Thousands of Arlington residents remain without power this afternoon (Friday) after a storm swept through the county last night, pummeling trees and power lines.
Almost 4,000 Dominion Energy customers remained without power as of 3:30 p.m., some of whom may not see power restored until around midnight or later, spokesperson Aisha Khan told ARLnow.
Update at 6:35 p.m. — A possible lightning strike caused a minor house fire on the 400 block of N. Bryan Street in Lyon Park, according to scanner traffic.
Update at 6 p.m. — Throughout Arlington nearly 2,500 homes and businesses are without power, according to Dominion’s website. In addition to the outage along Wilson Blvd, there are outages reported in the Arlington Mill and Forest Glen neighborhoods, as well as the Cherrydale, Maywood, Woodmont, Riverwood, and Dover Crystal neighborhoods.
Parts of Arlington’s northernmost neighborhoods are without power after a tree toppled along Military Road.
The arterial road is reportedly blocked by the large fallen tree, which took down poles, wires and transformers. Police, firefighters and Dominion Energy crews were on scene as of 5:15 p.m.
Scattered power outages have been reported across Arlington after a strong dinnertime storm.
The storm peppered Arlington with lightning and caused water to rise on some local roadways. There were reports of trees, branches and power lines down and homes struck by lightning.
A soaking rain and gusty winds are causing some tree troubles around Arlington.
Nearly an inch of rain has fallen so far today. Also falling: trees and utility lines.
An 85-year-old woman escaped with a broken wrist, a lucky dog and a scary story after she fled a falling tree branch in Virginia Square last weekend.
According to her son Malcolm Beith, Marianne Beith “narrowly escaped serious injury” when walking through Hayes Park with her dog Xoco on Saturday.
A driver just missed a tree falling on their vehicle in Arlington’s Douglas Park neighborhood today.
The incident happened just after noon on S. George Mason Drive, north of Four Mile Run Drive.
Nearly 3,000 homes and businesses were reported to be without power this morning.
Power started flickering across several North Arlington neighborhoods around 9 a.m. A large fire department response was dispatched to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church along N. Glebe Road for a report of a fire, which turned out to be sparks from a tree falling on power lines near the church, according to scanner traffic.
The impacts from Saturday’s severe storms were so widespread that Arlington County is still assessing damage.
Power has since been restored to the more than 34,000 Dominion customers in the dark after the storms, and the GW Parkway completed its reopening yesterday after crews removed hundreds of fallen and potentially hazardous trees. But other damage to both private and county property is still being addressed in Arlington.
After removing several hundred trees, the National Park Service says it’s reopening Spout Run Parkway and portions of the northern GW Parkway today.
The busy commuter routes have been closed in both direction since Saturday’s severe storms.
(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 11:20 a.m. on 7/31/23 — The number of outages in Arlington is down to 3,154. The GW Parkway remains closed.
Update at 9 a.m. on 7/30/23 — More than 20,000 Dominion customers are still without power as of Sunday morning.
