Pepco boasted on Wednesday it had "beat by two days" its estimate for restoring power to 90 percent of its customers in the wake of a fierce storm that devastated the region on Friday night.
Pepco says it has restored power to 90 percent of those affected by last week's storms, beating its own estimate for getting power back to customers.
Utility crews made significant progress Tuesday restoring power to homes without electricity since Friday night's storm, but officials in several jurisdictions announced they were canceling Independence Day celebrations as the recovery continues.
D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh is calling for a formal investigation into Pepco's response to the storm that thrashed the D.C. area Friday and caused widespread power outages, a multiday trial that has city leaders talking about a piece-by-piece effort to bury power lines underground despite an astronomical price tag.
Pepco's chief executive, Joseph Rigby, didn't get a salary increase last year because of "customer reliability issues," but he still managed to double his overall compensation, regulatory filings show.
Utility crews struggled to catch up with a backlog of millions of people without electricity for a fourth hot day Tuesday as frustration grew and authorities feared the toll of 22 storm deaths could rise because of stifling conditions and generator fumes.
D.C. Council members planned to meet face-to-face with officials from Pepco as soon as Tuesday to address the "unacceptable" pace of the utility's recovery efforts after Friday night's fierce storm swept through the region and left hundreds of thousands without power in stifling heat.
A morning commute complicated by darkened traffic lights added to the woes of hundreds of thousands of D.C., Maryland and Virginia residents suffering a third day of power outages from a devastating weekend storm.
Outages numbered in the hundreds of thousands for a second day, as officials warned residents across Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia that power might not be restored until late in the week, and crews worked in temperatures nearing triple digits to make repairs from a devastating storm that claimed more than a dozen lives.
