Crews, and citizens, work to clear felled trees, downed power lines in wake of Hurricane Irene

Sunday, Aug. 28, 12:30 p.m. — As Carroll County continued to dig out and clear debris from the overnight visit of Hurricane Irene, more than 13,300county customers remained without power.

Emergency responders, BGE crews, private tree companies and residents were busy on Sunday morning clearing out the remnants of scores of downed trees and tree limbs, some of which took power lines with them, or closed roads.

In Westminster, much of the downtown area was reportedly without power late Sunday morning, and tree limbs and debris block part of Green Street and other roads.

That scene was repeated across the region, as people awoke to find limbs and whole trees across driveways and roadways.

BGE reported at 11:58 a.m. that a total of 13,390customers in Carroll County without power — and that 467,110 customers were without power system-wide.

Yet those numbers were an improvement from the height of the outages. BGE has restored power to 126,534 customers since the storm began.

Early accounts suggested that Carroll did not receive the level of damage that hit other, eastern areas more closely in the path of Irene — such as Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties, which saw heavy tree and property damage.

Carroll County's Office of Public Safety Support Services Emergency Management had established an emergency shelter at Winters Mill High School, but announced on Sunday morning that it had been closed.