Garrett County

I am the owner of Garrett County's oldest land and water adventure company. Our eco tourism business will be a joke if everywhere we turn there are trucks, smells, bad water, gas wells, compressor stations and gas pipelines crisscrossing our forested mountains. My wife and I own a home in Garrett County and have lived in this home on the banks of the Youghiogheny River Wild and Scenic River Corridor for almost 20 years. One of the first natural gas wells using the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, technique is scheduled to begin just outside of our small town, and the first horizontal gas fracking shaft is coming within 500 feet of my front door and just across our beautiful wild and scenic river.

Members of Maryland's congressional delegation asked the Obama administration Thursday to reconsider its decision to deny federal disaster aid to Garrett County residents walloped by an October snowstorm. In a letter to Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator W. Craig Fugate, the lawmakers said the weather system — produced by Hurricane Sandy — cut power to the county for a week and damaged 23 homes. "Garrett County was hit extremely hard by Hurricane Sandy, and the people of Western Maryland will remember this storm and the damage it did for a long time," said Rep. John Delaney, a Montgomery County lawmaker who signed the letter, along with Sens.

Linda Kemphfer held out overnight as the power, heat and water went out, but grew frightened as it became apparent she was trapped in her home deep in the woods of Garrett County. "We were going to freeze to death," she said of her decision to call 911 this week as superstorm Sandy continued to add to the snow mounds piling up around her. "It was stressful, worrying whether you're going to get out or not. " By the time three members of the National Guard arrived on snowmobiles, after having cut a path through fallen trees to her home with a chain saw, it was nearly dark, she said.

Welcoming guests to a Baltimore hotel this holiday season will be a Sandy refugee - a tall, graceful Christmas tree that escaped the massive storm's high winds and unexpected snow. The 22-foot-high Douglas fir arrived at the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court Hotel by the Inner Harbor, where several people spent hours decorating it on Friday. The tree escaped damage last month when the fierce storm ravaged a family tree farm in Garrett County. Thousands of other trees were lost there, according to the longtime owners.

Winter conjures up images of frosty snowflakes dancing in midair, skating parties on frozen ponds, sleigh rides and cozy gatherings by fireside. There are, of course, less delightful images, but this is a reminder that those old-fashioned winter scenes still exist whether you find them around the corner or journey a little farther afield.Many travel west to Maryland's winter vacationland in Garrett County, where snowfalls average about 80 inches a year and winter activities abound. The big attraction there is Wisp Ski Resort on the shores of Deep Creek Lake.

Garrett County appears to have taken the lead in hunter success in the Maryland deer season with a bag of 1,729 deer on Saturday's opener. Incomplete totals rank Dorchester second with 1,057. Other totals are incomplete.In both counties, the kill was off about 20 percent from 1989's record breaker, which is attributed to unseasonable temperatures. In Garrett County, a lack of tracking snow contributed to the lag. However, the Department of Natural Resources' deer chief Josh Sandt figures the hunt still will meet his prediction of 38,000 to 40,000 deer.

IT WAS A STUNNING BLOW to folks in Garrett County, Maryland's western-most subdivision. Bausch & Lomb, the area's largest employer, announced it was shutting its 25-year-old plant in Oakland by the end of the year. That means a loss of 600 good-paying jobs in a town of only 1,700 residents. The company's contribution to the local economy nearly equals the entire county budget.Oakland's mayor said he was in "disbelief." There was no advance warning, no time for a counter-offer. Bausch and Lomb is struggling.

McHENRY, Md. -- THE local promotion council doesn't like it, but there is a comfortably accurate saying that goes: "Alaska is to the lower 48 states what Garrett County is to the rest of Maryland."The lack of enthusiasm for the expression comes from fears that it makes Garrett County sound too remote from the rest of the state and too cold to attract winter visitors. Yet the impliedremoteness from urban regions and the hint of chilling winters in the comparison to Alaska are two of the very factors bringing about a rediscovery of one of Maryland's most pristine regions.

MOUNTAIN LAKE PARK -- What Prince George's County educators Anne and Don Forrester always wanted when they retired was to settle into "a dream home in a dream community."They've achieved both, retiring in July 1995 to a new 3,000-square-foot-home in Garrett County's Mountain Lake Park."It's a lot like Laurel was 40 years ago," said Mrs. Forrester, who until her move to Maryland's westernmost county had always lived in Laurel. "There's a sense of community and everyone knows everyone."So besides their new home with old-fashioned front and rear porches, the Forresters are clearly smitten with life in the mountaintop town that was a famous turn-of-the-century summer resort.

OAKLAND -- With dramatic flair, kindergarten teacher Denise Helbig uses the story of "Henny Penny" to teach word rhyming, spelling and letter sounds."What letter does 'ducky' start with?" she asks her class at Garrett County's Dennett Road Elementary School, gathered on the floor around her "reading rocking chair." She writes "ducky lucky" on the chalkboard and asks, "Are these words alike?Next up was a study of the "h" sound in "hen," and a reinforcement of rhyming and word similarities with "Henny Penny" -- the type of book Helbig likes because, she says, "It's a mix. Phonics is there, literature and fun with rhyming.

Most roads were cleared of snow and fallen trees in Garrett County as of late Sunday, and most federal and state emergency officials who'd responded there following superstorm Sandy's damaging blizzard had departed. Still, thousands remained without power. "The only thing that's still lacking, as far as I understand it, is power restoration, and that's a slow, tedious process because of the damage that's been done and because of the vastness of Garrett County," said Jim Raley, chairman of the county's Board of Commissioners.

Recovery for the worst-hit areas of Maryland dragged on three days after the remnants of Sandy swept through, while the rest of the state got back to business as usual. In Crisfield, among the hardest-hit areas, some residents faced long-term relocation after storm waters made their homes uninhabitable, including about 100 who live in a public housing project. Elsewhere, tens of thousands of people remained without power Thursday evening, mostly in snowbound Garrett County. Service for some Verizon customers also was down.

A crew of Baltimore-area first-responders is headed to Garrett County to assist in recovery from a major snowstorm that hit as Sandy plowed into the mid-Atlantic. About 60 workers from the Urban Search and Rescue team will help clear debris and trees knocked down by the more than 2 feet of snow, conduct searches for and checks on those affected by the storm, and assist in evacuation efforts. The team pulls members from emergency response agencies from Baltimore and seven surrounding counties.

The Baltimore area is getting back to normal after Sandy - government offices are open, trains are running again and the lights are on at 95 percent of the homes and businesses that lost power. But Sandy's dangers linger. A man clearing storm-damaged trees in Annapolis was killed Wednesday by a falling tree, the third Maryland death related to the post-tropical cyclone that had been Hurricane Sandy. Across the state, many residents took stock of damage and mopped up Wednesday.

Linda Kemphfer held out overnight as the power, heat and water went out, but grew frightened as it became apparent she was trapped in her home deep in the woods of Garrett County. "We were going to freeze to death," she said of her decision to call 911 this week as superstorm Sandy continued to add to the snow mounds piling up around her. "It was stressful, worrying whether you're going to get out or not. " By the time three members of the National Guard arrived on snowmobiles, after having cut a path through fallen trees to her home with a chain saw, it was nearly dark, she said.

Much of Maryland's westernmost county remained largely inaccessible on Wednesday afternoon, a result of superstorm Sandy's meeting a cold front and dumping more than 2 feet of heavy, wet snow on the region. About 80 percent of Garrett County residents - or about 24,000 people, according to recent census data - remained without power, and secondary roads remained "completely inaccessible," according to Brad Frantz, the county's emergency services coordinator. "This is as bad as I've seen it, and I've been in public safety for 38 years," Frantz said.

With the leaves gearing up to change colors, it's a good time to plan an outing to mountainous Western Maryland. The Garrett County Chamber of Commerce has put together a list of area farms open for tours, so while you're enjoying the foliage you can learn a thing or two about cultivating shiitake mushrooms and caring for alpacas. Call 301-334-6960 for a brochure, or call the farms below for hours and days of operation: The Learning Farm at Garrett Community College, McHenry; 301-387-3331 -- Guided tours of barns and barnyards as well as demonstrations of farming practices.

SWANTON -- Hurricane Wilma helped deliver the season's first dose of serious winter weather to Western Maryland yesterday: a foot of snow. Nearly 12,000 homes lost electricity, and schools were closed yesterday and today in Garrett County, which bore the brunt of a nor'easter fueled by the hurricane sweeping up the Atlantic coast, officials said. A spokesman for the area's power provider said customers could be without electricity for three days. The heavy snow -- not unusual in the state's westernmost county, though not often this early in the fall -- blanketed trees that have yet to shed their leaves, contributing to widespread power outages.

More than 2 feet of snow fell in parts of Garrett and Allegany counties as the remnants of Hurricane Sandy collided with a cold front backed by polar air, closing east- and westbound sections of Interstate 68 in Western Maryland until late Tuesday morning. John Darnley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Pittsburgh office, said disruptions to telephone service were hampering efforts to put together a complete picture of the snowfall. But in Oakland, at 2,500 feet above sea level, the service measured 24 inches, with more coming down Tuesday evening.

One in a series of profiles of Maryland delegates to the Republican National Convention Ask Brenda Butscher to compare this year's Republican convention to the first one she attended, in 1972, and her answer is unexpected. "One thing is I haven't met with an ice pick since I've been here," the 72-year-old Garrett County woman says with a smile. Butscher, who has attended nine national political conventions — more than anyone else in Maryland's delegation — found herself caught up in the Vietnam War protests that accompanied the 1972 nomination of Richard M. Nixon in Miami Beach.