It was a mess and a miracle.
Powerful thunderstorms produced widespread damage across Central Maryland yesterday and ripped through several densely populated Baltimore neighborhoods.
The winds blew apart walls and ripped the roofs off dozens of houses, showering streets with a blizzard of bricks and debris.
About 150 buildings were damaged -- 25 of them so badly they will have to be demolished -- and close to 200 families were forced out of their homes at least temporarily, officials said.
The miracle was that no one died -- and the few injuries reported from the storms that hit Baltimore minutes before the school day's end appeared to be minor.
Damage included hailstone-ripped shingles in Columbia; houses demolished or damaged by trees from Westminster to Riviera Beach; and a 70-ton piece of metal ductwork lifted 60 feet by winds at a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. power plant under construction in Perryman.
The ductwork was dumped onto, and heavily damaged, the control center of the 140-megawatt combustion turbine that was about 60 percent complete. Company spokesman Kevin Thornton said damage could be "in the millions," and could delay the project beyond its spring completion date.
Five of some 160 workers there were treated for minor injuries.
"Employees said they saw no funnel cloud but did see an odd circular wind formation at 2:50 p.m. when the violent storm erupted," Mr. Thornton said.
Workers also told officials that a 30-foot-long security trailer was lifted 20 feet in the air and "just exploded."
The storms played havoc with the entire BGE system as trees and flying debris knocked down or shorted out power lines, disrupting service to more than 69,000 customers -- more than half of them in the city, where as many as 150 homes were damaged by winds.
Search for tornadoes
National Weather Service experts said the damage was probably the result of straight-line winds of 60 mph or more generated by severe thunderstorms along a cold front moving through the region. But they planned to visit most hard-hit sites today and search for evidence of tornadoes.
In Baltimore, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said the city had been promised federal emergency funds by U.S. Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros -- reimbursement for demolition and cleanup expenses and to relocate those left homeless by the storm.
Standing near the center of damage in East Baltimore with a representative sent by Mr. Cisneros, the mayor said, "It's not a disaster area, but it is a significant enough emergency to warrant federal attention. We're very, very fortunate we didn't have any loss of life."
Demolition had already begun there on a building declared unsafe in the 1200 block of E. North Ave. A city housing official said a woman occupant was taken out unwillingly and in tears as the work began. Other houses were to be torn down today.
Mayor Schmoke said about 200 families had to leave their homes -- at least for the night -- while safety inspections were under way. Many were staying with friends or relatives, and scores of people moved into temporary shelters set up by the city and Red Cross at Harlem Park Elementary and the Cecil-Kirk Recreation Center.
Fire officials estimated that 100 to 150 buildings were damaged, with 25 condemned by last night. All of the condemned structures will be demolished. As many as half of the damaged buildings were abandoned, but most of those slated to be torn down were occupied dwellings, city officials said.
Jagged glass
On the west side, in a four-block area around Harlem Avenue and Mount Street, pieces of slate roofs littered the ground, jagged glass hung precariously from broken windows, and two city bulldozers hauled off thousands of smashed bricks that fell from a blown-out wall of a long-abandoned butcher shop.
"That store's been closed down for about 15 years," said Robert Johnson, 44, who has lived in the neighborhood most of his life.
"It should have been torn down a long time ago. It took an act of God to get rid of it."
"We're lucky nobody got hurt. The wind and the clouds were moving like I've never seen them move before," said Brenda Hillard, who was doing volunteer work at the neighborhood's Harriet Tubman Elementary School when the storm hit.
"I thought it was going to blow the Plexiglas right out of the windows at the school. Goodness gracious, it was unbelievable," she said.
Phillip Brown had just picked up his two children from Cecil Elementary School and was with them in a third-floor bedroom at his grandmother's house at 1140 E. North Ave. when the storm hit, the lights were out and the building started to shake.
'Boom. Boom.'
"It sounded like someone was whistling real loud," said Mr. Brown, president of the Cecil PTA. "Then it sounded like an earthquake. Boom. Boom. Everything started to fall."
