Southern Maryland feels full weight of blizzard

Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JESSE YEATMAN An SUV drives on Route 235 south of Lexington Park with only part of its windshield clear of snow and ice. Cars and trucks began venturing out Sunday morning as trucks dumped salt and continued to clear roads in St. Mary's. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Posted at 7:45 p.m. Saturday

The weight of Saturday's snowfall proved too much to bear for a St. John's School building in Hollywood, and a metal storage building along Route 235 in Lexington Park.

St. Mary's fire and rescue volunteers also stayed busy responding to fallen trees and ambulance calls for medical ailments. They said most people heeded advisories to stay off the roads, but dispatchers braced themselves at dusk for freezing temperatures that could bring more trees down and ramp up the volume of power outages.

More than 5,000 Southern Maryland Electric Customers were without power as night fell on Saturday. Most were in Calvert and Charles counties.

"It's only going to get worse as nighttime comes," a St. Mary's dispatcher said, "and this stuff starts freezing up." Hollywood Fire Chief Dennis Brady Jr. said that a 50-by-60-foot portion of the school building's roof in Hollywood collapsed onto the first floor, which included classrooms, a library and computer lab. There was no visible damage to the basement area of the school.

The 15 firefighters responding to the scene shortly after 4 p.m. Saturday ensured that no one was in the building, the chief said.

Bay District volunteer firefighters got word at about 9:30 a.m. that day that the entire roof of a 150-by-50-foot corrugated metal building of Quality Transfer & Storage Co. had collapsed, Fire Chief Joe Gould said. A couple vehicles were among the contents of the crushed structure.

"There wasn't much we could do," Gould said. "We did a look-through to make sure there was nobody inside."

Firefighters accompany all rescue squad calls during a snow emergency, and Gould said that generally involves helping carry a patient to an ambulance.

Ridge volunteer firefighters and Maryland State Police reportedly responded to an overturned vehicle at about 10 a.m. Saturday on Curley Road near Ridge, but no serious injuries were reported from the mishap. St Mary's power outages numbered a couple thousand, a dispatcher said as daylight ended.