Winds

Although winds eased yesterday, they were still powerful enough to cause power outages and low tides, and may have contributed to a death at a construction site in Prince George's County, authorities said. Sustained winds reached as high as 25 mph yesterday, down from a high of 40 mph Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. High winds may have been a factor in the death of a construction worker in Hyattsville. About 8:30 a.m., a free-standing 30,000-pound concrete slab fell on Bradford Mearig, 34, of Lititz, Pa., at a garage under construction in the 3300 block of Toledo Road, said Mark Brady, a spokesman for the Prince George's County Fire Department.

This morning, the fleet in the Whitbread Round the World Race for the Volvo Trophy could be closing on Cape Finisterre in northwestern Spain and hoping for the first hints of the Northeast Trades, the prevailing winds that for centuries sped sailing ships toward the Equator.During the first three days of the nine-leg, 31,600-nautical-mile race, winds have been light and unpredictable, and the lead in the 10-boat fleet has changed often."It's a lottery out there," racing manager Michael Woods said as the Whitbread 60s worked away from Southampton, England, toward the island of Ushant off France.

OCEAN CITY -- Police and the Coast Guard early today reported no flooding or other damage from a spring storm of near winter-like fury that threatened the Maryland coastline last night.The resort appeared to have escaped damage like that done by a Jan. 4 northeaster that pounded the Atlantic shore.Coast Guard Seaman Apprentice John Roberts said there were no reports of flooding in the city. He said any signs of beach erosion would not be visible until daylight."Its only raining down here," he said adding that winds last night were steady at 12 knots with gusts up to 30 knots.

Aviation investigators said yesterday that there is no indication that the pilot whose helicopter crashed Wednesday at Baltimore-Washington International Airport made a distress call and they have found no obvious defects or mechanical problems with the aircraft. Brian Rayner, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said a team of investigators will resume its search today for clues into what caused the helicopter to plummet to the ground, killing the pilot and his passenger.

DENVER -- It was a heck of a drive for a plate of pasta. Visiting friends in Colorado for the holidays, Mike Watts and his father decided on a whim to take a spin to the mountains for lunch. They made it to a Ruby Tuesday's about 60 miles west of Denver. Then the winds kicked up. Twenty-four hours later, they were still stranded. "It's a mess," groaned Watts, 20, speaking by phone from a shelter in the town of Silverthorne. Nearly 3,000 travelers were trapped in the high country from early Sunday evening through late yesterday after gusting winds - and the threat of avalanches - forced authorities to close a 70-mile stretch of the Interstate 70 highway.

Whether shoveling out or trying to enjoy their wintry new landscape yesterday after the season's first significant snowfall, Marylanders had to ward off bitter cold and stiff, biting winds. "This weather is not for wimps," said a rosy-faced sledder braving gravity and the fiercely cold gusts that battered the steep slopes of Baltimore's Federal Hill. Stinging Canadian air, whipped southward by the counter-clockwise flow around the snowstorm as it raced off for New England, swept across Maryland at 20 to 25 mph yesterday, with gusts up to 35 mph. With daytime highs stalled near 20 degrees, the wind chill made it feel like single-digit temperatures.

On the Jones Falls Expressway in Baltimore, yesterday's shrieking winds provided a rush-hour show, as a large workers' tarp billowed and snapped like a huge sail along the Howard Street bridge. At Laurel's racetrack, horses scheduled to run were kept inside warm stables. And in Annapolis, Main Street shopkeepers fought swirls of dead leaves that persistently blew through their doorways. "Every time I sweep [the leaves] out, they come back in," salesperson Kim Mallory, broom in hand, said as she stood guard in the doorway of the Alpaca International clothing store.

The 73-year-old in the baseball-style cap could not look happier. It's 10:30 on a January morning, the winds are less than gale force, the sun is peeking through some clouds, and as he bends over on the first tee at Eisenhower Golf Course in Crownsville, Bruno Heidik doesn't even need the little hammer he used last week to bash his golf tee into the frozen ground. The tee "slides in nicely today," says Heidik before addressing the ball, taking a long backswing and belting an impressive drive down the middle of the fairway.

A year ago, if terrorists had set off a chemical, biological or radiological device in Baltimore, emergency managers might have had to rely on wind data from Baltimore-Washington International Airport - seven miles south - to figure out where the deadly plume might be headed. Today, they can steer their computer mice to any of 300 weather stations across the state - most of them atop school buildings - and see exactly how the wind is blowing and where residents and fire and police personnel might be most at risk.

Fierce, gusting winds from the northwest blew the water right out of Baltimore and Annapolis harbors yesterday, leaving water levels so low a fireboat responding to a Clinton Street dock blaze last night couldn't get close enough to hose it down. Pleasure boats at some marinas were grounded or tipped over in water levels estimated at 2 to 4 feet below normal while temperatures dipped to 18 degrees in the Baltimore metropolitan area, freezing waterlines needed to fight the fire on the Canton waterfront.