WASHINGTON — The bitterly cold and windy weather Sunday caused several thousand residents across the D.C. Metro area to lose power and heat early Sunday morning.
“It’s very cold outside,” said Steve Gross, who was scraping ice off of the windshield of his car in Bethesda. “My wife wants to go somewhere because she’s crazy.”
The cold weather got many people up and moving, especially when the strong, gusty winds pulled down power lines and cut power to thousands across the region. Luckily for Gross and many of his neighbors, they had generators to help keep the power on.
“This guy here has power,” Gross pointed out while looking around at his neighbors’ houses. “He has a portable generator, he has a generator, the man up the street has a generator, two doors down there’s a guy that has a generator… almost everybody here is getting one because this happens all the time around here.”
One of his neighbors without a generator woke up to a cold house.
“We lost heat and power,” Josh Lacuesta told WTOP. “It got down to about 55 degrees and it was enough to get us up and get moving.”
Residents in this neighborhood were debating how to enjoy the frosty extended weekend.
“We were thinking of going out for breakfast,” Tom Murphy shared, but he did not want to change his plans because of the weather. At most, “We probably won’t go out and play in the snow.”
“I’m going to stay indoors as much as possible,” said Lacuesta. “It’s chilly, but I need to go out to the grocery store. We might catch a movie.”
Gross, though, did not want to take any risks out on the icy roads.
“I’m gonna go back and read a book when I finish [clearing off the car].”
Temperatures in Washington barely reached 20 degrees Sunday with wind chills making it feel below zero all day. Temperatures will barely reach the freezing mark all week.
