Politics & Government

Bevins: 'We Dodged A Bullet'

Councilwoman Cathy Bevins said the power outages are not as bad as she and officials expected.

County Councilwoman Cathy Bevins said she was "literally shocked" when she woke up Tuesday morning, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, to discover she still had power.

"I seriously thought this morning when I woke up that we would have no power," she said. "But then I looked out and said, 'Where's the ground?'"

The Oliver Beach Democrat's story is like many she said she's heard from neighbors and constituents since she woke up: plenty of flooding, plenty of wind, but somehow, the power stayed on.

Find out what's happening in Essex-Middle Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Everybody was so prepped for these high winds to knock their power out," Bevins said. "It sounded like the siding was coming off my house, it was just brutal."

Baltimore Gas and Electric officials originally estimated that hundreds of thousands could be left without power for days. As of 11:28 a.m. Tuesday, about 183,000 BGE customers were out of power including 49,000 in Baltimore County. At the height of the June derecho, nearly 748,000 BGE customers lost power. Those outages took just over a week to completely restore.

Find out what's happening in Essex-Middle Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Flooding is causing issues in neighborhoods like Oliver Beach, Bowleys Quarters and Wilson Point but, as residents in the latter neighborhood told Patch Tuesday morning, it was not as bad as it could have been.

"Everybody really has the same thoughts: we dodged a bullet," Bevins said.

Bevins praised county emergency crews for their hard work and said she would remind residents who need to get out of their homes to seek shelter at the county's pet-friendly emergency shelter at Eastern Technical High School.

"Baltimore County is still working around the clock. They have been working around the clock since before the storm hit," she said. "I think we should be checking on neighbors to make sure everyone's OK, that anybody needs help."

The county announced Tuesday that water will be available at all county fire stations and that dumpsters will be placed at eight fire stations around the county for residents to drop off storm-related debris through at least Nov. 4.


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