Update 2:
BREAKING NEWS: White House on lockdown. Unknown if related to the massive power outage.
— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) April 7, 2015 [5]
Update: NO INITIAL INDICATIONS OF TERRORISM IN WASHINGTON, D.C., POWER OUTAGES - U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Spokesman says WH on backup generators that kicked in after power outage.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) April 7, 2015 [6]
D.C. Homeland security officials believe an explosion at a SMECO power facility in southern Maryland caused the surge into D.C.
— Aaron C. Davis (@byaaroncdavis) April 7, 2015 [7]
Some more from The Hill [8]:
Government buildings throughout Washington, including the White House and State Department, briefly lost power on Tuesday.
Electricity provider Pepco said the cause of the outages "is under evaluation."
The Department of Homeland Security does not suspect the outages to have anything to do with criminal activity or terrorism, according to CNBC.
At the White House, the lights in the lower press area went off for a few seconds before turning on again. Power also went out in other parts of the building, according to White House staff.
"Power outage affecting many parts of the city, and it affected the [White House] complex. We were on a backup generator and now we are back on normal power," a White House spokesman said.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf continued speaking with reporters when the power went out during her midday briefing.
* * *
The utility firm Pepco is currently investigating a Washington-wide black-out that has plunged The White House, State Department, The US Capitol, D.C. Metro, and even Oprah's TV Stage into darkness...Ironically, the outage occurred minutes after Rand Paul commented that "the time has come to take away the power from Washington D.C..."
A spokesperson for Pepco, the Washington, D.C.-area provider electricity utility, told Reuters that it experienced scattered outages Tuesday but that they had happened for “unknown reasons.”
Real-time Pepco Outage Map here... [9]
[10]
Has anyone seen Kim Jong-Un today?
* * *
The blackout as it happened during the State briefing:
* * *
Breaking: Scatter power outage also affected the White House, US Capitol, and Justice Department in addition to State Department. #Power [11]
— Edward Lawrence (@NewsEdward) April 7, 2015 [12]
As Bloomberg reports,
The U.S. State Department lost electrical power Tuesday during its daily press briefing, and power also was briefly lost in areas of the White House and the Capitol.
Pepco Holdings Co. has started work to restore electricity to the State Department and other buildings in the area. It will take one to two hours until power is fully restored, according to an announcement over the State Department emergency broadcast system.
Hallways were dark in the State Department, lit only by light filtering in from the windows. Spokeswoman Marie Harf completed her briefing in the dark, reading from her briefing binder by the light of her iPhone as reporters took notes with lighting from their mobile phones.
Power briefly flickered off at the White House Tuesday afternoon, affecting the media workspace and at least some staff areas. Aides would not say if the White House was being powered by backup generators, though they planned to issue a statement later. Guests entering the White House were also temporarily delayed because Secret Service screening equipment was briefly knocked offline by the outage.
Multiple buildings in the U.S. Capitol complex were experiencing intermittent power outages, Capitol Police spokesman Shennell Antrobus said in an e-mail. The Capitol Police and architect of the Capitol were investigating the cause of the outages, he said.
* * *
The State Department currently...
[13]
Offices being evacuated...
Power Outages Reported Across Washington D.C. Area http://t.co/5WuFHqd741 [14] pic.twitter.com/LDQ5U2O22y [15]
— Hotpage News (@HotpageNews) April 7, 2015 [16]
The State Department press briefing continues in darkness. Power outage pic.twitter.com/Ph9Zytt7Hp [17]
— Gayane Chichakyan (@Gayane_RT) April 7, 2015 [18]
- *PEPCO SPOKESMAN SAYS NO FURTHER COMMENT ON POWER OUTAGES
- *PEPCO SAYS IT'S GATHERING INFORMATION ON D.C. POWER OUTAGES
- *STATE DEPT SAYS PEPCO EXPECTS TO RESTORE POWER IN 1-2 HOURS
- *SMITHSONIAN SAYS SOME OF ITS MUSEUMS SEEING POWER OUTAGES
- *SMITHSONIAN SAYS ON TWITTER THAT FOUR MUSEUMS NOW EVACUATED
