Trucker James Bedford left North Carolina on Tuesday night to deliver a load of building supplies to a Carroll County construction company. He was only about a mile from his destination yesterday morning when he fell victim to the freezing rain.
His tractor-trailer jackknifed on Stone Chapel Road, a lane between Westminster and New Windsor. He was uninjured - even though he slipped and fell four times while crawling from his disabled rig.
"I've been up here in the summer. This is my first winter in Maryland," the 32-year-old Southerner said.
"They said it was going to be another mild winter, but it's already started out bad. At least for me."
Bedford was not alone. The storm that coated the county with ice left motorists searching for ways around blocked roads - when they weren't sliding into each other.
County government never opened. About 9,500 utility customers in Carroll lost power, accounting for more than half of the outages in the service area of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., a spokesman said.
Even the state police barracks in Westminster was forced to rely briefly on a backup generator for electricity.
Ice delayed or canceled flights at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, disrupted morning commuter traffic and closed or postponed the opening of most Maryland schools.
But closer to Baltimore, authorities considered themselves fortunate that the precipitation was mostly rain.
Carroll, Frederick, Washington and Montgomery counties were hardest hit by the storm, with ice accumulations of a quarter to a half of an inch, said Dewey Walston, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
In Westminster, troopers scrambled to keep count of the number of wires down (11 by late afternoon), accidents (22, but none serious), and trees fallen across roads (33).
A fallen tree closed Route 27 near Taylorsville for most of the afternoon.
A tree fell across Hughes Shop Road near Pleasant Valley Road - leaving Jeff A. Kerr, a Silver Run man on his way to pick up a friend for food shopping, to say: "Now I have to drive 14 extra miles to get to where I'm going."
At Harry's Main Street Grille, owner Harry Sirinakis made good use of the smokers on his payroll.
"I handed each of them a shovel whenever they went out for a smoke break," he said.
The workday arrived early for county road crews, who reported for work at 1 a.m. and who by 3 a.m. had hit the streets to begin applying about 700 tons of salt.
Carroll school officials wasted little time before declaring the third snow day of the semester and canceling the school board's meetings. Carroll Community College also was closed, but students scheduled to take exams at McDaniel College were not let off the hook.
Carroll County government had been scheduled to open at 11 a.m., but the county office building remained shuttered throughout the day.
The county's eight municipalities reported slippery conditions on side roads and power outages, but most town offices remained open.
"It's a Hans Brinker day in Hampstead," said Town Manager Ken Decker.
Decker, a Montana native, said the "baby ice storm" was more an inconvenience than a major troublemaker.
In Westminster, Paradiso restaurant's takeout lost electricity in the middle of the lunch rush. The staff continued to bake pizzas in the gas-fired oven to fill several large orders, and manager Nick Stonesifer held a flashlight to a pocket calculator to add a customer's order.
Other Westminster restaurants also did the best they could with no electricity.
"Snow days are usually good days for us because everything is closed, everyone has nothing to do, so we're the place to be," said Jamie Selby, a bartender at Johanssons Dining House and Brewing Company, where power was out yesterday afternoon for three hours. "Ice storms are different."
Two favorites surfaced as menu items of choice during an ice storm.
"Lots of Guinness and soup," Selby said.
County Commissioner Perry L. Jones Jr. spent the day manning his family's service station in Union Bridge. Though roads were slushy around the town, Jones said he ended up towing only a few vehicles.
"It never got too bad because people mostly stayed off the roads," he said.
Daralet Glisson and her family were among those who rode out the storm.
On the gravel roads in her neighborhood between Westminster and Manchester, branches weighed down by ice hit the windshields of sedans passing beneath. County trucks dropped stone chips to help provide traction for the few cars traveling the roads.
But Glisson, a housewife with five boys at home and plenty of food, said she had no need to go anywhere. "We're staying in," she said. "There's no reason to risk your life."
Sun staff writers Laura Barnhardt, Ellie Baublitz, Mary Gail Hare, Jennifer McMenamin and Childs Walker contributed to this article.