Update at 8:55 p.m. — Dominion is still reporting 663 customers without power in the area, with an updated restoration time range between 11 p.m.-4 a.m. According to an email shared with ARLnow by a local resident, the outage involves burned underground power lines that need to be replaced and tested.
Earlier: Hundreds are without power this morning in the Ballston and Virginia Square area.
Around 2,500 Arlington homes and businesses are without power Saturday afternoon due to a large outage.
The outage spans parts of the Long Branch Creek, Arlington Ridge and Pentagon City neighborhoods, according to a Dominion map. An additional 170 Dominion customers are reportedly without power in Alexandria’s Arlandria neighborhood as of 1:30 p.m.
Just over 1,200 Dominion customers were without power in Arlington this morning on an exceptionally sweltering day.
The outage affected a far northern section of Arlington — along parts of N. Glebe Road, Military Road and Chesterbrook Road — plus a portion of McLean. It followed reports of an arcing power line on the 3600 block of Miliary Road, which prompted a fire department response.
For at least the fourth time since late June, Dominion customers in Ballston and Virginia Square area are without power.
The outage started around 2 a.m. this morning, residents tell ARLnow, and an outage map shows it affecting roughly the same area as previous outages on June 24, July 15 and July 23.
A large fire department response responded to an underground utility fire in Crystal City this afternoon.
The fire, on the 2400 block of Crystal Drive amid office and apartment buildings, followed reports of an “explosion” heard and felt in the area shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Some 3,000 homes and businesses were reported to be without power this afternoon in northern Arlington and a small portion of McLean.
The outage follows reports of the sounds of possible transformer explosions in the area of Nelly Custis Drive and N. Lincoln Street in Cherrydale.
(Updated at 12:30 p.m.) More than 5,000 Dominion customers were in the dark this morning due to a large power outage.
Around 10:45 a.m. firefighters were dispatched to the power substation at the intersection of S. Fern Street and 18th Street S. for a report of a transformer explosion and fire.
After big storms, many of the same questions are asked: namely, why don’t we just bury power lines?
Surely the expense of constantly fixing power lines downed by falling trees, branches and the occasional crash — both in terms of the repairs themselves, lost productivity, etc. — cannot be far off from the cost of just moving them underground?
(Updated on 8/18/23) After a late July tempest plunged roughly 35,000 Arlington residents into darkness, ARLnow posed a pressing question to Virginia’s largest electric utility: Why not move all power lines underground?
The short answer is red tape and price.
(Updated at 4:05 p.m.) The herculean effort to clean up from Saturday’s storms and restore power to tens of thousands is continuing Monday morning.
The GW Parkway remains closed to most traffic between Spout Run Parkway and the Beltway — and is expected to remain closed until later this week, as crews work to clear a large number of downed trees and branches.
Update at 2:35 p.m. — About 500 customers remain without power in Arlington. A Dominion spokeswoman says the outage was caused by an “unrelated tree contractor [dropping] a tree on our wire.”
Arlington Outage:
At 9:28am, a 3rd party, unrelated tree contractor, dropped a tree on our wire impacting 8,117 customers.
Our Operations Ctr restored 3,079 in less than 1 min.
An early morning dispute over parking led to a gun being brandished and a car being stolen.
That’s according to today’s Arlington County Police Department crime report.
