A representative of Schwaber Management, which runs the shopping center, later dispensed sandbags to some of the business owners, Pitarra said.
"I was petrified that I was going to have a mudslide in here," he said as he stood in his salon, where normality had returned and several customers were having their hair done. "If this had happened on Sunday, when we weren't here, we would have come in today to 2 or 3 inches of mud. I'm happy it wasn't worse, that we were here to intercept it."
Two doors down, at Games Workshop, Pitarra said, the owner had pumped out at least 250 gallons of water and mud from the rear of the business. The store was closed yesterday.
Walking outside, Pitarra pointed to the imprints of dried mud on the sidewalks where, unimpeded by the buildings, the torrent from the hill had left its mark. "It came flying through here," he said. "It looked like a stream."
Don Bass, who works for Pitarra as a hairdresser, said the water leak from the broken main "looked like a couple of fire hydrants turned on full-blast." Bass said anyone who had parked out back "scrambled to move their cars" and that he and others reached for their phones to call 911.
"The amazing thing was how long it took to get anyone out here," said Bass, who recalled phoning the Lutherville Volunteer Fire Company and being told to call the county Fire Department, and being told by the county's emergency operator - accurately, as it turned out - that water-main breaks are handled by Baltimore City crews.
"I don't know who got called when," said Kurt Kocher, a spokesman for the Baltimore Department of Public Works, which dispatched crews to shut off valves on the affected stretch of York Road and to assess the damage. "I think we responded in a reasonable amount of time. We don't have crews just waiting around for this to happen. They have to come from other jobs."
Crews dealt with several other water main breaks as well as clogged storm drains around the city, Kocher said.
The break in Lutherville, he said, caused an interruption of water service to four large businesses and 18 small ones, as well as to a pair of fire hydrants. It blew out part of a sidewalk and the asphalt thoroughfare, and sent debris and mud hurtling down a grass hill into the shopping center parking lot.
"This was a bit of a surprise for them, I'm sure," Kocher said. "It's going to be a quick flood when it's gushing like that. Even if you're standing right there, you're not going to get it fixed right away."
nick.madigan@baltsun.com
