Rain, Winds Ravage Area; Homes Lost, Roads Closed

By Matt Zapotosky and Christy Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 15, 2008

Fierce winds and a steady rainfall swept across Southern Maryland over the weekend, destroying at least two houses, overwhelming wastewater treatment plants and leaving roads closed in more than 20 locations.

Calvert County, where there was flooding, fallen trees and mudslides, was hit particularly hard by Sunday's storm, which came on the heels of another large storm a day earlier. In Chesapeake Beach on Sunday, a strong gust of wind threw a partially completed house into a neighboring residence, causing both structures to collapse and leaving two people trapped under the wreckage.

"The power went down, and immediately we heard this rumbling. I thought it might have been a waterspout or a tornado," said Michael Hall, 68, who lives next to the two houses. "I'm looking at it thinking, 'What am I looking at?' "

At the Mattawoman Wastewater Treatment Plant in Charles County, massive rainfall combined with power outages caused about 6.6 million gallons of water that had not been disinfected to be discharged into the Potomac River.

The power outages disrupted the ultraviolet disinfection process, which sterilizes bacteria in the water, but the treatment plant had to continue pushing water out so it didn't damage any equipment, said Bill Shreve, acting director of utilities for Charles. He said that the ultraviolet disinfection process is the last step in wastewater treatment, and that the partially treated discharge would not cause environmental damage or health risks.

"Everybody's hurting right now," Shreve said. "This is a major rain event that fell on saturated grounds."

More than 500,000 gallons of partially treated and untreated sewage spilled into the Chesapeake Bay from the Chesapeake Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant in Calvert, and as of 2 p.m. Monday it was still seeping into the bay, according to a county news release. The area recorded more than six inches of rain in 24 hours, according to the statement.

Charles officials reported that at least five motorists became stranded trying to drive through high water.

Schools opened two hours late Monday in St. Mary's County and Calvert, and three schools in the northern part of Calvert closed after losing power.

Trapped beneath the Chesapeake Beach residence in Calvert were Frank and Karen Hudson. Karen Hudson was rescued relatively quickly after firefighters arrived about 10:30 p.m. Sunday, said Bill Freesland, chief of the North Beach Volunteer Fire Department. Frank Hudson was trapped under a pile of wreckage for about two hours and was pulled out by a D.C. unit specializing in collapsed structures, Freesland said.

Both had injuries and were taken to Calvert Memorial Hospital, said neighbors who talked to the pair. Frank Hudson had been released from the hospital by Tuesday night.

Hall said he talked to Frank Hudson on a cellphone while his neighbor was trapped, praying with him and trying to convince him he would make it out alive.

"I said, 'Frank, just hang on. Don't give up,' " Hall said. "It's just got to be frightening."

Neighbors said this week that they had pressed town and county officials for more than a year to try to block construction of the partially completed structure that fell. They said they were concerned that it would be much taller than their three-story homes and that it stood too close to its neighbors. In addition, they said, the owner of the collapsed house let it sit for long periods of time without doing any work, causing the structure to deteriorate.

"We've often said when we had people over, 'How long is that house going to stand?' " said Jim Fischer, 60, who lives next to the damaged houses. "The elements have hit it all winter, and now here it is."

The owner of the house, Frank Leniek, declined to comment for this report.

Neighbors including the Hudsons had filed letters of complaint with Chesapeake Beach town officials beginning in June 2005, arguing the building exceeded height limits, did not fit with the character of the neighborhood and did not comply with site plan standards, among other issues. In November 2006, they went before the Board of Appeals to argue their case, but the board denied the challenge.

The board's Jan. 10, 2007, decision said the property was under the 35-foot limit. It also said that language in the code addressing preservation of community character "is so overly broad that a permit could be granted or denied on almost any ground."

The neighbors' complaints regarding lot standards and other issues were not addressed by the board because they were not specifically cited in the application for appeal, the decision said.

"The citizens in that neighborhood, which is my neighborhood, have been opposed to that house and the way it was going to be built from Day One," said Town Council member Pat Mahoney, who testified on behalf of his neighbors during the appeal. "The effort was unsuccessful. Mother Nature did what she did, and we all know what happened. Two people almost died."

The storm that hit the region Sunday and Monday generated rainfall levels that would be normal for the entire month of May, said John Gresiak, a meteorologist with AccuWeather. Patuxent River Naval Air Station recorded 2.12 inches of rain during the storm, bringing its monthly total so far to 3.21 inches. Normal rainfall there for May is 3.38 inches. Reagan National Airport recorded 3.76 inches of rain during the storm, bringing its monthly total so far to 7.75 inches, compared with a norm of 3.82 inches for all of May.

"That storm yesterday was pretty amazing for this time of year," Gresiak said Tuesday. "It's more like something you would see in the winter."

Shreve, acting director of utilities for Charles, said the wastewater treatment plant was processing nearly 40 million gallons of water compared with its normal 11 million. He said Charles measured nearly 8.5 inches of rain during the weekend storms.

Gresiak said the May storms have been caused by a southward dip in the jet stream, which has brought cooler air to the East Coast from the Northwest. That air, mixing with the warm coastal waters sparks storms, he said.

"At this point, it looks like we're going to be in a pattern that's going to continue to give us cooler-than-average weather and probably weather that's more unsettled," he said, adding that more rain might come tomorrow.

Staff writer Jenna Johnson contributed to this report.