One-Third of Falls Church Still Without Power
By FALLS CHURCH TIMES STAFF
July 3, 2012
One-third of the City of Falls Church remains without power as of mid-afternoon. According to Dominion Power’s website, 1,912 of the City’s 5,748 accounts have not been restored as of 3 pm. Other local jurisdictions are in much better shape. In adjacent Arlington and Fairfax counties less than 10% of the accounts are without electricity.
City leaders criticized Dominion Power’s performance at last night’s Council meeting.
Mayor Nader Baroukh noted that at the peak of the outage caused by Friday’s violent storm over 82% of the City was dark, a greater impact than any other jurisdiction served by the utility. “It’s not acceptable” he said. He added that he and Vice Mayor Dave Snyder had several discussions over the weekend with Dominion representatives regarding the City’s water pumping stations but in his view the response was not adequate and not reasonable. Baroukh also criticized failings of e911 Ssystem maintained by Verizon.
“Frankly we’ve been let down by Dominion Power and we’ve been let down by Verizon and I hope in the future there is some action we can take to make sure that will never happens again” Snyder said. “Our citizens continue to suffer, our businesses continue to lose revenue.”
Both officials had high praise for the performance of City staff during the storm’s aftermath and last week’s barricade situation on Hillwood Avenue. “All of them, to a man and to a woman, showed and are showing heroic dedication that money simply can’t buy” said Snyder.
By Falls Church Times Staff
July 3, 2012
Well add one (or many). It was nice while the power was on but this whimpy storm just took out the whole neighborhood again. This is getting ridiculous.
Was it just me or did finding a Dominion crew become like “Where’s Waldo?” It wasn’t even a Dominion crew that showed up in our lot at Winter Hill. Never saw a crew working at night (so much for 24/7) and it took 4 days to remove the tree across Great Falls st. It seems to me that Dominion was keeping their costs down with limited overtime and no night work. If they had responded like they did after the hurricanes, we would have had power on by Sunday night, Monday at the latest. I’m glad Dominion is looking out for their shareholders. They sure have a great PR spin – check their website, but in reality they are just as bad as the rest. They don’t care any longer about their customers.
I like the tree canopy over Falls Church. I am wondering though how long it has been since the individual owners had their trees trimmed. We have big trees in our backyard and we pay dearly to have them trimmed as necessary. Those trees didn’t drop a branch at all. I wonder how much of the damage could have been avoided had homeowners responsibly had their trees trimmed.
Folks – just wanted to give a shout out to Dominion Power – I know they’ve got their hands full. This storm knocked down a lot of trees taking power lines out all over the place. I’m not sure I’ve seen this level of damage in a long time. Our neighborhood was visited by a Line crew out of Ontario, Canada (Hydro One). When they showed up they were all business. Our street was hit particularly bad with power lines brought down in multiple places and a several poles that needed replaced. That’s no easy job with all the stuff that has to first be cleared out of the way then restringing poles and replacing a lot of damaged parts and such. They restored power about 7:30 p.m. yesterday however returned this morning to finish the job so we were without power for a while longer today. The line crews are out there – and they’re working very hard. Hang in there – someone will be by soon. And, God Bless America on her 236th birthday! Thank you everyone for serving our country in all capacities.
Those shareholders that you’re deriding are financing the equipment and crews that restored your power. Are you also complaining that Dominion brought in outside companies to assist them? They really can’t with you…
I think the nature of the storm contributed. Hurricanes have a longer prediction lead time……unless it forms over us…we see it coming and can prepare accordingly.
Lead time for this one was only hours. Maybe some mutual aid calls could have been made but, in the end, the event must be over to assess the damage and find resources. We could have called our NC power companies in advance to make a plan but they ended up with as much damage as we had.
Although the power restoration did not happen as quickly as any of us would like, I think it is important to understand and appreciate how hard the utility crews were working through this entire process. The temperatures were in the mid to upper 90′s, they were working 16 hour days, the majority of the crews were from out of town so they did not have a 4th of July celebration. We need to thank these folks for the work they have done for us under extreme conditions.
As a side note, I believe it is important to remember that Dominion and Verizon truly do NOT want their services to be down from a PR and revenue standpoint. This storm was unprecedented in size and ferocity. No one could predict such and event.
With this said, I believe that patience is the best course with a focus on finding out what we could do to better prepare ourselves individually and collectively when another event of this nature occurs. We should all be asking ourselves, “What’s my long term disaster plan?”
Thanks again to the hard working teams trying to restore our services.
I gotta say, although it has been limited in the comments with this article, I have not seen more whining and belly-aching in a long time. Our society’s inability to tolerate discomfort and inconvenience does not bode well for America should things really get tough. A generation ago, most people didn’t have AC. We currently have a house of 8, but we did not treat the power outage as a scourge of the apocalypse. Instead, we went on with our lives, played games/cards and read by lanterns and flashlights instead of computers and TVs and did most every thing else the same. I took walks with wife and kids, and we had great conversations with our neighbors and fellow City residents It’s been a nice escape from the rat race. While we whine, our paltry 1% of the population- servicemen and women live in conditions in Afghanistan that would make our circumstances look like the Taj Mahal. Suck it up!
Kudos and thanks for your comments. Michael Baker and others who can’t do anything but complain should check out this video/article about Arlington residents who lost a lot more than electricity: http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/211420/188/Trees-Damage-Homes-But-Not-Spirits
Thanks! When we lived in Falls Church, Fairfax County, a microburst sent a large poplar tree across our entire house, destroying the entire upstairs. I arrived from work to see a large crowd gathered around my house. My wife was still at work. Usually, my kids and the babysitter would have been home. I started sprinting into the house asking God to have spared my children. Then a neighbor called out that the babysitter had taken my kids to the mall! I stopped, calmly stepped back, and looked up at the tree with its surreal position atop my house…..and laughed, making jokes about how odd it all looked. Some of the neighbors probably thought I had lost it. But it was all relative. In relative terms, a destroyed house looked pretty benign in contrast to the utter joy and relief in knowing God had answered my prayer.
It always amuses me when people say god answered their prayer. Do they really think he answered their prayer or is it just something you say when relieved. Hopefully it is the latter because the former is just comical.
It’s very obnoxious of you to sit on your high horse and call others’ religious views “comical.” I’m sorry we can’t all be as smart and all-knowing as you are.
I pray that paddy patterson shows up here to enlighten us with more obnoxious godlessness. Let’s see if my prayer is answered . . . .
Paddy – I can certainly see how answered prayers may seem far-fetched to some. Faith can indeed look nonsensical if operating on pure logic. But I have just seen and experienced too many answered prayers and blessings not to believe in the power of prayer. My wife went through months of medical treatment for an illness with no success. All the doctors said there was nothing they could do and she was in for a lifetime of debilitating pain. Then a legion of people started praying for her, and two months later, she woke up on Christmas day and she had been cured. In Iraq, in the midst of evil most should ever have to see, I saw and experienced many more examples of the power of prayer, defying any logical explanation. So, although I can certainly understand why prayer may seem like hocus-pocus, for me it would take much more faith to NOT believe in God’s willingness to answer prayers.