Update at 7:25 p.m. — The number of Dominion customers without power in Arlington is up to 16,828.
(Updated at 6:10 p.m.) More than 5,800 Dominion customers are without power in Arlington as of 6:05 p.m. as the strongest winds from Hurricane Sandy have started to arrive in the area.
This afternoon Metro announced that bus and rail service will remain suspended Tuesday morning due to the impacts of Hurricane Sandy.
Metrorail and Metrobus service will not resume service Tuesday morning. An announcement on when service may be restored will be made after Metro is able to assess damage and weather conditions in the morning. Metro personnel will need to perform a comprehensive damage assessment, including inspections of track, bridges, aerial structures, stations and facilities. Metrorail service restoration is also contingent on adequate commercial power to support operations and repair of any storm-related damage. For Metrobus, service restoration will vary by route and depend on road conditions.
Reagan National Airport has “canceled operations until further notice due to Hurricane Sandy,” according to a media alert from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
The MWAA says the last flight out of DCA departed for Atlanta, Ga. at 9:00 this morning.
County officials compared the dangerous conditions Arlington will experience over the next 24 hours to the heavy winds of the June 29 derecho, which lasted 24 minutes.
Already some power problems and falling trees and power lines have been reported. Dominion reported 423 customers without power in Arlington earlier this afternoon, but power has since been restored to most. Firefighters are currently on the scene of a large tree that fell on to a house on the 2900 block of N. Oxford Street, in the Bellevue Forest neighborhood. The house was unoccupied at the time and nobody was hurt.
Arlington hosted the 37th Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday, bringing tens of thousands of runners and spectators to the county.
The race kicked off just before 8:00 a.m. on Route 110, just before Memorial Bridge, and wound its way through Rosslyn, up Lee Highway, down the Spout Run Parkway, into the District (for about 16 of the 26.2 miles), through Crystal City and back to the Iwo Jima Memorial. A record 23,515 runners finished the race.
Arlington County is urging residents to stay put until the heavy rain and wind of Hurricane Sandy blows through the area over the next day or so.
“Arlington emergency managers urge everyone to stay where you are,” the county said in a media alert this morning. “High winds and the danger of falling trees will present an extremely unsafe environment. Get yourself to a safe place and stay there.”
A new Bloomberg list of “large U.S. cities with wealthy one-person households” ranks Arlington as No. 2, second only to Hoboken, New Jersey. (Twenty-five percent of workers in Hoboken are employed in finance, insurance or real estate.)
To compile the list, Bloomberg examined U.S. Census data from 2006 to 2010 and identified cities of at least 50,000 people where men and women ages 15-64 “lived alone and had median incomes greater than national averages.”
No Sandbag Distribution in Arlington — Contrary to some rumors, Arlington County is not distributing sandbags to residents concerned about flooding. “Arlington County, fortunately, does not have significant river front areas that are subject to flooding (e.g., Georgetown, Old Town),” Arlington County Director of Communications Diana Sun told ARLnow.com this morning.” She said that county staff is “focused on the highest priorities.”
Long Bridge Drive Flooded — Long Bridge Drive, near Crystal City, has flooded as a result of rain overnight and is being closed to traffic by police. The flood-prone road is the only street that leads to the parking lots for Long Bridge Park.
Update at 9:20 a.m. — NB I-395 has partially reopened.
(Update at 8:40 a.m.) Traffic on northbound I-395 is completely blocked following a serious multi-vehicle accident near Crystal City.
