One Dead After Powerful Storms

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Severe Weather Slams Region

Residents begin to clean up following Wednesday's violent storm.

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Authorities said darkened traffic lights and fallen tree branches snarled traffic yesterday across the region. In Montgomery, about 200 of 800 traffic lights were out during the storm's peak. By late evening, officials estimated the number at 75 to 100. In Loudoun County, sheriff's deputies directed traffic and hauled branches from the roadways.

"We have a ton of trees down, a ton of traffic lights out," Loudoun County Sheriff's Office spokesman Kraig Troxell said.

In Anne Arundel, fire officials received reports of a tornado touching down at 3:30 p.m. in Tracys Landing. There were also reports of a tornado in Chesapeake Beach, where Trader's Steak and Seafood House was nearly destroyed and dozens of other buildings were damaged. At least three people were injured, including, officials said, a construction worker seriously wounded when he was struck in the head by debris.

The storms disrupted Metrorail during the afternoon rush between East Falls Church and stations west to Vienna. Normal service resumed at 6:27 p.m.

In the evening, Pepco reported about 159,200 customers without power across the District, Montgomery and Prince George's. Baltimore Gas and Electric reported 65,281 outages among its customers in the Washington area. In Northern Virginia, about 250,000 customers were without power, Dominion Virginia Power reported. By 11 p.m., the numbers had fallen to 140,000 for Pepco, 64,000 for BGE and 179,000 for Dominion.

But officials cautioned that it would take time to restore all power.

"There was not any area seen that was spared," said Le-Ha Anderson, a Dominion spokeswoman.

Montgomery school officials said last night that more than 70 schools were without power, while their counterparts in Prince George's reported more than 40 in the dark.

"It's obvious I can't run the system tomorrow," Prince George's Superintendent John E. Deasy said last night.

Still, he said, graduations tomorrow will go on as scheduled. In Montgomery, commencements for Blake, Walt Whitman and Wheaton high schools will also take place tomorrow. A decision had not been made last night on ceremonies for the Stephen Knolls School and Regional Institute for Children & Adolescents, officials said.

In Alexandria, Bob Schurk was sitting at his desk at the Lyceum, the city's history museum, yesterday afternoon when a covered walkway about 20 feet away collapsed. "I heard a very, very, very loud thunderclap. The loudest of my life," he said. "And right after that thunderclap, I heard a very loud thud, and the building shook."

Schurk said he looked outside to see that a tree had landed on one side of the wooden roof covering the 40-foot walkway and caused the length of the roof and the columns that supported it to fall. "It was like dominoes," he said.

Staff writers Lori Aratani, Bill Brubaker, Michael Alison Chandler, Daniel de Vise, David A. Fahrenthold, Christy Goodman, Jenna Johnson, Kristen Mack, Nelson Hernandez, Ian Shapira, Elissa Silverman, Sandhya Somashekhar, Lena H. Sun, Theresa Vargas, Clarence Williams and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.