Ocean

Ocean City Winterfest of Lights Head to Ocean City for the opening weekend of the annual holiday lights extravaganza, which features a train ride through lighted holiday displays, including the 12 Days of Christmas. The event also has a heated pavilion with hot chocolate and an opportunity for the kids to take a picture with Santa. The festival runs from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Nov. 15 - Jan. 1 at Northside Park.

- The beeping and rumbling of backhoes shoveling sand and debris replaced the howl of Hurricane Sandy's winds as cleanup from the storm began Tuesday, though higher than normal tides continued to threaten some areas with further damage. The storm's impact was evident across the resort town, with some lingering floodwaters along Assawoman Bay and sand, seaweed and pieces of wood littering the ground from which water already receded. Beaches eroded significantly, narrowed to only a few dozen yards in some areas.

By Monday evening, Hurricane Sandy's remains surrounded Ocean City . From the east, the evening high tide, a full moon and a 7-foot storm surge sent waves crashing over dunes in some spots. To the west, a white-capped Assawoman Bay overflowed onto the narrow barrier island. Gusts whipping to near-hurricane force turned gaps between high rises into wind tunnels. A decision by town officials to close the Route 90 bridge to nonemergency traffic at 5 p.m. meant there was nothing for those who stayed behind to do but wait, or call for help.

As Sandy pounds the mid-Atlantic coast Monday, the Baltimore region is bracing for gale-force winds and flooding. The area remains under a flood watch through Tuesday evening, with coastal flooding expected late Monday into Wednesday morning, according to the National Weather Service. Heavy rain, as much as six inches, and high winds, with gusts as much as 70 miles per hour, will occur throughout Monday afternoon and well into Tuesday, according to forecasters. Mandatory travel restrictions will be imposed in Baltimore at 6 p.m. on Monday and stay in effect until noon on Tuesday, banning driving on city streets for everyone but emergency personnel.

Residents and tourists deserted downtown Ocean City on Sunday afternoon after officials ordered an evacuation of the town's southernmost blocks as Hurricane Sandy began to whip the shores. But at the Purple Moose Saloon on the Boardwalk, owner Gary Walker was waiting until the very last moment to close up. With a single customer nursing a beer at around 3 p.m., he wasn't holding out for a surge of business. Rather, Walker said he wasn't impressed by the power Sandy had shown so far. Despite the evacuation south of 17th Street, he planned to stay near the bar through the storm - or inside it if the storm worsened, on a single mattress made up with clean sheets in the back of the bar, under black lights and a disco ball.

The eerie sound of a pipe organ fills the air on Ocean City 's boardwalk as families, couples and solitary fans enter the seaside ride filled with severed heads, torture chambers and other ghoulish delights. Trimper's Haunted House is a vacation staple that has stood in the same location since 1964. But this boardwalk icon is far more than a nostalgic reminder of summers past. The house is an important part of the legacy of Bill Tracy, master of dark rides, those amusement park staples that ferry patrons through interiors where lighting, sound and creative displays are designed to amuse - or terrify.

Ask Randy Davis how he got into the business of offering carriage rides and he'll tell you it was by accident. The Salisbury resident said he was given his first halflinger -- the type of horse he uses to pull his carriages -- several years ago. He then purchased a carriage so he and his wife could go for drives. It wasn't long before a friend asked why he wasn't trying to make money with his horse and carriage. "Before you knew it, we were in the park doing rides," Davis said.

Gregory H. Barnhill, a career investment banker who embraced and promoted hundreds of civic projects and charities, ended his life Friday evening in Baltimore County. He was 59 and lived in Stevenson. "Greg was a very good citizen who always believed in giving back," said former Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, a friend. "He was always one of the businessmen to be counted upon in any activity beneficial to Baltimore or to the state. " Mr. Barnhill spent much of his early career with the old Alex.

Friends remembered Scunny McCusker as a "man with a million friends" who would do anything for a sick child and celebrated unpretentious Baltimore traditions at his Canton restaurants, Nacho Mama's and Mama's on the Half Shell. Patrick Michael McCusker, known to his legion of friends as "Scunny," died Aug. 24 at Peninsula General Hospital in Salisbury after being struck by a bus as he rode a bicycle along Ocean City 's Coastal Highway. He was 49 and lived in Cockeysville. "He was an absolute hero throughout Canton and all of Southeast Baltimore," said the Rev. Michael J. Roach, homilist at his funeral Mass on Wednesday.

A persistent drizzle that occasionally morphed into a driving rain helped China retain its bikini parade crown Saturday, as only 325 women – out of the thousand-plus needed — answered Ocean City 's call to stage its own parade of world-record proportions. Still, spirits were high during the parade, which ran from the Princess Royale on 91st Street north to the Carousel Resort Hotel, a total of some 25 blocks. The weather even cooperated at least a bit when the rain let up just in time for the start at 3:15 p.m. Scores of bikini-clad infants, girls and women, ranging in age from a few weeks to well into their 60s, began the march from beneath U.S. and Maryland flags, cheering and showing off their best beach struts.