April 3, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Capitol was evacuated shortly after noon Monday after the building briefly lost power.

The building was reopened about an hour later after power was restored. The House and Senate were not in session at the time of the outage. Both were to convene at 2 p.m. ET.Mary-Beth Hutchinson, a spokeswoman for Potomac Electric Power Co., said the electricity shut off automatically after there was "a momentary drop in voltage due to customer operations up the lines" away from the Capitol."The protective equipment sensed the significant change in voltage and tripped," she said.

Nearby office buildings were not affected by the outage. Before the evacuation sirens went off, more than 100 visitors sat in the darkened House gallery. They exited with everyone else when the alarm sounded, calmly walking toward exits.