One remains missing in flooding
Maryland town again faces long rebuilding effort
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — One man remained missing after flash flooding tore down historic Main Street in Ellicott City and left a community heartbroken at seeing severe damage less than two years after another devastating flood.
Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman said Monday morning that his priorities are finding the missing man and assessing the condition of buildings that house shops, restaurants and families.
“We’re certainly making every effort to locate that individual,” he said.
Howard County police identified him Monday as 39-year-old Severn resident Eddison Hermond, an active member of the Army National Guard.
Hermond was reported missing to police about 12:30 a.m. Monday, but has not been seen since about 5:20 p.m. at the height of the flooding, when raging, brown waters ripped through the town.
The area remained blocked off Monday, even to residents and business owners, as Kittleman surveyed the debris.
“If you look at the devastation and the damage, I would certainly say it’s worse than 2016,” he said. “We’ve had areas that were not even damaged at all two years ago terribly damaged this time.”
At a news conference Sunday night, Kittleman and Gov. Larry Hogan vowed to help people rebuild their lives again.
“We will be there for them as we were in 2016,” Kittleman said.
Hogan promised “every bit of assistance we possibly can.”
“They say this is a once every 1,000 year flood, and we’ve had two of them in two years,” Hogan said.
Sunday’s flooding swept away parked cars in the city, which sits along the west bank of the Patapsco River, about 13 miles west of Baltimore.
Mike Muccilli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling, Virginia, said Sunday it was too early to make comparisons between the two floods. But he said both were devastating. In the July 2016 storm, Ellicott City received 6.6 inches of rain over a two- to three-hour period. On Sunday, the community received nearly 8 inches of rain over a six-hour period, but most of it fell during an intense, three-hour period, Muccilli said.