Damage

Soccer games were canceled yesterday at Liberty High School after track and field equipment in a storage shed caught fire, damaging the shed and its adjacent snack bar and restrooms, fire officials said. It took 35 firefighters about 40 minutes to control the fire, which started accidentally about 3:30 p.m. when the exhaust pipe of a lawn mower made contact with a petroleum-based pad that is used in jumping events in track and field meets, said Bobby Ray Chesney, chief of Sykesville-Freedom District Fire Department.

No one was injured yesterday in a grease fire that damaged an apartment at 9 W. Chase St. in Westminster.Units from Westminster, Manchester, Reese and Pleasant Valley responded to the alarm shortly after 2 p.m.Donna Close, 23, who has lived in unit C of the six-apartment building for about two months, said she was unsure how the fire started."

The owners of Pimlico Race Course are taking the track's insurance company to court in an effort to force the company to pay for damage from an electrical fire and power outage two years ago that cast a pall over the Preakness Stakes. The suit by Maryland Jockey Club of Baltimore City Inc. and Pimlico Racing Association Inc. against American Casualty Co. of Reading, Pa., filed Monday in Baltimore Circuit Court, seeks damages "in excess of $467,763.89." "We can't give you a full and complete number.

For a moment, Patrick Hook was transfixed in his front-row seat as Mother Nature got freaky. Little did he know that in minutes, she would go berserk. Hook, 35, was outside his home in the upscale Tailwinds Estates section of Cecil County on Thursday night watching as a wicked thunderstorm transformed into a howling tornado. "The clouds were incredibly billowy, both dark and bright, lightning crackling from the bright sections. I was mesmerized," said Hook, an accountant. "Then, in seconds, a funnel started west across Route 272 and I saw tree limbs, plywood, aluminum siding whirling through the air."

The price tag for a teen-age rampage through a Dundalk-area elementary school is estimated to be $20,000 to $30,000 in damage to the building and equipment.And if Baltimore County School Superintendent Robert Y. Dubel has his way, the bill ultimately will be paid not by the taxpayers, but by the parents of the culprits."We feel very strongly about" seeking restitution from parents, said Dubel. "We're very hard-nosed on this."Under law, the parents of children who cause serious damage to property can be made to pay, said Lee Thompson, an assistant county attorney.

Chessie Racing, the Maryland entry in the Whitbread Round the World Race, started the second leg of the race in last place, moved up to second for a time and, after hitting a whale last week, began to slip into the middle of the pack.Co-skipper Mark Fischer said in a report to race headquarters that the team's Whitbread 60, Chessie, is neither leaking nor heavily damaged as a result of the whale incident, which occurred Wednesday near the Prince Edward Islands and first was reported to be a seal.

A malfunctioning electric heater has been blamed for a three-alarm fire that extensively damaged a pharmacy and caused smoke damage to the Fells Point studio of Grace Hartigan, a renowned artist.The fire broke out in the front of the REVCO pharmacy at South Broadway and Eastern Avenue about 12:15 p.m. yesterday and quickly raced through much of the store. The smoke also reached Hartigan's upstairs art studio. Hartigan is an abstract impressionist whose works are featured in galleries and museums here and in other cities.

Fire damage at Lake Clifton-Eastern Senior High School could reach $1 million -- twice the original estimate -- but Baltimore school officials vowed yesterday that the 2,229 students will return to class there Monday."

Architects from the Baltimore design company RTKL Associates Inc. will be among the first workers to enter damaged sections of the Pentagon to begin redesigning and rebuilding the nation's military headquarters. The Department of Defense has awarded RTKL a $1.6 million contract to assess the damage caused by last week's terrorist attack and begin sketching plans to rebuild. The contract is an initial payment for work expected to cost $20.8 million, the department announced yesterday. RTKL, which has its headquarters on South Street in Baltimore, will help restore the Pentagon as part of a team of companies.

Harford County school officials are still determining damage costs associated with an act of vandalism that occurred at Aberdeen High School on Oct. 15. An inventory of damaged items includes two television sets, six computers, one scanner, one laser printer, a window and several pieces of science equipment, including microscopes, according to a letter sent to parents last week by Principal Tom Szerensits. In the letter, Szerensits also said that the school's alarm system was not activated Oct. 15 because it was being repaired that day. Schools spokesman Donald R. Morrison said there had been sporadic problems with the alarm system.