Updated: 17,000 Without Power Tuesday in Upper Montgomery County

(Updated 8:06 p.m.) Power has been restored to 17,000 Potomac Edison customers in Montgomery County, Potomac Edison spokesman David Kline told Patch.

Kline said the power was restored at around 8 p.m.

(Updated 6:42 p.m.) Germantown Library, BlackRock Center for the Arts and Upcounty Regional Services Center were forced to close Tuesday due to a massive poweroutage that left nearly 17,000 Potomac Edison customers in Northern Montgomery County in the dark.

All programs scheduled for these facilities are cancelled for this evening, a county spokeswoman said.

Library patrons are asked to check www.montgomerycountymd.gov/library for the latest update about the re-opening of library on Wednesday.

—

(Original) Nearly 17,000 Potomac Edison customers near Germantown are without power, a spokesman from the power company confirmed.

WTOP initially reported the story and said a problem at a substation caused a transmission line to go out.

David Kline, a Potomac Edison spokesman, told Patch that four other substations were lost, as a result.

“Pretty much that entire end of Montgomery County is out right now,” Kline told Patch.

Kline said crews were working to isolate the problem, but said it was too soon to give an estimate of how long it would take to restore power.

Outage maps at Potomac Edison showed that 7,850 Germantown customers were with out power.

“We have every available resource working on it,” Kline said.

Meanwhile, there were 156 outages reported among Pepco customers east of Sam Eig Highway. Pepco spokesman Bob Hainey said a problem with underground cables caused those outages and that crews were working to restore power.