Pepco Not Sure When Power Will Return for More Than 171,000 Customers

At about 2:30 p.m., NateeV Tweeted: um no power in 20783. when is it coming back."

Pepco doesn’t know, and the electric company that serves parts of Prince George’s County, Montgomery County and Washington is sticking to it. According to the Pepco blog, customers should be prepared to wait for multiple days to get their power back.

Bob Hainey, manager of media relations, said Pepco is first undergoing an assessment process that could take up to 24 hours, though he said it could be less.

“We are looking at how badly damaged the system is,” he told Patch.

After the assessment, a blanket estimated time for power restoration for all customers will be issued, and then maybe estimates for individual cases, Hainey said.

A Twitter-er named “hisara” doesn’t like that idea.

This afternoon she Tweeted: “@PepcoConnect so ur saying you won't even TELL us when you will restore power until it's been out for 24 hours? That's really pathetic.”

Pepco responded to hisara in a Tweet: "That said, crews are continuing to restore customers while the assessment is going on."

That’s what Hainey said, too.

According to him, between the time that outages peaked at 220,000 until 2:30 p.m. Sunday, service was restored for 50,000 customers.

The main goal right now is the damage assessment, but power for some is being restored as crews respond to potentially dangerous downed wires, he said.

“If there’s a downed wire, report it, then stay away,” Hainey said.

Once a downed wire is reported, Pepco crews report there and determine if the wire is live and dangerous, he said. If it’s live, crews cut the electricity. It isn’t until the power is off or Pepco determines the wire isn’t live that city and county crews are able to remove the trees that might be tangled in them, he said.

According to the outage map available on the Pepco website, the Riverdale Park, College Park and Greenbelt area had 11,647 outages reported by homes and businesses as of 3:45 p.m. Sunday. That’s down from 11,707 that were being reported at 12:30 p.m.

A cluster of zip codes that includes parts of Riverdale Park, University Park, Hyattsville, Brentwood, Mt. Rainier and Bladensburg had 4,689 outages reported at 3:45 p.m. That’s down from 5,033 at 12:30 p.m.

Some of those customers getting power restored were sure to share their love.

At 3:19 p.m., rkpendse Tweeted: "Came home to see a #Pepco truck leaving the block. Power back on within 15 minutes! Wow! #irene #impressed @PepcoConnect"

Hainey warns customers to stay away from downed wires, and to report power outages to 1-877-PEPCO-62. He assures the crews will get to every last customer.

With at least 171,865 customers still in the dark, the only thing as uncertain as when they the outages will be 100 percent resolved seems to be what is the greater task: managing the power outages, or responding to angry Tweets:

At 1:44 p.m., stylish_in_dc Tweeted: "@pepcoconnect part of hyattsville has power & part does not. guess which part i am in!?! this power outage is way old!!!!"