Weather Causes Thousands to Lose Power - News- msnbc.com

The cold temperatures are causing people to crank up the heat and use more power--that has put a strain on some power lines.

Allegheny Power says over 24,000 people in West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania lost power because of the weather. In Barbour County 1,400 people suffered through a frigid night on Friday without power.
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Allegheny Power officials say that the outages are due to the cold weather. People are using more power to try and fight the cold temperatures and that causes lines to be over used and burn through.

Over 24,000 customers across Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia were effected by outages due to the weather. Over half of those customers are here in the state.

The cold temperatures are also to blame for flooding in the area. he Morgantown Fire Department has responded to multiple calls of flooding due to frozen pipes bursting. Friday evening a building in downtown Morgantown was flooded after the sprinkler system froze and burst. It displaced more than 20 tenants.

Water Main Breaks Hit DC Area - washingtonpost.com

At least 90,000 people in parts of Prince George's County were left without water yesterday as more than 20 water main breaks wreaked havoc there and across the Washington region. Four families were forced out of their homes at the site of the worst break in Temple Hills, and 72 residents at a Bethesda nursing home had to be moved from their rooms after a pipe burst.
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Officials blamed freezing weather and aging infrastructure for the breaks, which snarled traffic and bogged down emergency crews days before the presidential inauguration. They said they were working to restore water but first had to resolve what they called a second "service disruption" in the Temple Hills area.
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McGill said the pipe that burst was not particularly old, given its size.

Melody Richardson, a 40-year-old graphic designer whose home is adjacent to the burst, said she was working on her computer about 2:30 a.m. when she heard a loud noise outside. At first, she thought it was rain. Then she looked out the window into her back yard.

"It was just like a river coming through our neighbor's yard coming into our yard," she said. "It was just coming full-stream."

The force of the water broke through two fences, she said. Frantic and scared, Richardson called police. She realized that the situation was even worse when she peered out her front window. Another powerful river, she said, ran across her yard and driveway and flooded the street. She saw electrical sparks coming from her next-door neighbor's house, accompanied by loud booms.
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Water also shut down traffic along Massachusetts Avenue and closed streets near Washington National Cathedral, and firefighters responded to about 75 cases of fire sprinklers bursting throughout Prince George's. Callers attempting to report breaks in the District and Northern Virginia met busy signals.