Nation’s Capitol Battens Down For Second Day of Sandy

WASHINGTON—Although they will have escaped the core of Hurricane Sandy, Washington, D.C., and surrounding states Virginia and Maryland battened down for another day as hurricane-force winds and torrential rain pounded coastal and regional centers Monday.

District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray announced that the district will remain closed until Wednesday due to flooding and hurricane-force winds.

“Because this storm is expected to continue affecting the region with strong winds for the rest of the night and into tomorrow morning, we think it’s in the best interest of public safety to close our government offices and public schools again tomorrow,” said the Mayor in a statement Monday. “This is also a prudent move because we do not yet know how power outages will affect facilities across the District.”

Transportation systems including the metro, buses, and airports will also remain closed as the nation’s capitol deals with torrential rains, high winds, and the threat of power outages.

Every area of Washington has been affected by Sandy; government offices, think tanks, national institutions, and performing arts centers are cancelling and postponing many events because of the storm.

Heather Sheffield, meteorologist intern and spokeswoman for the Baltimore branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that D.C. can expect rainfalls of up to 10 inches and wind gusts between 30 and 70 miles per hour as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

“Right now we can expect more heavy rain and strong winds this evening through Tuesday night,” Sheffield said in a telephone interview.

Snowfalls could also be steep in western mountain areas of Virginia, according to Sheffield, with falls expected to reach up to 2 feet in higher areas.

Sheffield said that rainfall and power outages would create the most impact, however, particularly in the Maryland region and the Baltimore city metro area.

It is going to be a long, rough night.

– Martin O’Malley, Mayor of Maryland

“Rainfall totals will decrease as you move south west in to central Virginia,” Sheffield said.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, having closed state government, schools, and local transportation systems Monday, announced further closures for Tuesday.

He encouraged people to stay inside and off the roads, describing Hurricane Sandy as “a very violent storm.”

“There will be a lot of trees that go down tonight. The storm fortunately is moving fast but also intensifying at its center, so it is going to be a long, rough night,” said the governor in a video on his blog Monday afternoon.

Power outages are the major concern in much of the region. Around 90,000 homes were without power in parts of Virginia and North Carolina as of 6:30 p.m. Monday, according to Dominion Virginia Power, while there were around 17,000 powerless homes in Washington, D.C., and Maryland, according to provider Pepco.

Local power companies have predicted that many more homes will be affected; Dominion Virginia predicted that at least one million of their customers may lose power. 

Conscious of the thousands of people left without power for over a week following the derecho storms that battered the D.C. area in June, Pepco has pulled out all the stops to prepare for Sandy.

In one of a series of web updates on preparations for the storm, Pepco noted that Pepco Holdings Inc., Pepco’s parent company, brought in over 1,500 extra personnel from as far away as Texas and Mississippi to help teams on the Eastern Seaboard.

“Pepco has committed all its resources to Hurricane Sandy. We already are actively working this storm so we can restore power as quickly and safely as possible,” said Thomas H. Graham, president of Pepco Region, in a statement.

“However, based on the unprecedented damage that is expected, the restoration period may extend more than a week,” he added.

President Obama returned to the White House from campaigning in Florida, canceling additional campaign events in Florida that afternoon as well as events in Wisconsin and Colorado Tuesday in order to monitor federal agencies responding to the storm.

Obama said that coordination between federal, state, and local agencies has gone smoothly, but he warned that the storm area is widespread, making it difficult for power and transport crews to restore services as quickly as many would hope. 

“The public needs to prepare for the fact that this is going to take a long time for us to clean up,” he said.

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