Pepco’s chairman, president and chief executive officer testified before the House Economic Matters Committee Tuesday to answer for power failures that affected hundreds of thousands of D.C. residents last month.

Power outages during January’s snowstorms affected about 210,000 people, according to The George Washington University Hatchet. About 300 people were left without power for as many as five days, The Hatchet reported.

On campus, LXR and Nevils Halls and the Walsh Building all lost power during the Jan. 26 storm, according to Director of Media Relations Rachel Pugh. She said that the outage was caused by a fault in the main breaker to the complex.

“Facilities staff worked from the time of the outage throughout the night to rectify this situation, which required assistance from Pepco,” Pugh said in an email. “In order to restore power to the complex, a generator was brought in by Pepco late that evening and was delayed due to difficulties caused by the onset of inclement weather conditions.”

Power was restored before 4 a.m. the following morning, Pugh said.

Not all Pepco customers were as fortunate, however. In some areas, trees felled by the storm snapped power lines, resulting in extensive damage. This has caused many to question the company’s tree trimming policies and practices, according to the Hatchet.

Yaffet Menna’s (COL ’13) family lives locally, and his home lost power for almost eight hours during the storm. Outages are frequent in his neighborhood, Menna said, particularly when there is any kind of heavy rain or snowfall.

“Pepco has actually been terrible with the service in our neighborhood,” Menna said.

At the time of a 2009 survey Pepco customers were 70 percent more likely to experience a power outage than customers of other big city utilities, and outages lasted more than twice as long, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

Pepco’s trial took place in Annapolis on Tuesday. Company executives addressed the January storm and the restoration efforts they have undertaken since then, according to a Pepco press release from earlier the same day. Pepco executives also appeared before the D.C. Public Service Commission yesterday, according to NBC Washington.

“I deeply regret the inconvenience and hardship that the power outages from this recent heavy snowstorm caused our customers and communities,” Pepco CEO Joseph Rigby said in his prepared trial remarks published in the Tuesday press release. “I am here to tell you that Pepco has been making and will continue to make changes to the way it conducts business and to improve our service reliability.”

According to another statement released by Pepco on Feb. 1, the company currently has 1,000 restoration personnel working on follow up repairs, and it has extended the call center hours.

As a result of the snowstorm and its aftermath, Pepco has also begun publicizing its six-point Reliability Enhancement Plan. This initiative will result in $574 million in company spending over the next five years, according to another Pepco statement on Feb. 7. The company will also re-examine their entire storm restoration process.