the chief spokesman for 1600 pennsylvania avenue confirmed that the outage ` briefly had an impact on the white house complex ' but it was ` back on the regular power source ' by the time he began his briefing approximately an hour and a half later .
` things are slowly but surely returning to normal at the white house complex , ' josh earnest , white house press secretary , said , noting that he was in the oval office with the president when it happened , and it was barely noticeable .
as of a 1:35 pm update , more than washington-area customers - including government offices - had reported outages , pepco said .