Ice Storm

Their first school board meeting was delayed two hours by an ice storm and punctuated by an angry mob of parents. Ann M. Ballard and Joseph D. Mish Jr. called it a "baptism by fire." Their last meeting this month, though much less eventful, was a bit rushed - because of an approaching ice storm. In between the storms - a span of 10 years - Ballard and Mish saw the school system through some of its best and worst years. There were years - 1994, 1996 and 1997 - when Carroll schools ranked second in the state, barely trailing Howard County in Maryland's annual pupil assessment exams despite being severely outspent by its affluent neighbor to the south.

It takes a few beats staring at the screen -- or the poster -- before the "I know her" kicks in. That really is Katie Holmes underneath the dyed frosted hair, the pigtails, the SoHo chic wardrobe, the boots and the tattoos. Right, that Katie Holmes: the baby-faced Dawson's Creek ingenue with the tomboy name (Joey Potter) and the Ivory soap image. It's a very different Holmes who is front and center in the family drama Pieces of April, opening tomorrow, having noisy sex with her boyfriend and clumsily trying to dress an uncooperative turkey.

Marylanders should see the sun return by Wednesday afternoon, ending a siege of freezing rain and rain that slicked many streets and sidewalks, touched off a flurry of road accidents Tuesday, and closed or delayed school for hundreds of thousands of students. All that resulted from only a light icing early Tuesday. Forecasters said more icing was expected overnight into Wednesday, but rising temperatures should bring that to a halt before daybreak. "Most of the freezing rain will start at the onset of the [rain]

A hazardous mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow fell across the Baltimore region yesterday and into this morning, threatening to create dangerously icy roadways for the early commute. Two inches of snow and about a half-inch of ice were expected to accumulate, with temperatures plummeting into the teens and wind gusts topping 40 mph by the storm's end this evening, according to forecasts. Most public school systems around the region dismissed children hours early yesterday in anticipation of the storm, and Carroll County simply closed schools for the day - with the status of school openings across much of the state uncertain today.

4:30 p.m. update: The flood watch for the Baltimore region has been canceled, though the coastal flood advisory remained in effect. Forecasters are calling for up to an inch of rainfall. Original post, as of 3 p.m.:  A high chance of rain throughout Tuesday afternoon and evening has caused the National Weather Service to issue a flood watch for much of the Baltimore region, starting at 3 p.m. Streams and low-lying areas could flood, and minor tidal flooding is also possible, the weather service said.

Forget about sub-zero temperatures, the wind-chill index and the inch-count of precipitation.The one barometer of Baltimore's weather that can be trusted is the sacred word of a neighborhood hardware store owner."

The Baltimore Sun As state and local highway crews braced for the first storm of the new year, they took comfort in the fact that their budgets have plenty of money to handle it — and more. Mild weather has kept the region's plows idle, salt sheds virtually untouched and ledgers in the black, public works officials say. If the trend continues, leftover money would be used to offset other government expenses or pay for road projects. Crews began the waiting game Friday afternoon, as snow and sleet developed from southwest to northeast and temperatures slipped below freezing.

The successor to Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII in the great pantheon of calendar-tinkerers has emerged in Baltimore: Sheila Dixon. Per mayoral decree, yesterday, Feb. 15, was Valentine's Day in Charm City. And by the powers vested in City Hall's second floor, it will remain Valentine's Day through Sunday. "We're going to keep the love alive a few extra days," declared Dixon, decked out in a bright red dress and surrounded by heart-shaped balloons, fancy pastries and enough flowers to make City Hall smell like a funeral parlor.

Joan Allen jumped onto movie-lovers' radar almost 20 years ago in one of the most sensuous and berserk scenes ever filmed. In Manhunter (1986), she played a blind woman stroking the fur, muzzle and fangs of a drugged but semiconscious tiger, feeling its warm breath on her flesh and pressing her ear to its pounding heart. Her wholesome, direct features lit up with excitement and delight. For seconds, she became a red-hot beauty. That didn't happen often for the next decade and a half. She began to get cast (and win acclaim)

A quarter-million Maryland homes remained without power in the wake of Hurricane Floyd yesterday, with residents jamming phone lines for help and scurrying for scarce dry ice to preserve refrigerators full of rapidly spoiling food.Adding to the chaos of the storm's aftermath was what utility officials called a freak occurrence: the loss of power to a major Baltimore waste treatment plant, causing a damaged pump to spew millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Jones Falls -- bound for the Inner Harbor.