A major electrical outage on the eve of Election Day shut off power in to government buildings in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood that includes the State Department, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
The power was restored by 2 p.m. local time, the company said.
No foul play is suspected, but the outage is still under investigation, Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco) spokeswoman Jessica Babb told The Epoch Times.
“We’ve had our crews on site all day investigating,” Babb said.
The power company said the State Department was included in the blackout.
The outage also heavily impacted the George Washington University Campus, which sits in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood near the White House.
Pepco said a failure in a substation Monday morning caused the outage that affected more than 1,100 customers.
District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded to a report of smoke coming from multiple manholes on the 1800 block of H Street NW—about a half mile from the White House—on Monday morning, according to a post shared on social media. The post added that Pepco was assisting “with power surge and electrical outages in the area.”
“A lot of government buildings and other organizations” lost power in the district affected by the outage, Babb said.
The neighborhood includes the embassies of Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Sweden, Spain, Germany, the British Embassy and other smaller diplomatic residences.
The Embassy of Ireland posted on X it had lost power and instructed its citizens to contact its general consulate in New York while the outage was ongoing.
The State Department confirmed with The Epoch Times that it’s a Pepco customer. The department’s main complex, the Harry S. Truman building, is located in Foggy Bottom. The complex serves as the official headquarters of the department and houses the office of the Secretary of State.
George Washington University canceled all classes for the day, according to its student newspaper. The School of Medicine and Health Sciences and law classes, however, were expected to meet in person and remotely. Operations at the university’s other campuses were also scheduled to continue on time.
The World Bank’s representative was not available for comment, and the International Monetary Fund didn’t immediately respond to a request for information about the outage.
No other major power outages were reported Monday across the U.S. as millions prepared for Tuesday’s midterms.
President Donald Trump speaks at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington on Nov. 2, 2026. (Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times)
President Donald Trump delivered his final midterm speech Monday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, less than 1 mile away from the Pepco substation that the company suspects caused the failure.
Washington faced power issues earlier this month, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright issuing a temporary grid emergency order Oct. 12. The order directed the PJM Interconnection to dispatch units and direct backup generation resources in Washington, D.C., and 13 states to avoid a blackout during tight autumn supply conditions. That emergency order expired Oct. 16.
