Sen. Brian Frosh, who helped secure higher penalties for companies that have repeated outages, says people at the press conference at first assumed the afternoon blackout was a joke -- or maybe part of the plan.
It wasn't. Generators at the State House kicked on right away, but businesses on nearby Main Street were left in the dark for a while.
The reliability standards legislation was directed more at Pepco, which controls power in the suburbs around the District of Columbia. Perhaps BGE was signaling that it doesn't want to be left out.
Both the Senate and House of Delegates have given final approval to Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to penalize electric companies for repeated outages. The Senate version, which the House is now considering, takes effect sooner and has higher fees for violations.
(Pictured: The Baltimore Sun's State House office only briefly went dark, though several of our surge protectors were fried. Photo is a reenactment.)