Many were angered by what they saw as the failure to simply respond.
In South Arlington, Colleen Coyne said she was willing to “wait our turn” for Dominion to restore electricity to her one-block-long street.
Pepco, Dominion Virginia Power and Baltimore Gas and Electric explain why electricity can take so long to restore.
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But she didn’t think the 5900 block of Fourth St. South should have to wait any longer for the removal of power lines draped over the yards, cars and front porches of four houses.
Power lines stretch across the yards of Coyne and her neighbors, effectively blocking them from getting beyond their front stoops, and forcing them to crawl or crouch and scoot under the wires if they want to reach the street.
Eleven children, all younger than 14, live in the 13 houses on the block.
When Coyne and her family finally went out to eat, they had to walk down three houses, to where the wires are about chest high, and clamber under them. Her husband walks with difficulty, using a cane.
But the harder trip was when they returned home.
“Trying to crawl through those in the dark with two kids and a dog — it was harrowing,” she said.
Calls to Dominion yielded no real response.
Company spokeswoman Le-Ha Anderson said someone would contact Coyne and determine how quickly crews could get to her block.
“We aren’t asking for power. We’ll wait our turn for that,” Coyne said Tuesday under a noontime sun. “This is not about our comfort. It’s about lives and safety.”
Another glitch that aggravated customers was the middle-of-the-night robo-call that was supposed to inform people that their power was back.
Kathryn Wilderotter of Takoma Park, who said she lost power at 10:41 p.m. Friday and didn’t get it back until Tuesday night, said she requested such a call via a Pepco app on her smartphone.
But there was no indication that a call would come at 2 a.m. Tuesday, when it woke her up.
Plus, the robotic voice simply asked for her power status.
“They said, ‘If it’s flickering, press one. If it’s completely out, press two,’ ” Wilderotter said. “I was like, ‘What?’ I hit two, for completely out. And that was basically it.”
“I’ve been fairly patient with them,” she said. “Now I’m just annoyed. . . . This seemed to be an information-gathering call, not an information-giving call.”
The latter she had yet to get.
“They haven’t called, I think, because they don’t have anything to tell me,” she said.
Lena H. Sun contributed to this report.
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