It only takes a little bit of snow and ice in Baltimore to produce a big mess.
Just 1.3 inches of snow and a half-inch of ice fell yesterday at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in the worst winter storm to hit Central Maryland this year, according to the National Weather Service. But the aftermath - including power outages, school closings, flight cancellations and delays, and the inevitable fender-benders - told the real story.
About 90,000 homes and businesses served by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. in the Baltimore metropolitan area lost electricity - more than 65,000 of them in Anne Arundel County, and mostly because of snow and ice-laden tree branches falling on power lines, said company spokeswoman Linda Foy.
More outages were expected as forecasters predicted wind gusts up to 40 mph overnight. BGE mobilized 850 of its employees to restore power and brought in 400 utility workers from states as far away as Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky to assist.
By last night, Anne Arundel, Carroll and Cecil counties had announced school closings for today, as had Montgomery and Prince George's counties in the Washington area.
At BWI, the cancellations provided a picture of operations largely grounded: from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., 70 flights canceled; from 9 a.m. to noon, only 13 departures out of 60 scheduled.
The effects of the storm will likely ripple for days, said William Partridge, an air traffic analyst for Orbitz.com, an online travel company.
"Runways are very similar to highways and interstates; even if an accumulation of snow has been cleared, the aftermath of the ice and slush can make for problems," Partridge said.
In an incident that caused serious injury, a 12-year-old boy was sledding on a snow-covered hill near Old Dairy Farm Road in the Gambrills area of Anne Arundel County shortly after 3 p.m. when he crossed the road and was struck by a 2002 Ford F-150 pickup truck. County police said hedges and trees near the road prevented the driver from seeing the boy, and he didn't realize he had struck the child until hearing a noise from under the vehicle. The driver called 911 on his cell phone, police said.
The boy, whose name was not released, suffered multiple injuries and was in critical condition last night at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Traffic accidents - mostly caused by "spinouts"- were frequent. One of the most serious in the area occurred when a tanker truck loaded with milk slid and rolled onto its side on the Beltway near the entrance ramp to southbound Interstate 83 about 2:15 p.m. A traffic tie-up of more than three hours ensued.
While workers were trying to set the tanker upright, it flipped onto its other side, officials said. None of the milk spilled, and no injury resulted - but it was not until 5:40 p.m. that the tanker was back on its wheels.
The weather also made for slow going elsewhere - such as the 2 1/2 -hour drive Rich Gardiner reported of his trip to work as a firefighter at Reagan National Airport. He left his Bel Air home at 4:15 a.m. for a 24-hour shift that was to begin at 7 a.m. - a trip that usually takes about 80 minutes, he said. "I heard ice hitting the house so I gave myself extra time."
Operating his four-wheel-drive vehicle, Gardiner said, "It was 30 miles per hour most of the way on snow-covered roads."
He added: "I wondered how people going any faster could stay in control. The tractor-trailers sped by me and all I could think was: 'I hope they don't blow me off the road.'"
A fellow firefighter, also from Bel Air, had a harrowing experience on Washington's 14th Street Bridge. "Somebody tapped his Jeep and kept going," Gardiner said. "The Jeep spun out, and he was facing the wrong way on the bridge in rush-hour traffic."
The power problems were good for some businesses - such as restaurants.
More than half of the noontime patrons at the Szechuan Cafe in Pasadena were families whose homes had been without power all morning - among them David Brucnal, a federal employee off for the day because of the government's weather-related shutdown.
He was joined by his wife, Donna, with son Josh, 12, and daughter Jordan, 9, since Anne Arundel County schools also were closed. The power "went on and off this morning, and then it finally went off," said David Brucnal, an electrical engineer,
Donna Brucnal looked at the situation as an opportunity for an early Valentine's dinner.
With school canceled in Baltimore County, Michael Pavsner, 13, cozied up to a corner booth at the New Towne Diner on Reisterstown Road in Owings Mills. Wolfing down a breakfast of hot pancakes and scrapple, the eighth-grader was grateful for an extra day to study for a history test at Franklin Middle School in Reisterstown. "I was ready for it, though," Michael said as his cousin, Jennifer Stoker, 19, chuckled in disbelief.
The cousins said they saw several near-collisions on busy Reisterstown Road while they enjoyed a rare weekday breakfast outing with Jennifer's mother, Nancy Stoker, 40, and a family friend, Ashley Hobbs, 19.
Fortunately for them, the diner's manager, Robert Parker, had persevered and after nearly two hours of clearing his car and freeing it from its parking space, he was able to pick up the cook and open the business - albeit nearly two hours late.
"I usually get here at 5 a.m. and open up about 6 a.m., but not today," said Parker, 27, who lives a few miles away. "Most of my employees are out. Luckily, I pick up the cook every day on my way in."
At the University of Maryland, College Park, lunch trays are taken out of circulation when it snows to stop students from transforming them into sleds. But some undergraduates had planned in advance for the first big snowfall of the year.
"I stole mine in October!" said Alyssa Toland, a first-year student from Miami who spent several breathless hours of her "first snow day ever" on the small hill outside her dormitory. "It's unbelievable! We're getting more creative as time goes on. We began on the lunch trays and moved to a large piece of cardboard. Now we're using the ski jump to try to kill ourselves."
Nearby, two students were starting to build a snow pet for a twig, rock and Oreo-cookie festooned snowman that had sprouted that morning, and a couple of ski enthusiasts had moved on from snowboarding on stair rails to building a ski jump.
"That's way too much pop, dude," said Matt Mosteller as they put the final touches on their mound and readied for an inaugural run. It went surprisingly well considering the wimpy angle of their so-called slope.
"Sweet!" came a cry from below.
"No broken bones - that's always a good thing," said Greg Brinkley as he slogged back up the hill for another run.
College Park students were, mostly, abuzz about their good luck - on a Valentine's Day, no less. Many slept until noon or beyond, before rolling out of bed to one of the campus cafeterias. The studious talked about using the bonus time to finish philosophy reading or bone up for a physics test, while the less ambitious played video games or watched television.
"My Monday, Wednesday and Fridays are brutal. It couldn't have landed on a better day," said Matt Pereira, who says he woke up at 1:30 p.m., then played the video game RollerCoaster Tycoon before settling in for a late, late breakfast.
"It's been nice," he said. "I was surprised. I didn't expect snow days in college, but I needed this one to catch up on calculus."
Usually, a number of environmental engineering professors bike to the Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University.
"The snow was really great this morning," said Alan Stone, an environmental chemistry professor, who instead strapped on skis for his morning commute. "The clustery ice is just perfect for cross-country skiing."
The only difficult part was crossing University Parkway, said Stone, who then skied through Wyman Park to the campus.
Two of his colleagues, both from Germany, biked to work.
"It's a cultural difference," he said. "In Europe now, everybody knows how important it is to have a small footprint. The less energy you use, the less CO2 you make. If you get some exercise along the way, that's good, too."
Hopkins, which initially delayed its opening to 10:30 a.m., ultimately closed for the day. Stone and his colleagues still planned to busy themselves with research, grant proposals and meetings with graduate students.
nicole.fuller@baltsun.com
Sun reporters Mary Gail Hare, Laura McCandlish, Rona Marech, Gina Davis, Nick Shields, Richard Irwin and David Michael Ettlin contributed to this article.
around the region
Anne Arundel County
BGE customers without power: more than 65,000
By midafternoon, 12 roads were closed because of fallen trees and 121 others partially closed.
A shelter was opened for people who lost heat because of power outages. Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer recommended that residents prepare for "a long siege."
BWI Marshall Airport remained open, but with significant cancellations and delays.
Baltimore City
The Johns Hopkins University initially delayed its opening to 10:30 a.m., then closed altogether for the day.
BGE customers without power: 192
Working on 12-hour shifts, city crews dropped more than 8,000 tons of salt on the streets overnight and had more than 140 salt and plow trucks deployed. The cleanup efforts cost about $703,000.
Baltimore County
BGE customers without power: 338
Carroll County
50 trucks equipped with plows and salt worked the roads.
BGE customers without power: 226
Harford County
The county had 79 dump trucks and 61 pickups equipped with plows clearing roads. It had to reorder 800 tons of salt today with 8,000 tons on hand.
BGE customers without power: 67
Howard County
Police had responded to 22 accidents by 9 a.m., most of them "spinouts" with no serious injuries.
BGE customers without power: 1,480
For the latest weather updates, go to maryland weather.com
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MORE INSIDE
VALENTINE'S DAY / /The icy weather puts a damper on some holiday celebrations. PG 6A
CLEANUP / / A city administration's effort to clean streets after a storm is the most tangible interaction many voters have with City Hall all year. PG 8A
HIGHWAYS / /Technology helps workers keep the roads safe. PG 7A
INFANT CARE / / Babies bundled too tightly against cold could be at greater risk for sudden infant death syndrome. PG 6A
COWHERD / / TV stations grimly report: The ice is winning. PG 1C