Cleanup efforts in parts of Prince George’s County and D.C. continue days after a large storm swept through the area.
As of Saturday night, crews were still working around the clock to restore power and clear downed trees and power lines.
Cheers of joy could be heard after hours of being in the dark in Southeast D.C. and Prince George’s County.
“Really hot,” said Southeast resident Yolanda Monroe. “Especially having a little dog — hot.”
News4 cameras were rolling as Pepco crews showed up to a Southeast neighborhood, leading to hopeful thoughts from Christina Simms.
“My mothers’ here — she’s almost 85, so just trying to get the power back on so she can come back into her home,” she said. “[…] I’m glad to see them on our block, so that’s a good thing.”
The optimism follows powerful winds, thunder and lightning along with rain that barreled through the D.C. area on Thursday evening, leading to down power lines, toppled trees and power outages.
Throughout Friday, many residents worked to assess some of the damage as some of the trees landed on homes and on cars.
Pepco crews worked throughout Friday and Saturday to restore the power.
“We typically will focus on hospitals first,” said Amber Perry, region president for Pepco. “We’re always about safety at Pepco — hospitals first, nursing homes next and then we start to focus on large groups of communities and customers that are out, and so we really kind of done this in waves and waves of restoration efforts around the outages.”
The power company said it launched more than 300 to 400 staff members. Both internal and utility contractors were launched following the storm, initially clearing debris in order to get to utility poles.
“In some of the hardest hit areas, we have trees that are crossing highways or residential neighborhoods where we did not have access for crews to safely get in to assess that damage,” said Rob Spelman, senior manager of construction and maintenance with Pepco. “[…] The first 24 hours of any major storm like this is the most critical, getting boots on the ground, assessing what we have and understanding what that full scope of repairs is going to be for the next 24-48 hours.”
By Saturday night, Pepco reported that they restored 90% of their customers impacted by Thursday night’s storm.
