Thousands of Dominion Energy customers across Virginia Beach and Chesapeake were left without electricity this week, with the two Hampton Roads cities combining for more than 5,600 reported outages. Crews worked through the overnight hours to restore service as residents in both cities dealt with scattered blackouts.
According to WAVY.com, the latest outage numbers showed 3,643 customers without power in Virginia Beach and 2,020 in Chesapeake. The station's 10 On Your Side team reached out to Dominion Energy for more information on what was behind the outages.
A separate overnight report from the same station painted an even larger picture in Chesapeake alone, describing two distinct outages that left more than 7,000 Dominion customers without power at one point before crews restored service. The first of those outages affected more than 4,200 customers, with power reported restored just before 5 a.m. Wednesday, the report noted. A second outage in the city left more than 3,000 customers in the dark, with restoration reported just before 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Cause Still Under Investigation
Dominion Energy said both Chesapeake outages remained under investigation and did not list a specific cause for the first one, the same report said. It is not clear from available information why that overnight Chesapeake count differs from the 2,020 figure cited elsewhere, or why the separately reported figure of 3,130 Dominion outages tracked in Virginia Beach city by poweroutage.us does not match the 3,643 number cited in the original report. That tracking site showed Virginia Beach's outages representing about 1.51 percent of the roughly 207,543 customers it monitors in the city.
Not the First Blackout This Month
This isn't the first time this month that Hampton Roads has dealt with widespread power trouble. On October 3, about 20,000 Dominion customers across the region lost power, according to pilotonline.com. At that time, roughly 1,500 customers were without power in both Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, while Norfolk bore the brunt with more than 18,000 customers affected as of 1 p.m. Dominion said then that outage numbers could fluctuate and that restoration would likely continue into the evening. That round of outages was attributed to salt contamination activated by weekend rain, a cause distinct from the under-investigation status given to this week's Chesapeake outages.
An outage that day also briefly affected part of Norfolk International Airport, though power was restored and flights were not affected, the Pilot Online report said. poweroutage.us separately identified Portsmouth as having the most outages and the highest percentage of customers affected in the state.
Chesapeake's History With Transmission Trouble
Chesapeake has also seen outages tied to infrastructure damage rather than weather. In an earlier incident, a barge struck a transmission line in the Elizabeth River, cutting power to thousands of Dominion customers and affecting more than 20,000 at one point, according to WTKR. Those outages were mostly contained to Chesapeake, though some stretched along the Virginia Beach border, and power was restored by 4:30 p.m. the same day.
WAVY has also reported on storm-related outages affecting the local area in the past, noting in one update that most outages had already been repaired by the time of that report. For now, the cause behind this week's Virginia Beach and Chesapeake outages remains unclear, following overnight repairs in Chesapeake.
