown Washington lost electricity Tuesday afternoon, leading to evacuations of prime tourist spots and probably a dip in workplace productivity.
Pepco, the utility company that provides electric power to customers in Washington D.C. and surrounding Maryland communities, attributed the outages to "an issue with a transmission line" in Charles County, Md. "The dip in voltage caused equipment at some customer facilities to transfer to their backup systems," the company said. "The momentary outage occurred because of customer equipment responding to a dip in voltage."
Pepco reported that customers should have no electricity trouble as of press time.
Early reports suggested the power outages Tuesday afternoon were linked to an explosion at the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative facility, which services areas within four Maryland counties.
As of 2 p.m., the Department of Homeland Security had reported more than 8,000 customers affected by the outage. Officials say they don't suspect "malicious" origins for the outage.
The outages were widespread in the District. A host of government buildings lost power, including the Department of Energy, located in the James V. Forrestal Building near the Mall. The White House delayed its daily press briefing. The State Department trudged forward, taking questions from reporters in the dark. The Capitol building lost power, too. Smithsonian museums, including Air and Space and the National Portrait Gallery, were evacuated. Thirteen Metro stations were operating on backup power, The Washington Post reports. The Watergate, where these reporters are dispatching from, experienced elevator disruptions.
Even Oprah couldn't keep the lights on; they went out in the middle of her speech commemorating Maya Angelou's new forever stamp at the Warner Theatre.
The outages coincided with Sen. Rand Paul's presidential campaign launch, leading the people of Twitter to do what they do best:
Major D.C. power outage? I guess @RandPaul was able to defeat the Washington machine faster than we expected.
— jaykenworthy (@jaykenworthy) April 7, 2015
[cracks knuckles] As Sen. Rand Paul took to the stage, millions of miles away in DC the power died. This was a metaphor. [cashes check]
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) April 7, 2015
who/what caused the power outage? RT for terrorists Fave for rand paul we'll get through this together!
— Dean Essner (@dean_essner) April 7, 2015
*poster* RT @Lwajert: National Treasure 4: The DC Power Outage. pic.twitter.com/4wQqBvVnXF
— darth™ (@darth) April 7, 2015
This story has been updated with more information.
This article is from the archive of our partner National Journal.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.
