. thank you for calling pepco's 24-hour outage line. >> we expect the vast majority for 90% of customers will have power restored by 11:00 p.m. friday, july 6th. as we continue the restoration work, we will provide more specific restoration times as they become available. >> good evening. if you're watching us tonight, obviously you're lucky enough to have power.

>> yep. that's right. but we wanted you to feel what your neighbors are feeling heading into the fourth straight night in the dark. >> this is 9news now. >> yep. another night finds hundreds of thousands of your neighbors going to bed with no lights and no ac. here are the latest power outage numbers. >> at last check, pepco is reporting nearly 173,000 customers are still without power. 98,000 in montgomery county. 41 thou in prince george's. and more than 34,000 in the district. bge says it has more than 1500 customers in the dark in montgomery county. and nearly 17,000 in prince george's county. and dominion power says it was about 108,000 customers without electricity in northern virginia. smetco is reporting just 235 outages. all of those in prince george's county. now, if you don't have power in northern virginia, there is a bit of light at the end of the

tunnel. >> dominion power expects to have juice for 80-85% of its customers by tomorrow. 90-95% by thursday. but for a small number of folks living on those side streets, it may be the weekend before the power is back on. >> now, smeco tells us they had planned to have the power restored to all of their customers by tomorrow night. bge says they'll be working through the weekend to get all of their customers on the line. and pepco says that most of its customers will have their power by friday at 11:00. and friday night, saturday night, sunday night and now tonight, hundreds of thousands of our neighbors are suffering through yet another hot, humid night with no power. and that means no air conditioning. well, we got sick of our own gary nurenberg complaining that he's one of them, so we told him to get somebody else's story. so, gary, how did you do? >> reporter: well, i heard some swear words and talked to a nice

woman that wouldn't use them. >> there is really nothing i could say that i would like to say on tv. >> reporter: mother of two little ones who cool off in the little pool but have trouble sleeping at night getting up about every 20 minutes. >> it's been three whole days and it's very hot. so i'm not very happy. >> reporter: dad bought a big generator. saved the food in the frej. makes repeated trips to the gas station -- frig. makes repeated trips to the gas station. >> find out that the gas station doesn't have working power, a working credit card system or out of gas or out of the grade i'm there to get. >> reporter: andrew stuck it out from monday but now. >> i have to go somewhere where there's ac because it's unbearable. >> reporter: just can't figure it out. >> i used to live in south carolina and jacksonville, florida, and we used to get lots of tropical storms and we never had power outages this bad.

>> reporter: pretty shocking for this family . and a blast from the past. july two years ago marty drake got so fed up with the utility he crashed a pepco press conference. >> we have elderly people with cancer surgery and a diabetic. i would like to talk to the president. >> reporter: how about the president of pepco. >> my apologies for the inconvenience. >> reporter: power was back within a couple of hours of the confrontation. >> we have gas and gas water heater also. >> reporter: this year drake lost power friday night. >> it's here we go again. we heard the announcement that it might be until friday. >> reporter: he got it back sunday night. advice for dealing with pepco? >> you need to stay on top of them. they're a large organization. and you need to criticize work where it's deserved. >> reporter: as we told you, mr. drake was out spou wer two years ago -- power two years

ago. he lost it over the weekend this time and i suspect derek will be going to see him again in the not too distant future. >> you know what, pepco wants all of us to believe it is fighting the good fight to get the lights back on. but there are those out there arguing tonight that the power company unilaterally disarmed years ago. jim griffith leads the local ibe union which represents what is left of pepco's full-time line man. he dropped by wusa to tell us pepco used to keep more than 200 line repair people on staff. >> they retired. pepco didn't replace them. there were also some targeted servants programs in the early 2,000. they wanted to reduce the number of employees they had. and we're basically down to half of what we had about 15 years ago. >> okay. how much difference has that made, do you think, to pepco's ability to respond to an emergency like this? >> if we had more line man, they would be here. we wouldn't be waiting two and three days for crews from oklahoma to get here before we

could start putting the lines back up. >> now, griffith acknowledges pepco was not alone in cutting its staff. in fact, this was an industry wide practice. we wanted to get a direct answer from pepco in response to the issues you just heard about, as well as the questions raised by some of the folks in gary nurenberg's report. here is part of the statement they sent over here instead. we are in negotiations for a new labor agreement with the local ibew. we expect to ultimately reach an agreement with the union, but we won't negotiate this in public. this week our priority is restoring power to our customers, and we will work 24/7 until that is accomplished. by the way, we wanted to speak directly to pepco's president, but we were told he was booked all day long and unavailable. graham did, however, find time to be interviewed on the cbs evening news. we should note the ibew represents technicians that work here at wusa. people are getting a bit frustrated with pepco's response to the storm, so we thought we

would give them a chance to vent. ken molestina is live at the diner. ken, what are you hearing? >> reporter: it's been mixed. a lot of people are upset. others are frustrated. others actually think pepco is doing a good job. the american city diner is serving as an overnight cooling center for some of the folks around here sitting without power tonight. but take a listen to what some of the people told us when we gave them the microphone. >> pepco, here is the thing. friday electricity went out in new carrollton. phone call was made saturday morning to you asking you to come out and take care of the electricity outage. i still have no update. i am not in new carrollton anymore. i'm staying in chevy chase because i can't be at that house. not even a courtesy to let us know if we could stay when the house is semi surrounded by live wires. very, very unfortunate. and just not a good sign of business and even any regard for

your customers. >> it's upsetting me a lot it's taken this long. i think a lot of people agree with me. and i think they should do something about it. it should never take this long to get power back. >> we're wondering when pepco is going to finally put the lines under grounds. i know it's expensive, but this has to be costing a whole lot of money as well. >> i think pepco is doing a pretty good job. i mean, the power was out for a little while. and since like over half of the pepco users lost power, i thought it was pretty good that we got power and everybody else did. they got it fast. like a day. >> reporter: back out live here, that young man you just heard from, of course, he's part of the minority. the majority of people still don't have power. but we do keep hearing over and over again from folks that don't

have power is their cit sim of this project -- cit sim of this project -- criticism of this projected time and date. a lot of people say it's way too long and it's unacceptable. we're live in west dc, ken molestina, 9news now. >> and the combination of this hot weather and the lack of power has for an extremely uncomfortable days. for some people, it's also made for a dangerous few days. matt jablow with the story of one family from montgomery county that doesn't just want their power back, they need it. >> i have a six month old that doesn't he be joy being hot. >> reporter: like hundreds -- owe doesn't enjoy being hot. >> reporter: like hundreds of thousands, april is hoping that her power is turned back on just as soon as possible. >> i wish pepco would get my electric back up, but i'm pretty sure i'm one of 200,000. >> reporter: it's been a long hot few days for april and her family. a frightening few days as well. >> charlie gets hotter than most people.

>> reporter: april's 4-year-old son charlie who was born with a rare brain disorder that causes him to have about a half dozen seizures every day is now having more than four times that number of seizures because of the heat. so he is having between 20 and 30 seizures a day? >> yes. >> reporter: they do have a portable generator, but it's not strong enough to power the air conditioning. he must endure the single seizures, any one of which could be life-threatening. >> any could be life threatening even nor so. we have had -- even more so we have had some respiratory problems. >> reporter: she has called pepco several times not looking for preferential treatment. >> i wish they would have been more same pathetic. >> reporter: right now nobody knows for sure. when asked for a comment, pepco

spokesperson says while he understands they're in a difficult situation, they cannot provide restoration priority to individual customers during extensive power outages like this one. anderson also said that all customers are always encouraged to have contingency plans in case of emergencies. lesli. >> all right, matt. dominion, virginia hopes to have the power back on for 90-95% of its customers by thursday. to help get there, it has called in the cavalry. crews from 16 states plus canada have been arriving all day and night. a total of 1500 out of state workers will supplement the 3600 dominion virginia already has on the road. and they certainly have their job cut out for them. >> we have identified over 16,000 places where we have to send a truck to a work site. 16,000 places. even though we have 76% of the customers back on right now, we haven't even done half of the

site. >> virginia dominion call this out of state help mutual aid. power companies banding together in time of need. some folks in southeast dc helped themselves. somebody opened up this fire high drand to help all of the -- hydrant to help all of the floekdz cool down. all throughout -- folks cool down. all throughout anacostia, you'll find residents trying to cool down. this is day three of sweltering heat with no electricity. >> it's like there is no hope. we don't have any hope. we don't have anything to look forward to. and it's really disgusting. and i'm tired. i'm disabled. >> well, so far, utility repair trucks have not been seen along this particular neighborhood off good hope road. even worse, the residents say they have had no help from district leaders or emergency personnel. dry ice. it is a hot commodity. it is hard to come by. especially since the storm hit. a place in southwest baltimore

churns out thousands of pounds of the stuff, except right now, yep, they lost power too. they spent the day dolg out the dry ice -- doling out the dry ice they had on hand in people for anticipation of july 4th. >> there's over $750. >> bge says it's working first on bringing power to the buildings that are considered critical to public safety. but because of the benefit that dry ice brings to the community, the power company has placed the dry ice plant on its sooner rather than later list. federal employees in the dc area will, once again, have the option of taking the day off tomorrow. the office of personnel management has announced employees can take unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework on tuesday. and verizon says 911 service is mostly restored in virginia. if you can't get through, call

703-741-3035. right after the break, my thoughts on an important lesson that you might take away in the wake of the storm. >> all right. plus anderson cooper shares an intimate detail about his personal life. top. >> well, we hit 95 today. but a really pleasant evening right now. not that humid just yet. we'll take you out with the wakeup weather. grab your sunglasses. mild to start. 65-75 at 5:00. 72-80 by 7:00. and then upper 70s to mid 80s by 9:00. it warms up quickly. we'll come back and talk about how holt it's going to get. -- hot it's going to get. we'll talk about the potential for storms on the 4th.

tv personality anderson cooper put to rest today any question about his sexuality. in an e-mail written to a blogger from the daily beast, he wrote the fact is i'm gay, always have been, always will be and i couldn't be more happy, comfortable with myself and proud. you know, we were all a bit concerned yesterday when derek showed up for our special storm coverage with his elbow all damaged up and a decided limp. but the good news is, there's a story behind it and perhaps an important lesson as well. >> well, the story begins with a nasty fall in rock creek park. i went down hard on a morning

bike ride. and as i staggered to my feet, hips badly bruised and elbow all bloodied, i realized my bike was in even worse shape. neither wheel would roll. so i would have to walk the mile or so back to my car. i'm sure i made quite a site as well. a guy in spandex bleeding profusely. limping along. carrying a bike. so i guess i can't blame all of the cars that passed me by without stopping to help. but i sure can take a moment out to thank the one guy who did. his name is dave. that and the fact he pulled over in his subaru and with no hesitation threw my bike in the back and said where do you need to go. well, my little truck was only five minutes away. but i had the sense if it had been five miles, that would have been no problem. you see, dave was a bit like the good samaritan on sunday morning. a whole lot of folks could have pulled over, but he was the only one that wasn't too nervous or too busy or too whatever to help a complete stranger. it was just a small thing.

it took him maybe five minutes out of his way. but let's be real, to the limping, gleeding guy in the span -- bleeding guy in the spandex, it meant the world. dave, if you're out there, i just want to say it one more time. lesli. >> we're glad dave stopped for you dashlg. and if you want -- derek. and if you want to watch anymore let's be real commentary one more time, let's head over to our web page. khou.com just scroll over features. hi. >> all right. you know, not bad tonight. >> okay. >> okay. we are going to take you back, though, to friday night. because in addition to the winds, and by the way, mr. mcginty asked me what the ratio was. that's going to be on my blog. check the video on the capitol. lightning struck the capitol. they had a tremendous amount of lightning along with the high winds and heavy rain. but that's quite a strike. and we said this earlier. it's five times hotter than the surface of the sun. >> was this at the start of the storm? >> i don't know what time it

was. >> okay. >> it was probably the height of the storm. about 10:30, 11:00. >> yes. . >> that's pretty intense. let's share the same clock. it's a little -- shot. it's a little quieter tonight. dew point 62. that's really good. dew points in the low 60s, that's really bearable. winds out of the south, southwest at 7. pressure rising to 2.69 inches of mercury. there is some 70s going on. 72 in martinsburg and 78 in hagerstown. we're looking at 79 down in fredericksburg and 79 over in andrews. it's a little more comfortable than those that don't have power in the burbs. some showers from illinois back into kentucky and also into tennessee. the good thing is, these are going to stay to our south. these are pretty heavy showers and storms. we're looking at a pretty nice evening. clear to partly cloudy skies. we took a chance of a

thunderstorm out in part because of the dry air. all right. so here is the deal. once again in the 90s tomorrow. that really isn't going to change for a while. afternoon thunderstorm is possible tomorrow. we're looking at probably a better chance for storms on the 4th. it's going to be hot for the 4th. no doubt about that. and big storms are possible as well. which is really not that uncommon if you go back in history in the last 12 years. a lot of big storms have occurred on the 4th of july. clear to partly cloudy overnight. almost comfortable. 65-75. winds out of the northeast by 10. and they by morning, partly cloudy and very warm. temperatures 70-90. by afternoon, partly cloudy. hot again. a chance for a thunderstorm. high temperatures near 95 and winds southwesterly at about 10. now, the next three days, we're going to keep our 9 weather alert code yellow for heat and for storms. 95 tomorrow. 97 on wednesday for the 4th. and 96 on thursday. in fact, this is unfortunately the best chance for

thunderstorms on the 4th of july. and thursday could even be 97 or 98 degrees. fireworks at the mall if you're planning to go out there start at 9:10. all right. next seven days, it stays hot. 97 on friday. perhaps 99 on saturday. we do have a thunderstorm on each day. 96 on sunday. better chance for showers and thunderstorms on monday with temperatures in the low 90s. again, in about three minutes, i'll post that on my blog about what the ratio is and kristen will be back with sports after this.

now 9 sports with kristen berset, the best sports in town. >> the nationals and orioles will both be well represented at this year 's all star game. three players from each team were voted in. for baltimore it was matt readers and adam jones frp the nationals it was --. the nationals it was ian dez man and josh -- eon desmond and josh jones. there are five guys remaining and among that group is jason hamil and nats rookie bryce harper. only one can make the all star team, and the choice is ultimately up to you fans.

so some star dc are using twitter for the calling including first round picks. john wall tweeted tonight help john walsh to be in the all star game via the final vote. bryce in '12. even rg3 getting into it. hey, people, get the boy bryce harper in the all star game. fans, you can vote online until thursday. orioles were out west today. nats are the day off. orioles taking on the mariners. jason on the mound. so far, so good. four strikeouts to start the game. seattle up 1-0 in the 4th. but the orioles offense comes alive. chris davis a 3-run rocket to right to break it open. right now it's 3-1 baltimore in the fifth inning. maryland athletics will look a lot different next year. 7 sports have been discontinued because of budget constraints. teams were told if they could raise enough money, they could stick around for at least

another year. the only ones able to do that were men's outdoor track and field. they'll compete with 1 athletes this coming season. -- 14 athletes this coming season. however, other teams weren't that successful. men's indoor track and field, men's cross-country, men's and women's swimming and diving, acrobatics and tumbling, men's water polo and men's tennis are all gone. dara tore ris is trying to -- torris is trying to make the olympics. she just barely missed the cut. was only good enough for fourth place. she missed it by 900th of a second. maria sharapova having a terrible day. 6-4, 6-3. sharapova moved to number one on june 11th and now that ranking

could be in jeopardy. serena williams also having a tough day, but she did manage to survive a 3-set nail biter to advance to the quarter finals. finally tonight, the olympic torch relay in london. see the two kids in black. apparently they wanted to be a part as well. trying to snag the flame from a torch bearer and then just went on business as usual. they looked like little ninjas reasoning out there. >> this is only one question. where are the parents? >> they probably put them up to it. >> it looked like he was ready to get it back, though. he didn't seem to be taken off guard. >> no. he should probably run with it. >> yes. run with me. we'll be right back.

we are really going to hope and pray your lights come on. if you're watching us, they probably are. >> let's hope your neighbors get theirs too. don't forget we're always on at khou.com. have a good -- wusa9.com. have a good night. ♪

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