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UPDATED: Power mostly restored after widespread outage

Power outage in Alexandria on May 30 (image via Dominion Energy)

A power outage hit over 4,300 Dominion Energy customers across Alexandria, but within an hour it seems most of that has been restored..

Dominion Energy said there were 4,364 customers without power across Alexandria this morning, but as of 10:45 p.m. that was down to scattered pockets like 156 customers without power in North Ridge.

The cause is listed as a circuit going out and the estimated time of restoration was listed as between 1-4 p.m., but the outage was fixed within the hour.

The large-scale outage is the latest in an ongoing saga of outages in Alexandria. Dominion Energy said last year it would invest $17 million over the next three years to improve reliability in Alexandria.

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UPDATED: Wayward crow behind Potomac and Del Ray power outage this morning

Power outage on March 10 (photo via Dominion Energy)

(Updated 9:30 a.m.) Another day, another massive power outage in Alexandria. This time, there’s a corvid to blame.

There were around 4,251 residents in a stretch of Alexandria from the Braddock neighborhood up to Potomac Yard and Lynhaven without power this morning, according to Dominion Energy’s power outage map, though as of 9:20 a.m. the largest outage has been restored.

The cause for the outage is listed as “circuit out.” Dominion Energy spokesperson Peggy Fox said on social media that an investigation found a crow flew into a critical power line.

There was a second, overlapping outage in Arlandria, with another 489 customers without power, though as of 9:30 a.m. that seems to have been fixed too. The last remaining outage from this morning was at the southern end of Del Ray with 175 customers without power.

Del Ray was hit with a large power outage two days ago. Another in the Arlandria/Parkfairfax neighborhood last week affected 3,000 residents.

Alexandria had suffered repeated large-scale outages in recent years, including one infamous outage in 2021 that ruined the 2021 Art On The Avenue festival for many businesses in Del Ray.

Around this time last year, Dominion leadership spoke to Alexandria’s City Council and promised to invest $17 million into the utility company’s infrastructure in Alexandria to improve reliability. Some city leaders pushed for Dominion to underground more power lines — keeping them away from crows, just as an example — but Dominion leadership said the price of undergrounding across Alexandria was too “outlandish.”

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Power (mostly) restored after early morning outage in Del Ray

Power outage in Del Ray (image via Dominion Energy)

Del Ray residents were in for a rude awakening this morning as many discovered early this morning that power to the neighborhood was out.

As of 8:45 a.m., most of that power has been restored, but Dominion said 367 residents at the north end of the neighborhood still remain in the dark.

The Dominion Energy map indicated restoration of power is estimated at sometime between noon and 3 p.m.

At the peak of the outage this morning there were around 2,100 Del Ray residents without power. Dominion Energy spokesperson Peggy Fox said on social media the outage was caused by an underground issue. The problem was isolated and both schools in the affected area have been restored.

Image via Dominion Energy

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Dominion: Thousands without power as city is hit by storm

One of Alexandria’s power outages in the West End (image via Dominion Energy)

(Updated 5:15 p.m.) As a severe thunderstorm sweeps through Alexandria, Dominion Energy says there are around 2,992 customers in the city without power.

Dominion’s outage map showed that there was a large outage — 3,705 without power — along Duke Street and southern Seminary Hill that has since disappeared from the map. Another large outage — 1,557 customers — is reported just west between James K. Polk Elementary School and Beauregard Street.

As of 5 p.m., Alexandria is under severe thunderstorm and flash flood warnings.

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Del Ray’s ‘Art On The Avenue’ gets $20K grant from Dominion Energy

Art On The Avenue on Saturday, October 2, 2021, was a hit, but local businesses suffered due to a power outage that lasted all day (staff photo by James Cullum)

In the run up to this fall’s 27th annual Art On The Avenue festival in Del Ray, Dominion Energy is starting off with better footing than last year.

The power company just approved a $20,000 sponsorship to embellish the festival’s Kids Art Corner, a popular activity at the festival where more than a dozen nonprofits provide art activities for kids and families.

“It’s a big deal for us,” festival founder Pat Miller told ALXnow. “Ten-to-14-year-olds wander around Art On The Avenue, but there isn’t really anything for them to do.”

Last year’s festival was disrupted by a 16-hour power outage, which ended up shuttering many businesses on Del Ray’s busiest day of the year.

“I don’t want to think about that (the outage),” Miller said. “This is about the kids.”

Subsequently, Dominion committed to millions in infrastructure upgrades in Alexandria to prevent future outages. The energy giant also gave grants this year to Runningbrooke, Rebuilding Together, the Four Mile Run Conservancy Foundation and the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium.

Dominion spokesperson Peggy Fox said the company is excited to participate as an exclusive sponsor.

“In addition to family favorites, such as pumpkin painting and scarecrow making, Dominion Energy’s sponsorship will bring brand new art styles and activities such as robotic art for kids 10-13 years old,” Fox said. “We’re also hoping to see a kinetic art activity at Kids Art Corner, which is held at the Mt. Vernon Recreation Center fields.”

Art On The Avenue is from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, October 1.

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Dominion Power says ‘outlandish cost’ prevents city-wide power line undergrounding in Alexandria

After a Sunday storm that knocked out power to much of the city, some locals suggested Dominion Energy look into undergrounding more of its utilities, but the power company says costs and other factors keep that from being a viable option on a city-wide scale.

Alan Bradshaw, vice president of strategic partnerships for Dominion Energy, said commissioned studies found the cost of undergrounding all utilities to be “outlandish.”

Northern Virginia Magazine previously reported that the price tag for state-wide undergrounding is around $80 billion.

“Undergrounding is frequently brought up, especially during storms,” Bradshaw said. “The state corporation commissioned a study but installation cost is outlandish and would impact customers and their bills.”

Instead, Bradshaw said Dominion has been “strategically undergrounding” to protect some of the more vulnerable power lines.

“We took the opportunity a few years ago, not to underground everything, but to underground some of the more outage-prone lines,” Bradshaw said. “We use ten-year outage histories to identify most outage-prone lines and target the neighborhood lines we go to frequently. We’re undergrounding that for much less cost than undergrounding the entire system.”

Bradshaw did note that undergrounding isn’t viable in every location and — while not citing Alexandria specifically — did say areas that are prone to flooding also make poor candidates for utility undergrounding.

“Of course, not every area is perfect for undergrounding,” Bradshaw said. “If an area is prone to flooding, that’s probably not something we’d do there.”

Meanwhile, Dominion Energy is warning more outages are likely as the year moves into hurricane season.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said conditions are ripe in the Atlantic Ocean for a busy hurricane season.

“The forecast is that we do expect a busy tropical season,” said Alan Bradshaw, vice president of strategic partnerships for Dominion Energy. “The setup is conducive for some of those tracks to come up the coast.”

Bradshaw said Dominion has been upgrading its storm infrastructure, though in ways that may not be immediately apparent to someone driving past. Wooden cross arms, for example, are bein replaced with a lighter but more durable polymer.

“There’s bigger poles, stronger cross arms… a lot of new technology on the grid,” Bradshaw said. “A lot of folks that may drive down the road may see poles and wires and it may look similar to what it did 60 years ago, but there’s a lot of new technology [like] devices that monitor and tell us when there’s damage.”

Bradshaw said recovery efforts prioritize critical infrastructure like hospitals and 911 facilities. Dominion also works in tandem with local agencies on public safety hazards like downed wires.

For locals, Bradshaw said the best thing they can do to help with storm recovery is to report outages, either through an app or through the city website.

The power outages this week were met with frustration from the community.

Dominion Energy has previously told the City Council that it would invest $17 million into infrastructure in Alexandria over the next three years as part of an effort to improve reliability, though this pledge was met with some frustration from city officials at the meeting for failing to include any details on what type of improvements that investment entails.

“It’s important to know: our teams are constantly training to be the best when our customers need us most,” Bradshaw said. “When the product we provide is not available it causes issues for our customers. We’re very sensitive to that and motivated on that to get the lights on.”

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Power mostly restored in Alexandria with under 200 still affected

Restored power line in Alexandria, image via Dominion Energy/Twitter

While Dominion Energy warned earlier that repairs for large swaths of Alexandria could be delayed until Tuesday morning, most of those outages have been cleared up as of 3:30 p.m.

Around 176 Alexandrians remain without power, according to the Dominion website. Those outages are scattered around the city, though 144 of them are in Arlandria — which was hit with widespread outages last night.

The Dominion website said the Arlandria restoration is likely to be resolved between 6-11 p.m., but Dominion spokesperson Peggy Fox told ALXnow those estimates generally reflected the latest possible times those could be delayed.

The outage caused frustrations among Alexandrians, who said the post-storm power outage was a reflection of the poor state of utilities in Northern Virginia.

City Council member John Chapman said the outages emphasized the need to take another look at undergrounding more utilities in Alexandria.

Image via Dominion Energy

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Dominion Energy warns power may not be restored in Alexandria until Tuesday morning

Outages in Del Ray on May 23, image via Dominion Energy

Around 982 customers are currently without power across Alexandria as Dominion Energy scrambles to fix damage from a Sunday night storm.

Power outages already pushed two Alexandria City Public Schools to virtual classes. The Dominion Power website said the outages may not be fixed until 9 p.m. tonight (Monday) or 2 a.m. tomorrow.

Peggy Fox, a spokesperson for Dominion Energy, said the estimate represents hopes for the latest it may be restored.

“The [time of restoration] on there are the extended ranges, that’s as far out as it may take,” Fox said. “There’s a lot of damage.”

Fox said crews working in Arlington, for instance, are clearing away damage from fallen trees — which may take at least eight hours.

“We have to get out here and get our eyes on the damage,” Fox said. “It takes a little time. I know people are upset.”

This morning, Fox said Dominion Energy had 92 power outage projects it was working on.

Most of those outages are centered in Del Ray and Arlandria, which together account for 592 outages.  There are also 133 customers without power in the Taylor Run neighborhood.

The outages brought to mind old concerns about Dominion Energy’s local utility grid. While Dominion had previously tried to claim power outages were a fluke, in March, Dominion Energy said it would invest $17 million in the city to improve reliability. Those improvements could take up to three years, however, while outages continue.

Image via Dominion Energy

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Arlandria and Rosemont hit by power outages after severe thunderstorm

Updated at 11:15 p.m. It took nearly five hours for the power to turn back on for thousands of Alexandria residents on a steamy Sunday night (May 22).

Alexandria got hit by a severe thunderstorm at around 6 p.m. At 8:36 p.m., Dominion Energy tweeted that there were more than 25,000 homes still without power in Northern Virginia.

According to Dominion Energy’s Outage Map:

  • More than 1,300 residents experienced an outage in the Rosemont area
  • There were about 2,600 outages in the Arlandria area

Jesse Thompson lives in a high rise Arlandria, and had no power or water for five hours.

“I’m doing about as well as I can right now,” Thompson said during the outage. “This is really something else.”

After a few rocky years outage-wise, Dominion has recently pledged to invest millions in Alexandria.

City Councilman Kirk McPike tweeted that Dominion Energy’s service “continues to be unacceptable.”

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Project to run power lines under Four Mile Run could begin this summer

A rendering of what the view over Four Mile Run will look like after the power lines are undergrounded (via Dominion Energy)

A project scheduled to begin this summer will tunnel under the Four Mile Run near the Route 1 bridge to move overhead power lines underground.

As part of the project, Dominion Energy will rebuild its Glebe Substation next year, modernizing the facility that was built in the 1970s and is reaching the end of its service life. The substation serves parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

The project comes after Dominion Energy has promised to invest millions in the area after years of frequent and sometimes devastating power outages.

“Everything will look a lot cleaner, a lot of the equipment will be a lot smaller,” said Ann Gordon Mickel, Dominion Energy’s communication and community lead for the project.

A virtual community meeting will be held tonight (Wednesday) at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the status of the project and what to expect during and after construction.

When work begins, a 250-foot by 250-foot area will be fenced off in the Potomac Yard shopping center parking lot in Alexandria to allow for a 40- to 50-foot deep pit for tunneling.

In Arlington, a pit will be constructed at the substation and there may be temporary intermittent closures on S. Eads Street, as well as on nearby sidewalks and pedestrian paths. Electric service will not be affected.

The underground line will run between the substation and the Potomac Yard Transition Station, which will be decommissioned at the end of the project. The rebuilt Glebe Substation will incorporate new technology, requiring less maintenance and making it more reliable, the power company said.

“Any time you address aging infrastructure and replace it with new technology the reliability always enhances,” said Greg Mathey, a manager of electric transmission communications for Dominion Energy. “The transmission system feeds the distribution system, so the more reliable and hardened we can make the transmission system, the better the distribution system can perform.”

The construction to convert to underground lines is scheduled to continue through 2024. The whole project should be completed by late 2025.

A chart showing the timeline for the Glebe Electric Transmission project (via Dominion Energy)

The entire project is expected to cost about $122.8 million. The State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities in Virginia, approved the project in 2019. It was originally scheduled to be up and running by this month, but due to the nature of the construction, the timeline was pushed back.

Using a trenchless microtunneling method will increase costs by about $16 million — but it shortens the construction timeline, according to project documents.

This type of tunneling will also reduce construction-related impacts to the Potomac Yard shopping center, as it won’t require as much space for pipes above ground.

The overhead lines that can be seen over Four Mile Run will be removed at the end of the project.

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