Update at 10:50 p.m. — Fewer than 1,000 Dominion customers are now in the dark in Arlington. A possible water main break has also been reported in Fairlington.
Nearly 3,000 Dominion customers were without power in Arlington Tuesday night after a line of severe storms packing gusty winds blew through the area.
The outages are centered around Rosslyn and parts of Columbia Pike, according to Dominion’s outage map. An “Arlington Alert” message suggested the Pike power outage is due to “equipment failure.”
The utility is hoping to have electricity restored no later than 11:00 p.m.
Arlington wasn’t immune from problems caused by this week’s heavy rains.
Among other rain-related issues, the water-saturated ground caused a tree to topple over onto power lines in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood Thursday afternoon.
The power outage struck at the beginning of the evening rush hour on Wednesday, knocking out power to traffic lights at several key intersections. Arlington County police are on scene, setting up cones and directing traffic.
Several hotels were reported to be without power, and the fire department is responding to one for reports of multiple people stuck in hotel elevators.
About 5,000 Dominion customers in Arlington were reported to be without power early Saturday morning.
The outages appear to be concentrated along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.
Update at 11:40 a.m. — The number of customers without power in Arlington is down to 316, according to the Dominion website.
A significant power outage has been reported in the Pentagon City area.
Arlington Mill Community Center Modifications Approved — The County Board approved modifications to the Arlington Mill Community Center project that are being called safety and utility upgrades. The county will use already approved project reserve funds for improvements such as parking garage security doors, an in-building wireless system antenna to aid first responder communication and a revised design for the intersection at 9th Street S. and Arlington Mill Drive. As reported last week, a Pan American Bakery and Café will open in the structure. Construction is on track to finish by early August, with a ribbon cutting ceremony on September 28. [Arlington County]
Arlington Receives Funding to Fight Childhood Obesity — The Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth has granted more than $36,000 to the county to fight childhood obesity and promote healthy living. This is the second year of a two-year grant. The money will help continue to fund community gardens, healthy school vending machine options and active recess. [Arlington County]
WMATA took to Twitter to inform passengers of the outage and that all of the station’s escalators and elevators are currently out of service. Buses have been requested to the station, the agency said.
Spokesman Dan Stessel said the localized power outage is “not a big deal” and the station is still open for business.
About 2,000 Dominion customers are currently without power, according to the utility’s outage map. At 10:30 p.m., Arlington County said the outage was impacting 2,800 customers.
Power is expected to be restored sometime between pre-dawn and mid-morning, according to police radio traffic.
(Updated 6:10 p.m.) A short lived, yet strong, string of storms left patches of destruction and power outages after it whipped through the area this afternoon. Although all parts of the county sustained some damage, the worst reports seem to be coming from South Arlington.
According to Dominion Virginia Power spokesman Chuck Penn, as of 5:45 p.m. there were about 6,500 Arlington customers without electricity. Most of the 33,000 Dominion customers currently without power are in Alexandria. However, Penn noted that “this is a very dynamic, unfolding situation” so numbers are changing almost by the minute.
All storm warnings and watches have been cancelled in Arlington, but more than a thousand Dominion customers are without power.
A line of storms with strong, gusty winds made a mad dash across the county this afternoon, downing some trees and utility lines but not packing quite the punch that many feared.
Update at 3:45 p.m. — Dominion reports that the cause of the outage was an underground equipment failure and power has been restored to all customers.
Dominion crews are at the scene of a power outage that has left part of Ballston dark.
