E. Coast Outages May Last for Days
Utilities Waiting For Extra Crews
WASHINGTON — From North Carolina to New Jersey, 2 million people without electricity are asking the same question: Why will it take so long to get the lights back on?
Nearly three days after a severe summer storm lashed the East Coast, utilities said many neighborhoods could remain in the dark for much of the week, if not beyond.
Friday’s storm arrived with little warning, so utility companies have had to wait days for extra crews traveling from as far away as Quebec and Oklahoma. And the toppled trees and power lines often entangled broken equipment in debris that must be removed before workers can get started.
Adding to the urgency of the repairs are the sick and elderly, who are especially vulnerable without air conditioning in the sweltering triple-digit heat. Many sought refuge in hotels or basements.
Officials feared the death toll, already at 22, could climb because of the heat and widespread use of generators, which emit fumes that can be dangerous in enclosed spaces.
At the Springvale Terrace nursing home and senior center in Silver Spring, Md., generators were brought in to provide electricity, and window air conditioners were installed in large common rooms to offer respite from the heat and darkness.
Residents using walkers struggled to navigate doors designed to open automatically. Nurses had to throw out spoiled food.
The lack of power upended many daily routines. Supermarkets struggled to keep groceries from going bad. People on perishable medication called pharmacies to see how long their medicine would keep. In Washington, officials set up collection sites for people to drop off rotting food. Others had weekend cookouts to use their food. In West Virginia, National Guard troops handed out food and water and made door-to-door checks.
As for restoring power, all utilities take a top-down approach that seeks to get the largest number of people back online as quickly as possible. First, crews repair substations that send power to thousands of homes and businesses. Next, they fix distribution lines. Last are the transformers that can restore power to a few customers at a time.
In Great Falls, Va., just outside Washington, patent attorney Patrick Muir found out who was high on the priority list. The area is sparsely populated and wealthy, with mansions spread across secluded, wooded lots.
A Safeway supermarket trying to stay open with a limited power supply handed out free bags of dry ice. But after two days of temperatures in the 90s, the air inside was stale. Shopping carts with spoiled food, buzzing with flies, sat outside the store.
At a CVS pharmacy, Mahesh Tickle had no cash register, so he made change with loose bills and coins stuffed inside a Ziploc bag. Tickle filled what prescriptions he could and fielded questions from customers wondering if medications such as insulin had spoiled.
Some people said the destruction over the weekend was reminiscent of that caused by Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and Hurricane Irene in 2011.
Some backup utility crews arrived Sunday in Maryland, but many were not expected until sometime later. That’s because the storm arrived so quickly, unlike hurricanes, which approach with several days of warning and give outof-state crews plenty of time to get into place.
Last year, it took Baltimore Gas and Electric company eight and a half days to restore power to all 750,000 customers who lost power during Hurricane Irene. This time, the power company initially confronted more than 600,000 people without power. It said restoration efforts will extend into the weekend.
BGE said in a letter posted on its website that it would take hundreds of thousands of man-hours to clear debris and work through outages. Crews are working around the clock in 16-hour shifts.