BGE Scrambling To Restore Power To Tens Of Thousands Of Customers After Wind Storm
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- BGE says more than 90,000 people are still without power Saturday night -- the most widespread outage in six years.
The harsh aftermath of reckless winds across Maryland is impacting much more than just those whose homes withstood the impact.
"Came home and I had two trees sitting on my house," homeowner George Wilhelm said.
Nearly half-a-million people woke up without power Saturday morning -- the most widespread outage in the BGE region since 2012.
BGE is in full storm mode.
"It's an all boots on the ground situation for us," says Linda Foy, BGE senior manager of communications. "We're going to make sure we get all of our customers back as safely and as quickly as possible."
Seventy mph wind gusts limited repairs Friday, and by Saturday, uprooted trees -- like one near Bel Air -- caused more holdups as crews scrambled to get the lights back on for 300,000 customers by day's end.
City arborist Erike Dihle says about 500 trees and large limbs have come down in Baltimore alone.
"We have primarily focused on clearing all the streets first, streets that have trees that have come down on houses, we're focusing on that," Dihle said. Then, secondarily, we're going to worry about the branches on sidewalks, alongside the parking lanes, things like that."
The whipping winds ripped off an apartment building roof in Rosedale.
A Harford County couple lost some shingles and almost their deck to a falling tree.
"The neighbors probably thought I was a little crazy, trying to chop these limbs off of the tree. But I thought, well, if I can do it and save my deck, I was all for it," said homeowner David Schneider.
After days of hoping for the best, tens of thousands are spending their weekend cleaning up.
BGE says they're hoping to have the power back on for everyone by Sunday night, but some customers will see outages through the middle of the week.
Linemen from Illinois will be pitching in to help BGE crews get the lights back on starting Sunday.
If you're experiencing a power outage or need to report a downed wire, call BGE at 877-778-2222.
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