More than 50 residents of Hill East attended a meeting in NE Library on Saturday to question Pepco and city officials on the cause of unexplained and damaging power surges in Hill East.
Suneel Kudaravalli – one of the residents affected by the disruptions – worked with ANC6A Chair Amber Gove to organize the meeting.
Pepco Dodges and Disappoints on Hill East Power Surges – Part I
by Larry Janezich
Posted, January 27, 2026
Since last May, residents of the 1300 block of East Capitol Street have been plagued by recurring electrical surges and outages. Residents say the surges have resulted in thousands of dollars in damages. They started with a two-day incident last May followed by a 3 day incident in June, 2 days in November and 2 days this January. Twenty-five homes have been affected, and the damages for 8 of them total $65,000. Pepco responded to each incident, treated it as a power outage, and deemed each incident an equipment failure – for which they are not liable. Residents want the problem to stop and they want reimbursed for the damages.
One of those affected was Suneel Kudaravalli who worked with ANC6A Chair Amber Gove to organize a community meeting at Northeast Library last Saturday to hear from Pepco and city agencies about why these problems occurred and what relief was available to those who suffered damages.
The meeting was attended by CM Charles Allen; Pepco Director of External Affairs, Lamont Akins; Pepco Senior Manager, Pepco Distribution Engineering, Stephen Park; Pepco Governmental and External Affairs Liaison, Travoris Culpepper; Pepco attorney, Kim Curry; Director of the Office of Consumer Services, Public Service Commission, Maurice Smith; and Adam Carlesco, Utility Attorney, Office of the People’s Counsel for the District of Columbia.
Pepco engineer Stephen Park gave a PowerPoint presentation and talked about actions taken to remedy power outages, detailing what Pepco has done and intends to do, but was less forthcoming on the power surges, saying there were many causes and he couldn’t tell the source of the surge which residents say cause the damage.
One resident shared some information she said she learned from a Pepco Operations foreman and a supervisor during the January 11-12 incident when a surge damaged homes on January 12th. She said the supervisor had told her that there was a “live neutral wire” which needed to be addressed and that Pepco would do so.
According to a Google search, “A live neutral wire … creates severe safety hazards, including high risk of electric shock, significant damage to electronic devices, and potential fire hazards, as the neutral line becomes energized.”
The resident asked Park about it, who said that he would definitely check on it and that maybe residents had experienced a live neutral wire but he just didn’t know. The resident said it was her belief that the “live neutral wire” has been the source of the power surges which started in May of last year and that Pepco was negligent is failing to repair it.
Park was followed by Pepco Governmental and External Affairs Liaison Travoris Culpepper, who walked attendees through the process for filing a claim and outlined Pepco’s reimbursement and claims policy. He cautioned attendees that, “Unfortunately – this isn’t what folks want to hear but – there is a high threshold for filing claims as it relates to electric service because there’s so many different things that take place that could impact our service…(the threshold is that) there was a negligent or willful intent to that damage…this one is not one (of those) because it was about equipment failure and that’s what we’ve determined when we looked at this…that a lot of the outages in this area (happened) because of equipment failures and – not necessarily…because of negligence on Pepco’s part . And so that’s in a nutshell where we are with the claims.” He added, “We’re able to…look at it and reassess if you feel differently.”
CM Allen responded to the Pepco presentation, expressing his dissatisfaction.
After taking some questions on claims and additional technical questions to Park, Pepco cited storm preparation requirements and prepared to head for the door. Before they did, however, CM Allen stepped up and said that before Pepco left, he wanted to respond to what he’d heard so far.
Allen’s voice expressed his unhappiness as he said, “I represent about 85,000 people in neighborhoods from Mt Vernon Triangle to NOMA to Capitol Hill to the Wharf to Navy Yard, and I am not hearing about surges across all of Word 6. So when you have this many homes and this many people impacted on one block, nobody’s making it up. That’s real. Five or more surges have taken place and there have been tens of thousands of dollars in damages.
So Pepco, I know you’re on the hot seat but that’s what we signed up for, right? So I don’t think it’s fair and I don’t feel satisfied when we leave this conversation today hearing ‘we’re going to go back and look at it.’ We shared the dates with you already about when these happened, so to say ‘well we’re going to go back and look at it now’ feels like you didn’t prepare for this conversation around the surges. So I’m not happy about that. I see this as two tracks: long term reliability and I think you did lay out your strategy and plan …. Great and thank you.
The second point though is the damages that my neighbors have experienced and what I find to be unsatisfactory answers. It’s not hard to go look at the weather on that day. There weren’t electrical storms or … lightning crashes that were causing a surge but clearly something happened….Something didn’t work because people had their entire HVAC system, entire refrigerators – all the things that you have plugged into your house are fried, and they’ve had to go back and replace it at a massive cost for these residents
I’m not satisfied when we walk out of this today that we have had the surge issue handled the way that we need it to be. And just throwing up the language (citing) things ‘outside our control,’ I don’t think is enough. I think it feels convenient that we’re going to always be able to say, ‘Gosh, it’s outside of our control, we just don’t know what it is.’
So I really believe we need Pepco to come back on this in a different and stronger way specifically on the claims. I’ve talked to neighbors who said the Pepco staff that came out told us ‘it’s gonna get denied, don’t even bother.’”
I know that Pepco’s got to run … but I didn’t want you guys to leave before I had a chance to share that with you directly. I’m meeting with (Pepco) leadership next week … we’re going to talk about a whole lot of issues from our energy system citywide … I want to talk to the leadership about … how we get the right answers for our neighbors here … so I just want to make sure I said that while Pepco is still in the room before you guys slide out.
Saying he wanted to give Pepco an opportunity to respond, Allen turned over the microphone to Lamont Akins, Pepco Director of External Affairs. Akins said, “I’m going to have Kim Curry – she’s with our legal department – provide some comments about our claims.
Curry went over the PowerPoint images which provided the text governing Pepco liability explaining why “the standard for the denial of a claim is willful default and neglect …which is supported by case law throughout the nation, not just in DC.” Here’s the relevant language from Pepco’s PowerPoint presentation:
“Pepco’s Electric Distribution Tariff” states the general terms and condition for furnishing electric service in DC. The relevant part of the language says the company is not liable for any low, cost, of damage…by the interruption, reversal, reduction, surge or fluctuation in the supply of electricity…except willful default or willful neglect ….
From left, Pepco attorney Kim Curry, Pepco Director of External Affairs Lamont Akins, (in rear) Pepco Engineer Stephen Park, and CM Allen.
After taking a few questions, Pepco gathered itself and departed. Allen followed them out into the hall to continue a conversation.
Inside the room, the meeting continued with presentations from the Office of the People’s Counsel (OPC) and the Public Service Commission (PSC). Part II of this article will report on that portion of the meeting.
At the end of the meeting, Allen reiterated his commitment to continue to push on the issue – that he would press Pepco to provide answers on the causes of the damages incurred by his constituents.: “So, I’m meeting … with the head of Pepco next week … and this is going to be part of what I bring and elevate to the highest levels of the present CEO of Pepco … I just want to make sure you know I am going to keep escalating and elevating this with Pepco itself. I chatted with them briefly out there (gesturing to the hallway). They felt fairly chastened – that’s a good thing.” Apparently referring to claims against the company, Allen reminded, “They’re a massive company that is going to do everything they can to make it very hard to ever pay out a claim and so that’s the uphill struggle that we are going to be up against.”
In addition to the OPC and PSC portion of the Saturday meeting, Part II will detail one resident’s experiences in dealing with Pepco and the Public Service Commission.
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 