Not to mention the power systems for the entire DC area are too important to allow any outages no matter how short.
Bahaha...the power goes out in the DC area all the freaking time. Pepco is notorious for power outages in DC. They blame the "dense tree canopy of the city" or something retarded. Ask anyone who's lived there for a while.
The DC metro area has suffered major outages, the remnants of Hurricane Isabel knock out most of the power and water in Fairfax County, Virginia as well.
Anything important in the DC metro area and well everywhere else, is going to have both battery and generator backup power, knowing that grid power can and does fail all the time.
Too important my ass...the power reliability in DC was like living in a third world country.