Gusty Winds Knock Out Power
Thousands of Dominion Customers Affected in Va.

By Lori Aratani and Jonathan Mummolo
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Winds continued to blow through the Washington area yesterday, forcing the early closure of two schools in Loudoun County and leaving some residents still in the dark. By late last night, winds had diminished sharply, and they were expected to remain light today, with temperatures rising into the middle 40s.

Although the area dodged the heavy snow that blanketed Pennsylvania and much of New England, it did not escape the fierce winds that blew in Sunday afternoon, leaving broken tree limbs and power blackouts in their wake. The gusts were fiercest in Maryland, where the National Weather Service clocked gusts up to 60 mph.

By late last night, winds were less than 7 mph.

In Virginia, about 135,000 customers were affected by the storm, with outage reports peaking late Sunday and early yesterday, Dominion Virginia Power officials said. They said most Virginia residents should have had power restored by late yesterday afternoon. As of 10:30 p.m. yesterday, only about 300 customers in Northern Virginia were without electricity, a number of them near Leesburg in Loudoun County.

More than 16,000 Pepco customers in the District and in Montgomery and Prince George's counties were without power at the peak, but by late last night, the utility reported just over 700 outages, with 400 in Montgomery. The county was the hardest hit by Sunday's high winds, with 14,000 residents without power at one point.

The winds "went through and did a number, but it could have been a lot worse," Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin said.

Outside Pepco's service area, many trees and power lines were downed in Frederick County.

Jim DeCarufel, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, said a low-pressure system that had moved out of the Ohio Valley re-formed over the Maryland Eastern Shore, producing rain and strong gusty winds.

Of the Northern Virginia localities served by Dominion, Leesburg was affected most by the storm, spokesman Karl Neddenien said. Nearly 19,000 Dominion customers there lost power.

"We have 133 separate active projects taking place in that area to restore power," Neddenien said yesterday of Leesburg, citing damage from winds of 20 to 30 mph, and far higher gusts. "It's a lot of work," he said. "We're doing it as quickly as we can while working safely."

Icing on trees was particularly damaging in western Loudoun County.

Two Loudoun schools -- Loudoun Valley High School and Blue Ridge Middle School -- let out at 1:30 p.m. yesterday because they had partial power and no heat. As temperatures dropped inside the buildings, students gathered in gyms and cafeterias, which were warmer, said Wayde B. Byard, a school system spokesman.

"We don't have heat. The temperature is dropping about three degrees an hour," said Byard, who added that the two schools began the day with indoor temperatures of 60 to 65 degrees. He said later that temperatures did not go below about 58 degrees in the schools.

The high winds also complicated efforts by firefighters to extinguish a fire about 8:45 a.m. yesterday at an apartment complex in Prince George's. Officials said about 100 residents were displaced by the three-alarm fire that swept through the building in the 11100 block of Cherry Hill Road. Damage was estimated at $1.5 million.

Pete Piringer, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service spokesman, said that the department continued to respond yesterday to reports of downed trees and road debris but that there were no reports of serious injuries.

In the Loudoun town of Hillsboro, wind uprooted a large tree shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday. As it crashed down, it tore power lines and smashed the hood of a BMW traveling west on Route 9, police said. The Fairfax couple in the car were treated for minor injuries at the scene, Virginia State Trooper L.K. Armstrong said.

"It was huge," Armstrong said of the tree. ". . . I couldn't believe it."

Ed Cutshall, 54, said he rushed from his jewelry store and helped the driver out of the car. "They were both pretty much unhurt -- just wide-eyed and shaken," he said. "Wind gusts came along, took a 100-year-old tree, ripped it out of the ground and put it all over the road."

Staff writers Michael E. Ruane and Martin Weil contributed to this report.