Mid-Atlantic Storm Blamed For Deaths, Outages
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Heavy, wet snow knocked out power to tens of thousands of people Thursday and contributed to the deaths of three people in the Mid-Atlantic's biggest snowstorm this season.
Between 3 inches to more than a foot of snow fell on parts of the region beginning Wednesday evening, shutting down commuter trains and schools. Federal government offices were open, but employees were being allowed to come in up to two hours late. Canceled flights stranded hundreds of people in airports overnight.
Three deaths were also blamed on the snow. In Wilmington, Del., a woman was killed Thursday when she was hit by a snowplow that was making a U-turn. A Baltimore taxi driver died Wednesday evening after his cab got stuck in the snow and caught fire. And a third person died in Washington when a tree fell on a pickup truck he was riding in.
Andy Kolstad, 65, spent the night without power at his home in Silver Spring, Md., and found his normal bus was not running Thursday morning.
"What a mess," said Kolstad, a statistician at the U.S. Department of Education, as he walked to get breakfast.
Early in the day, some 300,000 people were without power. The National Weather service recorded about 3 and a half inches of snow in Washington, though nearby Arlington got nearly 7 inches. Baltimore tallied more than 9 inches in the city's Druid Hill Park.
Rob Gould, spokesman for Baltimore Gas & Electric, said the storm was worse than either of the two blizzards last year that dumped nearly two feet of snow apiece because this snow was heavy and wet. Nearly 200,000 customers — 15 percent of BGE's customer base — lost power at some point during the storm, Gould said.
"This is one of the largest winter snow events that we've experienced in terms of outages," Gould said.
BG&E had about 85,000 customers out as of noon, and the number could rise as the snow that's built up already knocks down more limbs and trees. The company had restored power to another 112,000 customers.
The hardest hit areas were Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County and the city of Baltimore.
Pepco was reporting about 170,000 without power as of noon Thursday, the majority in Montgomery County.
In northern Virginia, Dominion Power said about 104,000 do not have power. And in Delaware and Maryland, Delmarva Power was reporting about 14,000 without power, most in Cecil County.
Emergency officials, meanwhile, had a busy night. At one point Wednesday evening, fire officials in Washington were getting about a call a minute, and every emergency vehicle was deployed, said D.C. fire department spokesman Pete Piringer. Officials responded to calls including live electrical wires that had fallen on a car with people inside and a power surge that required firefighters to go door to door in an apartment building, unplugging every appliance.
On Thursday, crews worked to remove cars commuters had abandoned in a frustrating Wednesday night commute. About 100 cars were abandoned on the George Washington Memorial Parkway and were being towed to parking lots. More vehicles were abandoned in Maryland. Public transportation was getting back to normal, though there were cancellations.
The Maryland Transit Administration canceled service on two MARC commuter trains, and Virginia Railway Express trains are running on a reduced schedule.
The MTA said there will be no service on the Camden Line, which runs from Baltimore to Washington, and the Brunswick Line, which goes from Washington to Martinsburg, W.Va. The Penn Line, which runs from Washington through northeastern Maryland, also will operate on a modified holiday schedule.
Virginia Railway Express trains also are running on a modified schedule.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
