A falling tree also apparently killed a 71-year-old woman in her bed in Silver Spring, Montgomery police said. In Anne Arundel County, a 25-year-old Edgewater man was killed when a tree fell on his car as drove on Harwood Road.
In Northwest Washington, a person died touching a live electrical wire, said Pepco authorities, who urged people to be cautious around the many down lines.
Violent storms swept across the eastern U.S., killing at least 10 people and knocking out power to millions of people on a day that temperatures across the region are expected to reach triple-digits. The heat wave continues.
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What’s going on with local weather in the Washington region and why it’s happening.
In addition to the five local fatalities, four deaths were reported elsewhere in Virginia — two each in Albemarle and Bedford counties. Meanwhile, four people were rescued and one person was still missing after a boat swamped and capsized last night off Chesapeake Beach in Calvert County, Maryland State Police said.
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) said he had heard from President Obama, who was at Camp David in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains this weekend. “I was afraid he was calling to say his power was out,” O’Malley joked, “but he was calling to check on us.”
Obama also called McDonnell and the governors of Ohio and West Virginia to get updates on storm cleanup and offer the federal government’s help.
Maryland officials announced that if another round of storms materializes, they may close the Bay Bridge on Saturday evening due to potentially unstable scaffolding on the bridge.
Amtrak halted train service Saturday between Washington and Philadelphia, and Metrobus riders faced delays on more than two dozen routes as drivers attempted to navigate around downed trees, downed power lines and large pools of standing water, said Metro spokesman Dan Stessel.
Metrorail service opened on time Saturday, but at least five stations were operating on back-up power — Forest Glen, Takoma, Twinbrook, College Park and Clarendon.
Crews worked to replace a section of track near Twinbrook after a metal pole from a tent used by a nearby car dealership hit a section of electrified rail just before 11 p.m., leaving a gash.
“It was like a knife slicing through butter,” Stessel said about the incident.
The storm left behind expensive messes for families, too.
Bill Callaghan, 59, gazed ruefully at the two 50-foot-tall oak trees that had crashed down in his Springfield back yard Friday night.
Callaghan said he was out checking on his dogs about 11 p.m. when everything suddenly went quiet. Then the wind picked up, and the trees around him began to sway dangerously. He ran into his home, shepherding his wife and dogs into the basement.
“That’s when I heard the big snap and crunch,” he said. “We felt the house shudder.”
At least one tree struck the corner of his house, most likely ruining a $10,000 roof that had just been installed Wednesday, Callaghan said. While he waits for an estimate of costs for the cleanup, he said, he plans to take his family to a hotel.
Across the river in Potomac, Sarah and John Barpoulis and their three teenage children had narrowly averted disaster Friday night thanks to their Labradoodle, Gracey, whose frantic digging at the carpet alerted them to the oncoming storm.
As they made their way to the basement, they heard a loud crack: Part of a pine tree had sheared off and fell onto a bedroom, crashing through its ceiling and releasing a shower of pink fiberglass insulation.
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