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Deluge Washes Away Area's Drought
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A dozen U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen on the Varsity Offshore Sailing Team and two team coaches aboard a 49-foot sailboat were rescued by the Coast Guard near Annapolis when strong winds broke the vessel's mast early yesterday.
The Coast Guard was called about midnight when the Mameluke became "beset by weather" on the West River, said Petty Officer John Edwards.
A Coast Guard rescue boat picked them up and took them to Annapolis, he said.
As of yesterday evening, more than 15,000 customers were without power in the region, mainly in the Maryland suburbs. Maryland officials banned unloaded tractor trailers from crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge because of concerns about high winds.
A Prince George's spokesman said a pond in front of the county administration building in Upper Marlboro overflowed its banks for the first time in 30 years and flooded Governor Oden Bowie Drive. Water also covered roads leading to the nearby county courthouse. Workers at both buildings were sent home.
In Virginia, some of the worst disruptions were in Loudoun County. There, authorities reported 26 road closures and restrictions because of flooding or high water as of 2:15 p.m. yesterday. Among the problem areas, the sheriff's office said, was heavily traveled Route 15 at Goose Creek Bridge. Many secondary roads were also impassable.
In the District, City Lights Public Charter School in Northeast Washington sustained "substantial damage" and will be closed all week, said Nona Mitchell Richardson, spokeswoman for the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
The rainfall also forced the postponement of a portion of yesterday's high school athletic schedule.
Schools in Charles, Fauquier and Culpeper counties, which were closed yesterday because of flooding and power outages, were scheduled to reopen today. Individual schools in Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Calvert counties that had been without power are also expected to reopen.
The news was not as good for the Southeastern United States, which remains in the grip of the drought. Officials in Georgia and Tennessee said yesterday that the storm brought buckets of rainfall but, after more than a year of severely dry conditions, not enough.
Staff writers Ruben Castaneda, Megan Greenwell, V. Dion Haynes, Hamil R. Harris, Rosalind S. Helderman, Raymond McCaffrey, Dan Morse, Micah Pollack, Brigid Schulte, John Wagner, Eric M. Weiss and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
