Howard County provides rooms for residents displaced by flood
Howard County officials said Friday they were providing temporary housing for dozens of Ellicott City residents who were displaced by flooding.
Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman said 58 residents of the historic town were displaced by the deadly flash flood that ripped through Main Street Sunday. The county will provide hotel rooms for them for the next two weeks, he said.
County officials and private contractors were continuing to work on infrastructure repairs after the flood destroyed dozens of businesses, Kittleman said at a Friday afternoon press conference.
The county executive said he expected a significant amount of work to get done this weekend.
“I’m looking forward to an opportunity for folks to get a lot done,” he said. “It is amazing what our folks in public works and our private contractors have done. They have done a tremendous amount of work in the last five or six days.”
Meanwhile, Archbishop William E. Lori said he would come to Ellicott City on Saturday to conduct a 5 p.m. service at St. Paul Catholic Church in the historic district.
Lori planned to pray for Sgt. Eddison Hermond, the National Guardsman who was killed during the flood, as well as for the residents and business owners who were affected by the recent flooding.
Ellicott City was bracing with more rain over the weekend. Thunderstorms are forecast through Sunday across Maryland, sustaining the threat of more flooding.
On Friday, at least, any torrential downpours were fewer and farther between compared to the rain that crossed the region Thursday night. That line of storms briefly prompted flood warnings in Ellicott City, Catonsville and other areas still recovering from the Sunday deluge, but did not cause widespread damage.
Friday afternoon, some spotty storms began popping up in Virginia and Pennsylvania, but none had developed in Maryland. Forecasters expected perhaps half an inch to three quarters of an inch of rain Friday, and estimated a 60 percent chance of showers and fog overnight into Saturday.
Heavier and more widespread rain is forecast to return Saturday, with a lowpressure system expected to bring back higher levels of moisture and atmospheric instability.
Isha Renta, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Baltimore/ Washington forecast office, warned that given so much recent rain, the region is unusually flood-prone.
“There’s still some threat,” she said. “Soils are saturated.”
Showers are likely to continue Sunday and possibly into Monday. The weather service predicts as much as 2 inches of rain could fall over the weekend.
The heaviest threats of downpours are expected across Southern Maryland and northeastern Virginia.
The persistence of wet weather comes as Baltimore marks the end of its thirdwettest May on record, with more than 8 inches of rain last month at BaltimoreWashington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.