Most power back after weekend wind storms

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. has restored power to most households in the Baltimore area that suffered outages from the wind storms Friday and Saturday. About 42,000 remained in the dark Sunday evening. The utility company said it expected most people to have power by the end of the day, except in some more heavily damaged areas, where repairs could run into the middle of the week. The most outages were in Baltimore County, where more than 17,530 people still did not have power. At 7 p.m. Sunday, there were 5,011 customers without power in Baltimore, 8,427 in Harford County, 6,119 in Anne Arundel County, 4,419 in Howard County and 1,326 in Carroll County. In the wooded Ruxton neighborhood of Towson, a tangle of power lines lay in the road as generators whirred from people’s lawns. “The power’s been off now since Friday,” said Wendy Quitasol, standing on the front porch of her home. Though she doesn’t have a generator and missed having hot water, Quitasol, 55, said she was worried most about the wires that had fallen down nearby during the storm. A tree had fallen on the power line, simultaneously cutting off electricity and blocking off access to the main road. Crews were working around the clock to restore power. BGE brought in workers from ComEd, its sister utility in Illinois, to help. A 77-year-old Baltimore County woman was struck and killed Friday by a falling tree, but no other deaths were reported. The Baltimore Office of Emergency Management advised people to stay inside as the cleanup of debris and trees continued. The weather today was forecast to be sunny with a high of 45 degrees, with wind gusts as high as 22 mph. The storm left 400,000 people without power, according to BGE. The company encouraged customers with outages and downed wires to call 877-778-2222.