Museums Reopen on National Mall After Power Outage

Several museums on or near the National Mall reopened Sunday after a power outage led them to close early Friday and stay closed Saturday.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, the Sackler Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Ripley Center were all affected. They will reopen at their normal time, 10 a.m.

The Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue NW also closed early Friday and was closed Saturday. It will reopen Sunday at 9 a.m.

Pepco said an underground equipment failure knocked out the electricity and the power was expected to be restored by noon Saturday.

The National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian Castle and the National Museum of American History stayed open, the Smithsonian said.

Pepco said excessive heat was not the cause of the outage, even though it came as the District scorches under a near-triple digit heat wave.

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