Hurricane Irene rolled through the Harford County area Saturday evening and into the early Sunday hours, felling trees, closing numerous roads, creating at least two car crashes and causing power outages in the initial hours of the storm.
While the full force of the hurricane was expected to hit the area after midnight Saturday, driving rains and wind built throughout the afternoon and into the evening, causing a variety of minor incidents.
“So far several incidents for trees on homes, some with structural damage,” Rich Gardiner, spokesman for the Harford County Volunteer Fire and EMS Association said shortly after 10 p.m. “No injuries so far. Other calls for power lines down.”
A car crash with an injury involved was reported on I-95 northbound near Old Joppa Road at about 11:30 p.m., Gardiner said. He encouraged all local drivers to stay off the roads while the storm passed through the area, calling the situation at the time “extremely dangerous.”
Meanwhile, at about the same time, an apartment fire was reported on the 400 block of Revolution Street in Havre de Grace.
A call for a confined space rescue on the 300 block of Old Nuttal Avenue in Edgewood, just outside the Rt. 24 entrance to Aberdeen Proving Ground, was reported on the county’s emergency operations Web site shortly before 11:15 p.m. A motor vehicle accident was reported on the 700 block of Walters Mill Road in Forest Hill just after 9:30 p.m., but the severity of the crash was not immediately known.
Power lines and a pole were reported down at two places in Aberdeen; at the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and Post Road and on the 600 block of Old Philadelphia Road.
BGE in a statement said it had restored power to more than 24,000 customers in the first hours of the hurricane, but expected the number of customers without electricity to increase significantly overnight.
“Saturated ground coupled a heavy tree canopy and high wind has caused whole trees and tree limbs to come down onto power lines and other electric equipment,” the utility said in a release. “Due to the severe nature of this storm, customers may experience multiple outages throughout the next several days, including extended outages while the utility continues restoration work, even after the storm has passed. The hardest hit areas include Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert and Prince George’s Counties, and Baltimore City.”
Post your storm stories and discuss what you’ve seen with others below, or send your experiences and pictures of Hurricane Irene to tellus@daggerpress.com.
In the Bel Air area this morning: Power is out at The Festival Shopping Center; traffic lights are out on Main St. and businesses along Main St. did not appear to have power.
Traffic lights were out at the intersection of Rt. 24 & Bel Air South Parkway and also at Rt. 24 & Wheel Road. Some traffic lights were also out along Hickory Avenue.
However, traffic lights were working and power was on along Rt. 1 in Bel Air and businesses were open.
A downed tree was blocking the southbound lane of Rt. 924 near Wakely Terrace, but police appeared to be on the scene at around 8:15 am.
the light at festival was out all day with no police presence. many drivers do not appear to realize that if a light is out the intersection is to be treated like a four way stop. many people barrelling through not even slowing down.
Murph, i thought the exact same thing earlier. where are the police controlling the traffic? i guess they were guarding the dunkin donuts from looters
They should have been directing traffic at the big/busy intersections. I can understand how they couold not be at everyone of them. Most cops seem think that is not there job anymore.
That picture at the very top of the story is GREAT. It looks like smoke.
About traffic at lights…The emergency message reminded people about the four-way stop rule at lights that are not working. I hope that people will learn that rule because murph is right. Whomever is on the road with the higher speed limit flies right through with no consideration. The best thing would have been for people to just stay home, but I know that someone in my household was out and about–I forgot about the potention for lights being out.
potention=potential oops
I live in Bel Air and our power has been out since Saturday 11pm. If your scared cause of other drivers going through intersections with the lights being out maybe you should become a more experience driver. Worry about yourself. Brian as for you..”i guess they were guarding the dunkin donuts from looters” are you serious?? Come on now what on earth are you doing besides being a lazy person thinking your cool by sitting behind a key board typing about how lazy our cops are. Your Pathetic!
Sarah, I am a firefighter in the city of Baltimore. As for Lazy? I was working Saturday night into Sunday morning during the storm cutting up trees that fell in all over the city streets. What were you doing to help others Sarah?
You’re*
Grammar Police – you have a full time job here!
Yeah, that first pic of the storm is awesome!!
Yes, that 1st picture is awesome, where was that taken?
Jeff, the first storm pic is the train stop in Aberdeen..