Substation incident leaves over 1,000 Washington DC customers without power
Nov 2026Published 3 Nov 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
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What happened
On Monday 2 November 2026, an incident at Pepco's I Street Substation in the Foggy Bottom neighbourhood of Washington, DC, cut power to more than 1,000 customers. Pepco said about 1,100 customers were affected. The DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department said crews responded to reports of smoke coming from multiple manholes in the 1800 block of H Street NW, and that Pepco personnel attended to assist with a power surge and outages in the area.
Pepco's outage map showed 41 active outages affecting 1,285 customers across its service area, which serves 917,954 customers. Pepco said the cause was under investigation and it had no estimated restoration time because the situation was still developing. It urged residents and visitors to stay clear of work areas.
Contributing factors
Not reported. Pepco said the cause remains under investigation.
Lessons learned
- Monitor substation and underground cable systems so that power surges and smoke from manholes are detected early and isolated quickly.
- Keep clear public exclusion zones around work areas and give regular restoration updates when no time estimate can be given.
- Agree joint procedures between the utility and fire services for smoke or fault events in underground vaults and manholes.
More lessons on detection and monitoring, emergency response and public communication, worker safety and safe systems of work, from every incident on the register.
Source
Published 2026-11-03. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
