About 74,000 Baltimore Gas & Electric customers lost power Sunday during severe thunderstorms rolled through Maryland, the company said.

The hardest-hit areas were Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties, said BGE spokesman Robert Gould, with 39,000 households without power in Anne Arundel and about 21,000 in Prince George's. The rest of the outages were scattered throughout the utility's coverage area, including 3,100 in Baltimore City and 5,700 in Baltimore County. BGE has 1.2 million customers in central Maryland.

The utility had restored power for nearly 10,000 customers by late Sunday afternoon, Gould said.

Once the company saw the weather looming, Gould said it made preparations and identified crews to begin restoring power. BGE has not yet estimated a time when all customers' power would be restored.

"We need to get out there and see the scope of the damage," Gould said. "This storm had significant tree — not just down limbs but down trees — damage."