Hurricane Sandy Spares Maryland in Comparison

Gov. Martin O'Malley: My wife voted him office.  Besides raising taxes he's real good at Emergency Preparedness.

We sat "hunkered down" in our living room (as instructed by Governor O'Malley) in our Baltimore City house and watched on TV in horror as Hurricane Sandy came and devastated the East Coast.  Most of Maryland was relatively lucky in comparison to states like New York and New Jersey who have suffered the brunt of the storm.

Maryland had over 300,000 power outages, high winds and fallen trees which causes damage to cars, homes, and loss of cable and electric.  Within 24 hours, Baltimore Gas and Electric had restored over half these power outages,  which is amazing response time. Governor O'Malley advised everyone to stay in their homes and had electrical help from the Midwest. Tons of crews were deployed to help with power outages. Obviously he learned from the "Derecho" (some spanish name for the tornado-like-crazy- storm in June 2012) which knocked Baltimore paralyzed with crazy 80mph winds and loss of power. We had our whole neighborhood evacuate due to widespread damage and power outages that last up to five days in scorching temperatures.

Made at Memegenerator

Not all of Maryland was spared by Sandy.  Maryland suffered heavy winds and lots of rain which causes flooding in many basements and streets. Our basement flooded for the first time in 13 years. The water had nowhere to go. The sumpump was pumping into the drains, but the storm drains were all backed up and overflowing onto the street. We heard of four feet of water in some homes. There was widespread damage to homes and cars due to fallen trees, branches and limbs.

Unfortunately, a man died when a giant tree fell on his home, to raise the death count of the storm in Maryland to two (the other was a car accident.)  *Note: Another channel reports three total deaths.  Howard County, Dundalk and Bay area neighborhoods had lots of flooding. Over 2 million gallons of sewage spilled into the Little Patuxent River. Garrett County was hit hard with crazy snow and widespread power outages--they have about three feet and counting now. Ocean City found flooded streets, crazy wind and waves (in conjunction with the full moon). Local buildings were damaged or under water and part of the historic fishing pier washed away (read more Ocean City damage here).

Night Image of Sandy: Courtesy of Nasa, see all Images of Hurricane Sandy

What's really sad is to know our neighbors New York City and New Jersey were hit so hard--(read about it here) leaving millions without power and homes ruined.  To watch the TV images of Brooklyn and Manhattan underwater, water filling up subways and wiping out homes and burying cars was just overwhelming. New Jersey shore was devastated, fires, loss of life and homes. Both states declared by Obama as needing federal assistance.  I truly hope that he has devised a better and more effective FEMA help plan than Katrina (not happy how long it took to help those folks...)  As for NY and NJ, you can see photos here at NY Times of how this has impacted these states.

We, Marylanders are extremely fortunate under the circumstances and are encouraging those who can to give aid to the Red Cross who is helping NOW in states like New Jersey and New York.  Do what you can for those who were impacted. Thank heavens if you weren't in Sandy's path.  This is one of the worst storms in history, and has exceeded $20 billion in damages, and counting.