WIDESPREAD DAMAGE
Ida brings tornado to Annapolis, Edgewater
A tornado tore through Anne Arundel County on Wednesday afternoon, leaving a path of destruction in its wake in the Annapolis and Edgewater areas.
The tornado was confirmed via radar in Annapolis around 2:15 p.m., according to the National Weather Service, as the remnants of Tropical Depression Ida reached Maryland.
It was among a number of storms the state experienced as Ida brought heavy rainfall — 1.86 inches at BWI Marshall Airport from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. — and caused isolated flooding throughout Maryland during the afternoon.
Chris Strong, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Baltimore/ Washington forecast office, said efforts to determine the strength of the Annapolis tornado “will take some time this week, given the extent of the damage.”
Another tornado also touched down in Charles County, but National Weather Service forecasters did not disclose information Wednesday evening about where and when.
Some Edgewater residents were forced to scramble for safety and a stretch of West Street on the outskirts of Annapolis had to be closed after the tornado caused significant damage to homes, schools and businesses and downed utility poles and electric wires.
Katie Hall, the 43-year-old daughter of Debbie and Bruce Angevine, said she and her family are carefully picking up valuables from her parents’ house on Red Admiral Court in Edgewater after the tornado tore off the roof and damaged much of the structure while no one was home.
Upon returning to the house, Hall said they could tell it would need to be rebuilt.
“It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around how this was so bad,” she said.
She said many items were thrown from the house into a pond behind it. While they’ve been attempting to gather valuables from inside the home itself, Hall said they haven’t been able to grab much because the house is structurally compromised and dangerous.
She said that when she was first sent a photo of the damage done to her parents’ home, where they’ve lived for the past six years, she had a visceral reaction to the damage.
“It was just one of those feelings where the blood just drains from your head and you get this sickening feeling in your stomach where I can’t believe this is reality,” Hall said.
Behind Hall’s parents’ home, the storm damaged the roof of the concession stand at the South River High School football stadium and threw tree limbs and debris onto stands and the field.
Roxanne Lacidonia, a 62-yearold Edgewater resident who lives on Highland Drive, said she saw the tornado form and head toward her neighborhood sometime after 2:30 p.m.
She’d gone to the kitchen and noticed through a sliding glass door that the sky was turning gray and a funnel was forming nearby.
When she attempted to take photos of it, she said, her daughter and her girlfriend grabbed her and told her they needed to get to a safe place inside the home.
“And my girls are screaming at me, ‘You got to take cover! You got to take cover!’ and we ran into the bathroom and got into the bathtub,” she said.
She said the house shook for a minute as the tornado made its way through the area, but her house did not suffer significant damage.
But, while she was in the bathroom, she said she started thinking about whether she’d make it out of the storm alive.
“I just didn’t know … is our house going to crumble? Are we going to go with the house?” she said.
In Annapolis, firefighters and emergency responders scrambled to deal with the damage caused to homes, businesses and power lines by the tornado.
The city closed the stretch of West Street from Chinquapin Round Road past Gibraltar Avenue toward Route 2 after the tornado caused severe damage to nearby businesses and threw a utility pole, power lines, building debris and tree branches onto the road. West Street will remain closed Thursday.
BGE spokeswoman Stephanie Weaver said Wednesday night that the gas has been shut off to the heavily damaged buildings in the area of West Street and that downed wires are being de-energized.
Allan Shaw was waiting at a traffic light in heavy rain in Annapolis when the sky cleared for what felt like a moment before he saw sparks and heard a boom, which he thought was a generator blowing.
The sky revealed the funnel of a tornado blowing left across West Street, knocking down utility poles and ripping apart roofs. The tornado disappeared from Shaw’s sight as quickly as it came.
Shaw continued driving down the road where minutes before the golden arches of a McDonald’s were blown into the street.
“I had to just miss it,” Shaw said. “This is the first time in my life I’ve ever seen a tornado form like that. I was scared and just shocked at the same time because I was just amazed.”
Shaw quickly turned around to Chinquapin Round Road, but with trees blocking the street, he got out of his car and walked home.
The sort of damage observed in the Annapolis area can require wind speeds of 100 to 140 mph, according to National Weather Service indicators of tornado damage. That could indicate a tornado as strong as EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which ranges from 0 to 5.
If so, the tornado is potentially the largest the region has seen since 2002, when an EF-4 tornado touched down in La Plata.
Chris Strong, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Baltimore/Washington forecast office, said efforts to determine the strength of the Annapolis tornado “will take some time this week, given the extent of the damage.”
Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley called the damage “shocking,” saying that walking among the damaged buildings and roads littered with debris was “like you’re on a movie set.”
No injuries were reported, but 2,500 buildings were left without power in Annapolis and the Red Cross came to Annapolis Gardens to assist officials in dealing with the homes that had suffered structural damage, said Lt. Kenneth White, with the City of Annapolis Fire Marshal’s Office.
In addition, several buildings began leaking gas after suffering damage from the tornado, prompting officials to move people farther away from the area due to the dangerous conditions.
The Anne Arundel County Fire Department said around 5:30 p.m. that it was conducting a survey of the damage the tornado had caused, with officials estimating that at least 100 homes in Edgewater suffered severe damage.
Outside Anne Arundel, officials had to perform at least six swift-water rescues in Frederick County, according to the National Weather Service. At least 20 roads were closed because of flooding in the northern part of the county and authorities had to perform a high-water rescue involving a school bus, taking 10 students and the driver to safety, the weather service said.
In Montgomery County, a 19-year-old man was found dead after a Rockville apartment complex flooded early Wednesday morning. Authorities say another resident was unaccounted for and three people along with a firefighter were taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.
Meteorologists wrote that those storms should progressively clear out overnight, but that they’ll be backed up by strong winds blowing into northern Maryland, with gusts up to 50 mph expected in some places, and 20 to 30 mph winds in most.
A high temperature of about 80 degrees Wednesday is expected to drop to 61 overnight, when forecasters predict an additional 1 to 2 inches of rain could fall in the Baltimore area. The storms should depart the area by 8 a.m. Thursday.
“In large, it should be out by sunrise Thursday,” said Connor Belak, a meteorologist in the weather service’s Sterling, Virginia, office.
Thursday afternoon should be partly sunny with a chance of rain, a high temperature near 78 and 14-16 mph winds with gusts as high as 29 mph.
The forecast from Friday to Sunday calls for sunny skies and highs ranging from 77 to 82 degrees. Labor Day should be mostly sunny with scattered showers and a high near 84.