Power goes out in College Park as snow continues to fall

Hundreds of students living in South Campus Commons, along Knox Road and behind Route 1 found themselves without electricity last night as rolling power outages hit Prince George's County and exploding transformers set multiple fires in College Park.

Pepco, the local electric service company, attributed the blackouts to transformer outages in the area but could not pinpoint the root cause of transformer explosions nor the damage that ensued.

"We are currently working to resolve the outages," Pepco spokesman Bob Hainey said. "We advise people to treat all power lines as live and to report any more problems."

As lights flickered on and off throughout the campus yesterday evening, a transformer on the corner of Knox Road and Hopkins Ave exploded at about 8 p.m. outside the Kappa Sigma fraternity house. A nearby tree caught fire following the explosion. Power outages spread from the south edge of the campus to Hartwick Road and into Old Town.

Residents of the fraternity house said the explosions persisted about once every 10 minutes for about 30 minutes. One minute-long stretch brought three blasts that had the residents taking cover.

"It was wild. It was like a frickin' Tiesto show," junior communications major Justin Geiser said. "The first one was enormous. It sounded like a damn bomb went off."

Students nearby said police and fire marshalls inspected the exploded transformer on Knox Road and told them to keep their distance.

In Commons 1, glow sticks kept for emergencies were handed out in the main lobby. And several students had to be rescued from elevators throughout the Commons buildings, according to Prince George's County Fire spokesman Mark Brady.

A Prince George's County fire department truck heading to the scene got stuck in the snow at the corner of Route 1 and Knox Road, Geiser said.

Brady said as many as six similar fires took place in College Park last night but could not immediately specify where.

Power outages persisted throughout College Park until at least 1 a.m.

Brady said College Park bore the brunt of dozens of explosions and power outages that rolled through the county last night because of the heavy snowfall.

Although Pepco could not say why the transformers in the city blew out, Brady noted that it is not uncommon for them to do so during extreme weather. He said when heavy snow weighs down on tree branches and power lines, eventually it reaches the transformer, which then sparks and trips a fuse somewhere on the power line.

Brady added the fire department generally doesn't touch transformer fires because pouring water on electrical fires only worsens the blaze, and they often contain themselves in time.

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