Storm Causes Power Outages, School Closures
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 19, 2007; Page SM03
Thousands of Southern Maryland homes and businesses lost electricity and four local schools closed for a day after a nor'easter downed trees and power lines across the region.
Officials of the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative expected electricity to be restored to all of its 142,000 customers by late Tuesday night. After reporting about 9,000 without power Monday, the utility reported that fewer than 100 were still out at 5 p.m. Tuesday. The last customers to have power restored were concentrated around Nanjemoy, Indian Head and Waldorf in Charles County, and near Brandywine in southern Prince George's.
The cooperative serves all of Charles and St. Mary's counties, most of Calvert and a small part of southern Prince George's.
Those without power included three schools in Charles County and one in St. Mary's, all of which closed either Monday or Tuesday. Henry E. Lackey High School and Matthew Henson Middle School in Indian Head and Malcolm Elementary School in Waldorf were closed Monday because of power outages. Their students returned to class on Tuesday.
Lexington Park's Esperanza Middle School dismissed students at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday after repeated power outages. Students were evacuated from the building shortly after 10 a.m. but were sent home about an hour after returning to class when a crew could not quickly repair the electrical problem.
Zina McGowan-Thomas, a spokeswoman for St. Mary's County public schools, said electricity was restored to the building Tuesday afternoon.
Many of the power interruptions were caused by fallen trees, short circuits and broken equipment, said a spokeswoman for the electric cooperative. Repair crews worked overtime Monday and Tuesday to restore power, but many customers had to wait several hours because of the backlog of service calls.
Fallen trees were reported across the region, including several that fell on homes and cars. No injuries were reported as a result of the storm, said emergency authorities from the three Southern Maryland counties.
