Ernesto Leaves Thousands in the Dark

"I would definitely call this house waterfront property now," O'Brien said by cellphone as waves carried pieces of an old pier and crab pots past his window. "Whatever we can carry with us out of here may be all we can save at this point. It's the pictures and albums we're worried about most."

About 250 people were ordered to evacuate from their homes on St. George Island after the only road to the mainland became submerged under two feet of water, said emergency managements officials there.

"At this moment, St. Mary's County seems to be getting the brunt of the storm, with quite a bit of flooding in lower-lying areas," said Teresa Chapman, a regional administrator with the Maryland Emergency Management Agency who was dispatched to Southern Maryland yesterday.

County emergency management officials opened a temporary shelter at Leonardtown High School, and a shelter for pets was up and running at the county fairgrounds, Chapman said.

A slew of rain-related accidents -- mostly fender-benders -- was reported across the region yesterday. The highest-profile mishap involved a Metrobus carrying two passengers in Temple Hills that became stuck in a sinkhole for at least an hour, a Metro spokeswoman said.

But unlike the June storm, in which several roads and highways were closed, most streets fared fine yesterday.

The rain was expected to end by this morning, and the winds were expected to calm down as the storm moved north. Ernesto had made stops in Haiti, Cuba, Florida and the Carolinas before hitting the region.

Dominion Virginia Power was working at full staff and had called in extra contractors from nearby areas. Pepco employees were told to keep their cellphones and pagers nearby and to come to work with a packed bag so they could go where the storm hit hardest, spokesman Robert Dobkins said.

By 5 p.m., Dominion Power was working to restore electricity to 307,000 customers throughout Virginia. Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. reported more than 60,000 outages, and Pepco estimated nearly 30,000.

For the most part, the toll of yesterday's storm depended on where one was standing -- in a flooded yard, a dark house or under the shelter of an awning, sipping an iced tea.

Alex Cochrane, 28, a Manassas resident, slouched in a chair under the eaves of a Starbucks on Sudley Road with tea in front of him on a table. He was in no rush to drink it. "It's my last weekend of vacation time," he said, staring at the rain. "I was planning to go swimming."

Instead, he settled into his new plan.