Power still out as trees block Loughboro Road NW

WASHINGTON — The day after the storms brought blue skies and blocked roads, sidewalks torn up, windshields caved in, and power still out in this Northwest neighborhood. 

Sunday, blocks of Loughboro Road and several side streets around it were still covered with trees and the power lines they pulled down with them.

Sia Madani's has some of the worst damage around it. The winds pushed at least two large trees into his front yard. The roof, he said, was spared. 

"She just absolutely panicked [and] ran to the basement," he said of his wife who rode out the storm home alone. "She was convinced it was a tornado," he said. 

The National Weather Service says it was straight-line winds that did the damage - evidenced by a lack of twisted trunks and trees blown down in the same direction. 

Winds that remind trees service business owner Luis Barrientos of 2012 when his crews were in this same neighborhood cleaning up from a derecho.

"It was the same like this one. It closed all the roads," he recalled as his team hauled away debris from this latest storm. 

And he's not the only one comparing this damage to that historic storm a decade ago. 

"I could feel the whole house shake, the wind was loud," Ben Seesel recalled of 2012. "This didn't seem as bad yesterday. But you look around, the aftermath it's worse it seems. It's scary," he said. 

Pepco says its crews have to wait for DDot and the Urban Forestry Administration to clear the downed trees before the power company can repair the powerlines.

The company expects everyone to be back online by 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon but says this neighborhood could see electricity restored by Monday.

Welcome news, for this storm-weary neighborhood.

"You know the first phase is 'you're alive, everyone is safe,'" surmised Madani. "And then, once you're over the euphoria that you're alive., then you're going to start getting annoyed," he said with a laugh.